# Creative answers for a question of "Where are you from"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creative-answers-for-a-question-of-where-are-you-from/555257>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 27, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creative-answers-for-a-question-of-where-are-you-from/555257 "2010-09-27T19:49:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 139

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**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creative-answers-for-a-question-of-where-are-you-from/555257/139 "2010-10-05T21:47:22Z")

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> [@acsenray](#):
>
> I am not white, Hispanic, or African-American. I have a non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Hispanic, non-European name. I was born in and grew up in the United States and my accent is American.
> 
> That’s all you really need to know in order to work this situation out.

Thanks. You grew up in the United States, so the answer **I** would be looking for, should we meet and I ask you this, would be the region or town, and state, where that was. Pretty straightforward, and precisely the same thing I’d be looking for in asking a white American the same question.

_Looking_ Korean, or Pakistani, and having the name and family heritage to match, is perfectly compatible with being as American as anyone–and is _not_ the same as actually being Korean, or Pakistani, in one’s own personal origin.

Of course people whose personal origin (to me, more the growing up part than just the birth) is outside the United States can _become_ Americans as well.

> [@acsenray](#):
>
> Let me ask you this: Is there any kind of person you _wouldn’t_ ask about their origins upon first encounter?

Okay, to be clear, I don’t make a habit or “avocation” of investigating the origins of everybody I meet. Nor do I ask it of total strangers, out of the blue, ever. But I don’t consider people _total_ strangers after we’ve met, exchanged names and a few words. At that point, I might well ask, either out of friendly curiosity (which _might_ be derived from accent or appearance, or anything they’ve said, or whatever) or simply for the sake of continuing the conversation.

No, I can’t think of any kind of person I _wouldn’t_ ask this about in a first meeting–not by way of introduction (though I’ve had people introduced to me, and been introduced, on this basis), but at some point, sure, perhaps. More or less as people might ask each other, on first meeting, what their profession was, or whether they had children, or whether they were watching the playoffs. Any of these might come up in some contexts, none is usually essential.

> [@acsenray](#):
>
> So let me get this straight. You live in, say, Boston, and you were wearing, say, a Chicago Cubs cap, and this guy asked, hey, Spark, are you from Chicago? And you answer (something like): Well, I was born in Baltimore; but my family’s really from Philadelphia, which is where I grew up.
> 
> (Why do I get the feeling that this brand-new acquaintance was gifted with much more information that he or she really wanted?)

No, I didn’t offer all the background. Some comments upthread had mentioned multi-part answers to the question, and I meant to explain how my standard answer is more _concise_ than some, despite not being as simple as that of someone whose roots and whole life are all in one place.

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