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thenewgreen  ·  3073 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How the question "Where are you from?" comes with baggage for immigrants and POC

    White people? Polite white people, at least, have long since learned not to ask
They ask. They're just much stealthier about it. I get asked about once a week this question:

Them: Clausnitzer... that's an interesting last name, is it German?

Me: Yes

Them: Huh..

Me: (Giving them what they really want) My father is of German decent and my mother Mexican.

Them: Oh, that makes sense.

Granted, this happens once a week because I am in front of a LOT of people every week with a business card in hand. Often, they'll only know me from email and my email address is my name, so they probably have a preconceived mental image of some arian fella.

It's normally done from a place of genuine curiosity and for that, I don't fault them.