Lessee…
“Are you Danish?” Someone who had called the German Department at the University where I worked.
“Are you Japanese?” Co-worker.
“You’re not German?” At the German post office when I was mailing 16 or so boxes of books home after having spent a year there. (I’ve been learning German since I was a freshman in high school; the year was about my fourth visit to Germany after more than 12 years studying and then teaching German.)
“Ohhh, I didn’t realize that.” Person making sure they hadn’t actually said anything bad about Mexicans in any of our conversations ever when I tell them that Mom is Mexican. (My thoughts: “Yeah, that’s my mom you were talking about. Or my cousin. Or my uncle.”)
Dad’s family is Irish/English/German and my complexion takes after them. I look like my Mexican grandmother around the eyes (which is where the Japanese guess came from, I think). I surprise people in Hispanic markets and restaurants by breaking out in fluent Spanish. It’s fun to be a stealth Mexican sometimes.
One of my best friends is Puerto Rican. People always guess that she’s Indian or Arab/other Middle Eastern. (Those are the only women with long dark hair, right? :rolleyes: )
I get mistaken for a ton of things. Living in Miami, where most people do not use English as the default language, people will strike up conversations with me in Spanish. I still get embarrassed when I have to say “No Espanol”.
I’ve been pegged as Samoan, Honduran, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Indian, Mexican, someone from the “Islands”. Someone once told me that I looked Jewish and when I went to lunch with an older Ashkenazic Jewish friend of mine, a man opening the door for us claimed that we looked just alike (what a compliment for my friend ). I once got into an argument with a strange man who just knew I had Chinese ancestry (he was not Chinese). Most frequently, I have to correct people’s misconceptions about me being biracial, which I’m not in the strictist sense of the word. It’s gotten to the point that I just assume that’s what people think I am when they meet me and don’t make a big deal of it when their assumption is exposed.
It’s funny what happens when people don’t really know “what” you are. You’ll be walking down the street or window shopping at the mall, and complete strangers will come up to you and ask you what you are. When I worked behind a register at Six Flags, customers would say, “You’re ___, right?” It’s almost like a lot of us don’t know how to interact with someone unless we know if he or she is “one of us”.
On the upside, you’re less likely to stick out like a sore thumb among diverse populations. And if you have a flair for learning different cultures, you can “pass” whenever you feel like it (something I just don’t have the knack or desire for).
I’ve been mistaken as being from Ireland (I am in part heritage-wise, but have never been there), from England (ditto), being “foriegn” (no nationality given), and as being either from the East Coast generally or from New York specifically (in truth, I’m Californian-born and Californian-bred).
I’ve been mistaken for “plain old white” (instead of the slightly more “exotic” Eastern European/Italian white) a number of times. My ex’s mother thought I was Irish, presumably because I have red hair and greenish eyes. The kicker is that my hair is actually a very dark burgundy (or was when I met her) which has never occured in nature. So I don’t think this is so much an honest mistake as plain stupidity (and the fervent hope that I would be Irish, since his family is).
People occasionally assume my last name is Middle Eastern (I’ve gotten “is that a Lebanese name?” a few times) or Indian. Nope.
Accent-wise I’m mistaken for someone from Jersey a lot, and occasionally someone from Maryland or Ohio. Those accents are all a little similar, though, and I talk faster than the average Pennsylvanian which might explain why the Jersey thing comes up so much. One time someone thought I was from Texas which totally threw me for a loop until I found out she was from southern California. Those west coast people live in bubbles, they do.
I chatted for a few moments with a shopgirl in Dublin and she asked me if I was from “around here”. Me: “Um, what?” I am 3/8 of Irish descent and based on looks alone could certainly pass for an Irish person. My accent is pretty obviously American, though. Odd.
Conversely, I apparently cannot pass for what I actually am. I’m 1/2 of Ashkenazi descent and once had an argument with a boss who didn’t want to give me Yom Kippur off. Sheesh.
We live in a “country-club” neighborhood where we really don’t, umm, fit in. Our first week in the house I had my old pickup backed into the yard with lumber, building a fence; And a neighbor asked how much “he” (pointing to the house) was paying me . :eek:
This reminds me of something that happened in the Manhattan Mall a few years back. Now this is New York City, where there’s no dearth of Hispanics. I was in an elevator with maybe half a dozen people, at least three of whom were obviously Hispanic to me. This white guy turns to me and asks me if I speak Spanish. I thought it was all a bit strange, since it seemed pretty apparent that the other guys in the elevator were more likely to. I said I spoke a little, and that I’d try. The man needed fairly elaborate directions, and my Spanish couldn’t cope. Finally, one of the others in the elevator stepped forward to help, with his fluent Spanish. The white guy was a Spaniard; I could tell by his Castillian accent. That guy could have passed for any kind of European, just to look at him. I guess he turned to me and my northern European roots because I looked the most like him—not even considering the copper-skinned man who finally did offer up the help.
I don’t know if I’d call it bigotry. It could just be a case of turning to someone who resembles you the most, out of instinct. It’s possible that I do the same thing; I’ve never really thought about it. When you’re a stranger, you hew toward what’s most comfortable, maybe. Of course, a friend of mine is a Spaniard, and he says that in Spain he gets mistreated a lot because he kind of looks like an Arab, even though he has no Arab blood that he knows of. This could have been the skin-tone prejudice shining through, too.
My parents are Mexican but grew up in Southern California, where I was born. I have dark hair and eyes with light skin tone.
I’ve been asked by my Filipina friend’s grandmother, “What part of the Philippines is you family from?” In central Mexico, many people thought I was from a border (with the US) city.
While in Canada, people mistook me for a US midwesterner. During my time in Japan, I am often asked if I am half-Japanese, since my Japanese speaking shows little foreign-accent.
I’ve never really been mistaken for anything too dramatic. Back in college I used to work at the front desk of one of the nicer hotels in Daytona Beach. We would often get tourists from Europe who would come up to me and just start talking in French. When I explained to them I didn’t know French, they invariably would say I looked like I did, so I guess they thought I was French.
Last summer when I was in China, the people there all assumed I was from Europe. In fact, when asking my wife (who they usually thought was a translator I hired for the trip) where I was from, they would often rule out America straight away.
For the record, I’m just a regular 'ol American white guy, of Ukrainian ancestry.
I often get called “Nurse” when I’m working at the hospital because I’m female and in a lab coat. I’m a lab technologist, but most people don’t know what to make of that, so “nurse” I remain in their eyes.
I’ve been mistaken for a Polish Jew. I don’t know why. I’m of completely Northern European descent and my accent (or lack thereof) is pure Midwest United States. My ancestors have all been either Catholic, Lutheran, or Methodist. If anything, I look like I could be British, since I have rosy pink skin and the dread McKnittington nose, traceable back to our immigration from Cornwall. But Polish? I couldn’t be less Polish if rid my life of kielbasa and golabki, but that would be hard, so I won’t.
I’m of Swiss descent and Protestant Anabaptist raising up. My mother’s maiden name is commonly Jewish (in fact, everyone I’ve ever known/heard of outside my directly related family with that name is Jewish - hmm), but the people who guess I’m Jewish don’t know that.
At least once, I only got asked about it because I knew how to pronounce Rosh Hashana, and when it was. “No,” I said. “I’m not Jewish. I just pay attention.”
I have always wondered how someone can “guess” if a person is Brazilian. My wife is Brazilian and I have been to Brazil many times. The people there range from lily-white, like Gisele Bündchen (of German descent) , to dark black, like Jovelina Perola Negra (a famous Pagode and Samba singer) and everything in between. The North has lots of people with native blood (who look almost Asian), (See here), while other northerners look more Mediterranean. Some Brazilians even have the guts to wear a mullet , while their namesakes have no hair at all.
All of this makes me wonder how anyone can even guess Brazilian, unless you hear them speaking Portuguese.
Not based on my appearance (I’m undeniably a giant white man) but based on my accent when I was younger, people used to assume I was American - I blame too much imported TV during my formative years. Lately, though, people seem to think I’m English a lot of the time, which is annoying. I’ve never really possessed a strongly Australian accent, apparently.
I also get French, because of how I pronounce my name, but I have no French ancestry at all.
I don’t think this is quite what is meant by the OP, but what the heck: When I had my natural hair color (shit brown) I overheard myself being referred to as “that little blonde”. Now that I dye my hair jet black, I am referred to as “the one with the long brown hair.” WTF?
I have had dark brown hair all my life. I have always had some people insist that I have black hair. It is not. My wife has the exact same hair color that I do and has gotten the same thing. I don’t know if that is what they really see or if they just don’t know their colors.
I did have a doctor ask me once if I had some Native American blood because of my black hair. My mom thought that was ridiculous and wondered why he couldn’t see that my hair is “obviously” dyed. I told her maybe he thought it was my natural color because he could see that “the curtains matched the rug”.
). I once got into an argument with a strange man who just knew I had Chinese ancestry (he was not Chinese). Most frequently, I have to correct people’s misconceptions about me being biracial, which I’m not in the strictist sense of the word. It’s gotten to the point that I just assume that’s what people think I am when they meet me and don’t make a big deal of it when their assumption is exposed.
