“…like a Wop.”
I used to get this one all the time in middle school. Yes, I am half Italian… Yes, I have blond hair… Yes, I have blue eyes.
Thanks for calling me a liar… oh and yeah, thanks for the racial slur you intolerant pig-felcher. I wish my dad would’ve heard that… he would’ve skinned you alive.
[sub]The other half is French… probably explains the hair and the eyes. I’m still trying to figure out why I’m not an amazing lover tho’… 
[/sub]
For me, it’s usually “You don’t look like an________”
I’m half Italian (actually 1/4 Italian and 1/4 Sicilian) on my father’s side of the family and English, Welsh, Scots, Dutch, and Pennsylvania Dutch (German) on my mother’s side.
My name is as Italian as you can get: Salvatore Anthony Darigo, Jr.
I’m 6’4" with brown hair, brown eyes, and fair skin with freckles. For as long as I can remember, folks have been incredulous when I tell them my name.
“But you don’t look Italian!” is the common response. “You look Irish or something.”
Sorry to disappoint, but not all Italians look like Joe Pesci and sound like Joe Mantegna. I’ve actually been asked to show my drivers’ license at the bank to establish my identity, so I can feel for the other folks on the board who have the same problem.
my favorite part of these little exchanges is when after learning I’m Jewish, they say “Garsh! I never met a Jew before!” and then I have to explain that I think they have, we just don’t run around greeting people with “Hi, Miss Creant, Jew. Damn glad to meet you!” Also, I tell them we stopped wearing those little yellow stars about 60 years ago…cause they we getting us KILLED! They rarely get that. Cracks me up though
I’m a half Finn-Swede and half Irish male librarian. Most people can guess the Finnish/Swedish heritage, but the ‘male librarian’ part is not so easily accepted. Oh well, I guess I can be a groundbreaker in the eyes of the huddled masses.
OVER 29!
Actually and al I don’t mind this comment. The young lady in the bar last month refused to believe I was closer to 40 than 21… even after looking at my license.
Apperancewise both my sister and I have brown, hair green eyes, fair skin,(I freckle terribly!) but our brother is dark skinned, black haired and brown eyed. One teacher told my MOm “You are so wonderful to take in that Mexican boy.” Mom about bitchslaaped her into next month… GO MOM!
Zappo wrote:
Jeez, Zappo. If you hadn’t given us your real name, I would have suspected we were kin! I however, tend to look a little more Italian than all the other European stuff. Must be the Roman nose.
Like andygirl, I too have really curly hair. I got asked the same types of questions about whether I was part Jewish or African American. And again, by people I didn’t know. I always sarcastically had to respond, “you know, white people can have curly hair, too.”
My husband runs into this all the time. There is a large Hispanic (mostly Mexican) population where we live. My hubby is Nepalese and speaks not one word of Spanish. Every time we go to a Mexican restaurant, the waitstaff speak to him in Spanish and we have to explain to them that he isn’t Mexican. They often look at us incredulously, as if we’re lying about it.
On the street, people will just ask him a question in Spanish (do you have the time? Where is…, etc). The funniest one was last week. Some guy came up and rattled something off to him in Spanish after which he explained that he was Nepalese, not Mexican and didn’t understand. The guy said, “Oh–you’re Hari Krishna?”
Yah buddy. Have a flower.
The largest percentage of any single national orgin within me is Estonian. For some reason, nobody has ever managed to guess that =). In fact, the only time I ever heard Estonia mentioned in polite coversation was once in tenth grade World Cultures class when we watched a video on the Baltic states. My only concept of Estonia involves people doing lots of folk dances.
I totally forgot that one!! I get that all the time. No one believes me when I tell them I’m 34. I always ask them if I was going to lie about my age, why wouldn’t I have stopped at 30? why go those extra 4 years?
I don’t look like a what? How would you know?
I am half Icelandic, and half Irish. People always guess Scottish, though, and ask why I am not covered in big blotchy freckles. I have red hair, blue eyes, very pale skin, and very sterotypical Scandinavian features. I suppose if you knew what an Icelander looked like, you would know that’s what I am. I have a cousin in Iceland who just saw a picture of me the other day after talking online for two years. She swears that I could be the woman next door.
I also apparently don’t look as old as my age.
My father is caucasian (don’t know what “kind”), my mother was 1/4 blackfoot indian and 3/4 african american. I have light skin; fine, long, curly, black hair; and have dark features that are reminiscent of the stereotypical native american. I’m mostly mistaken for a hispanic.
My two brothers and I were the only people in our community (when we were in elementary and some of middle school) that looked like us. I can’t count how many times someone asked me “what” I was. That has got to be the most insulting thing you can ask someone. After I got tired of politely answering the question they meant to ask (What ethinicity are you descendant from?) I’d rudely answer “I’m a girl.” Then I got tired of being mean and am now back to answering the intended question.
Europeans always have trouble believing that I’m Canadian, as opposed to European.
I dunno why. One of my girlfriends from Prague says that I dress to well to be Canadian.
I am often called a southern gentleman…
Which is of course correct.
What can I say…
I have a friend who is black and a Jew. Now, there was this one person he met who believed my friend when he said he was Jewish . . . but flat-out refused to believe my friend was black!
Now, I saw these two meet. The idiot not only refused to believe my friend was black, but he was arguing with my friend for hours, even going so far as to suggest that my friend was adopted by a black family and raised by them, and thus only thought he was black.
And expected my friend – who, btw, wasn’t adopted, does (I feel) look black, and IIRC had two black parents – to buy this line of argumentation.
As for me, most people think I’m Jewish to look at me. And they’re right (although sometimes when they say it their tone of voice isn’t too flattering). And some are shrewd enough to guess the Russian background. Which is why it always amuses me when sometimes (as in this example), someone I knew for a while sees me one day walk by wearing a yarmulke and looks at me in disbelief and shouts, “You’re JEWISH???”.
Which is just funny.
I am half German, a quarter French and a quarter Cherokee. Due to recessive genes, however, I am very pale skinned, green eyed and naturally have dark blond hair (I color it dark red).
People usually assume I’m Irish. It’s a mind blower when I tell them the truth. BTW, my paternal grandmother was full blooded Cherokee, yet I have skin the color of cream. Genes are funny things.
I am actually mostly Scottish and some French and a bit of this and some of that, but I have dark hair and olive-y skin that gets very tan during the summer, so people sometimes think I am hispanic. I also speak spanish and have a habit of calling my close girl-friends ‘chica’, so that’s probebly most of the reason why. So far I haven’t had any problems with racists or anything, thank goodness.
Quietgirl and I get this constantly. Perhaps we should shave our heads.
I don’t look like I’ve got an ounce of Cherokee blood in me, but I do. An ounce is probably about all I’ve got, though.
The funniest one I got had nothing to do with ethnicity or religion, though. I was buying a CD just before Christmas. The “nice young gentleman” behind the counter looked at the CD, looked at me, looked back at the CD, looked incredulously back at me and said “This is a gift, right?” I assured him that it was, indeed, for me and he replied, “No WAY! You don’t look like a Godsmack fan!”
So I should get a pixie cut, dye it pumpkin orange, pierce my nose, lips, eyebrows, etc, and get Celtic looking symbols tattooed all over my body? rolling my eyes
Oh, and after I assured him, AGAIN, that the CD was for me and I am in fact a fan of their music he tells me, “Wow, I’m impressed!” Alllllllrighty then.
Yeah. I guess we all missed that course on ‘Keeping up your lesbian image’.
[slight hijack] On that note, some of the comments I’ve got that followed “YDLLA lesbian”
“…but you look like you could get a nice boy.”
“…but you look so decent.” (Yes, this was actually addressed point blank to me)
“…So what are you doing in this (read: straight) bar?”
[/slight hijack]