People do not know how to act around mixed heritage people

[Peremensoe]

@Isabel8

I see no difference between “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” More educated, articulate people tend to use the latter phrasing, but the information wanted is the same in both cases. The real question being asked is “Why are you so ambiguous looking? Explain your appearance/accent to me.” In my experience, it’s not meant as a polite conversation starter, but a demand to satisfy the asker’s curiosity.

I understand how you could come to feel this way, and there was a thread about this previously, and no doubt you are precisely correct about some of the people you hear it from.

But I can also say, with absolute certainty, that “where are you from” is nothing of the sort to a lot of people. White Americans ask each other this all the time, at least in my cultural context. It’s akin to the “demand” to know the name of the person one is speaking with. (Do you get tired of people constantly insisting on knowing your name?)

And again, when I ask where you’re from, that really is what I want to know. I want to know the place that you (not your parents) grew up.

@spark240

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.
…
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.