Yeah, I didn’t realize the fanny-pack was supposed to go on the outside.
My family is almost 100% of Celtic extraction. Flaming redheads and freckles on both sides, etc. I’m occasionally asked if I’m Jewish, and even more occasionally if I’m Russian. AFAIK, most of the Jewish population where I am is of Eastern European extraction, so it’s probably the same feature(s) triggering the question.
I’m generically white in a population where that’s the most common thing to be… I don’t recall anyone ever guessing my ethnicity and if they did, they’d probably name countries in the United Kingdom so they’d probably be right. I inherited my red-headed father’s translucent white skin.
My mum has been mistaken all her life for being Italian or Maltese, to the point of being asked if she could translate an envelope in the post office when she was a child. She’s had Italian people speak to her in their native tongue, assuming she’d understand. Her ancestors are from the UK and there’s one lonely branch from Prussia. Her complexion seems to come from her Cornish forebears.
Constantly. No one ever thinks I’m Jewish. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “That’s funny, you don’t look Jewish,” I’d have a whole lot of nickels. Admittedly, I am of quite mixed heritage but the stereotype that people seem to hold about how Jewish people are “supposed” to look is very persistent. Which is doubly ironic, given that literally anyone of any physical appearance can be Jewish.
My husband is Russian and he has been mistaken for French on more than one occasion in the US and Canada, though I think that has more to do with accent than appearance. Once in Mississippi someone asked if he was Scottish. He was quite pleased about that.
If a roundabout way. But there’s backstory to it.
My name, the one I go by, is for my generation overwhelmingly hung on black men. Growing up, the only kids my age with my name were black. Ditto the public figures with it were also black. I was the only one I knew who was white with my first name.
Fast forward to the mid-nineties…
I send off a resume to a blind-box job ad. Fine. Whoever it is wants what I can do and I’m on the market. Well and good.
I get a call from a recruiter asking me to interview for the gig. Great! They tell me I’ll meet people from the NSBE at whichever address. It’s common, in DC, to refer to such groups just by initials and I don’t question it.
I get there at the appointed hour…
National Society of Black Engineers.
The receptionist absolutely freezes when I say who I am. The HR Director does his best and we end up laughing about the situation.
I didn’t get the job.
This happens to me all the damn time. I am an Ashkenazi mutt with ancestors from places that are now part of Ukraine (the largest chunk), Poland, Latvia, and Belarus. I have frizzy dark brown hair and somewhat olive-toned skin and blue eyes. I get tan as hell if I spend any significant amount of time in the sun.
I have been mistaken for Italian, Moroccan (at least until I opened my mouth), Armenian (that one I got a lot when studying in Russia, because I picked up a Caucasian accent in Russian, which is a whole different story), various flavors of Latina (I speak Spanish apparently with a slight, but not quite identifiable accent), Romanian, Bulgarian, Spanish, and a few other things that I’m probably forgetting. Mostly I just find it amusing.
The funniest one was the Moroccan. Situation: Tom Scud and I were on our belated honeymoon, on a train from Casablanca to Fes. At first we had the compartment to ourselves, and I had my headphones on and was watching the scenery go by through the window. Then a Moroccan guy sat down in our compartment and started chatting with Tom Scud. My album ended and I decided to eavesdrop but hadn’t opened my mouth yet. We both speak some French but are by no means fluent, so the conversation was taking place in French.
The Moroccan guy must have asked what we were doing, etc., and upon finding out that we were on our honeymoon, nodded at me and chuckled to Tom, “hey, maybe you’ll have a little Arab baby!” That was when I blew my cover by busting out laughing and exclaimed “if he has a little Arab baby, we have a big problem!” When I explained why, the Moroccan guy was apparently mortified and asked whether I had been afraid to tell him that I am Jewish, and assured me that in Morocco, I had nothing to worry about. I told him no, I wasn’t afraid, just thought it was hilarious.
So you didn’t get the job because you’re not black? When do you go to court?
I’m Filipino & Russian. Born in the Phillipines. At 6’0” tall and built like a former football player (I am 57), and with my facial features, I’m mistaken for being Hawaiian.
Aloha…
I have always thought I was Irish and Italian but I am very often mistaken for someone from the mid east. The DNA testing that has been done in my family actually leans much more toward mid east heritage.
That isn’t so strange for the Italian part; Sicily was under Arab control for a while.
Since I’ve been living in Virginia for the past 11 years or so, I’ve been asked if I speak Spanish only a couple of times. But when I lived in Florida, the default assumption was that I spoke Spanish. There was always some surprise (sometimes shock) when I would confess to my poor Spanish speaking ability.
I don’t know what most people think now when they first meet me. I know that it’s a frequent point of curiosity though. At last year’s women’s march, a group of folks that I happened to sit next to on the bus “adopted” me for the day. Over drinks later that evening, one of them asked me about my background, and the whole group stopped talking to listen to my answer. I guess it had been on their minds all day.
When it comes to black folk, they almost always know I’m black, but they don’t know to what degree I’m down. One day, one of my black coworkers (she’s in HR, so I don’t really work with her, but we say “hi” to each other) was telling me about her trip to the African American History Museum in D.C. and about all the-not-so-famous historical figures that were showcased. As she was describing all the people she learned about, I provided their names for her. She was shocked and said something like, “I didn’t know you’d been schooled in our history like that, monstro!” I suspect she and others may think I am biracial and thus someone who may not have a full appreciation of the history and culture.
I am a light-skinned African-American. When I lived in New York, people would often address me in Spanish, and I was told that I looked Dominican or Puerto Rican more than once. I took that in stride. But what annoyed me was when black people from Africa or the Caribbean would tell me that I couldn’t possibly be African-American. Some of them would get quite insistent about it, as if I didn’t know, or was hiding, my heritage. One guy asked me where I was from. I said New York. This didn’t satisfy him, and he asked me where my parents were born. I said New York. He looked at me like I was dense, and asked where my grandparents were from. I said Virginia and Massachusetts. At that point he gave up.
My surname is Scots-Irish but also an Ashkenazi Jewish name. On the East Coast I occasionally get asked if I’m Jewish when people hear my name (not as many Jews in western U.S., so it doesn’t occur to people to ask). We’re English/Scots-Irish/Dutch; my gr-grandpa+ was the guy who got rescued when he fell overboard the Mayflower (John Howland).
SharkWife’s mom was an Austrian Jew, her father first-generation Sicilian. She shapeshifts between “looking” Jewish, Italian, and a bit Asiatic; her DNA came back with a good dollop of Eastern Russian, that would explain some Asian characteristics.
Born and bred in Victoria, yes. 
Not me, but the wife has. Thai but ethnically Chinese, she has over the years been mistaken, often by her fellow Thais, for Japanese, Filipina, Hawaiian and even Navajo.
Several people have told me I look Russian to them, though I have no Russian or Slavic ancestry. That’s the only thing I’ve ever heard - it seldom comes up!
I’m an ethnically northern European in Florida and I’ve been addressed in Spanish a handful of times in Anglo-dominated parts of town, but the number is so small that I’m not sure if the clerks were simply on autopilot or if they thought I was Latino.
I’ve been asked a couple of times if I’m German - I’m half-German - and the inscrutable look I get when I confirm that I am leaves me wondering if they meant “German-from-Germany” or just “German-by-ancestry.”
My wife is also ethnically Chinese, but from Taiwan. She lived in Japan for 17 years. Most people in Japan assumed she was Japanese. In Korea people assumed she was Korean. Since there are many ethnic Chinese in VietnamMany people assumed she was Vietnamese.
I’m dark skinned 7 months out of 12 (if I got some sun during the summer) and olive/yellow toned the rest of the times.
I’ve been asked if I was: Mexican, Chinese (I was quite olive to pale but not porcelain skinned then and had long dark hair), Vietnamese, “Muslim”, and Greek (again, olive colored and dark haired).
I’m not so olive colored now that the kidney stone that was poisoning me is pretty much gone. Now I worry about wearing a head scarf because if my head gets cold=instant migraine and head scarf means I must be Muslim. rolls eyes
Exactly this. People have even talked to me on the phone and thought my voice sounded black. I’ve had people I’ve met briefly (at a wedding most recently) mis-remember me as black and then be surprised when I was white the second time they met me.
On the flipside, in Germany, Austria and Czech Republic, the locals assumed I was one of them and spoke to me in the native dialect at full speed.
For the record, I’m a white Canadian of mixed European extraction.