A Very American Question
On polite questions, cultural scripts, and the right to define home
Some questions are asked out of politeness. Others carry answers already decided.
Two very American questions perplexed me when I arrived in the United States in the mid-1990s. They are the two questions Americans ask immediately, and usually in the same order. At first, they drew my ire, then they lost their meaning through repetition. But since I moved to a new Latin American culture, the irritation at the questions, or rather their follow-up, has returned with force.
Where are you from? What do you do?
A man in a bathroom line begins with the first. He asks me after a brief exchange of greetings. He just came out of the bathroom and is waiting for his kid. He yells through the door, “Don’t touch anything!” It is a fair warning. The bathroom needs a refresh after a busy dinner service. Most bathrooms in Bocas del Toro, Panama do. Especially in the high tourist season. There is no response from the stall.
The man is clearly American. It is the attitude, the look, the clothes - shorts, a t-shirt, and a hat. I know it, because I look much the same. “Where are you from?” He asks.
“We live here now, but I am from Wisconsin. I lived there for thirty years.” I say.
He screws up his face and looks at me with mock suspicion. I know what is coming next, and I breathe in to calm myself. I was already on edge because the waterfront restaurant is crowded, and I had to wait too long for a margarita. I look at his screwed-up face and smile.
“I hear an accent,” he says. “So where are you really from?”
Where am I really from? I think for a bit.
“I was born in Russia,” I say, “I lived in the Czech Republic until I was 7, then in Kazakhstan until 10, then back in Russia until 16. In the States for the last thirty years.”
“So you are from Russia,” he states. Clear and certain. Nothing I say matters anymore.
I suppose my last thirty years in the States were just a blip, irrelevant as a definition of a place I think of as home, entirely erased by a place I was born and barely know. But that is how it is for Americans. I asked many, ‘Where are you from?’, and they’d say Ohio, or California, or Idaho. Then clarify they lived there only until one year old, or two, then spent the entire life in Washington. ‘So you are from Washington,’ I’d say. ’No, Ohio!’
Why are they not from the places that forged them as human beings?
It goes further still. Americans are descendants, most of them, of those who uprooted families and moved across oceans. Then they moved too, for a job or an adventure, never to be from somewhere else, just to live where they are not from. They tell me, ‘From Ohio, but I am German.’ German? Were you born in Germany? No, I am a fourth-generation American, but my family is German. Have you visited Germany? No, but I would like to. Or Italian. Or Irish.
Those are the answers expected of me.
Once, I tried to argue. I had two margaritas, and the other guy may have had four. No, I am from Wisconsin, I insisted. A few times. Each time, his face only grew more purple with rage. No! Where are you really from? My friend Rafa sent the man back to his table. Rafa is from Texas, Mexico, or Florida. He has not yet told me, and I have not really asked.
But I like this man in a bathroom line. He is happy to be on the island. He is from a spot in California I used to enjoy. He runs a trucking company. He told me all that, unprompted. He is worried about his son touching everything in the overused bathroom. Salt of the earth. Why argue? Sure, I can be from wherever you want me to be. I say that to myself to de-escalate my own ire. I think, I don’t really care. Except, I do. Not about a place, but a choice to tell you what I think of as home, a place that made me, and where I belong. But my choice is pilfered by a narrow view shaped by culture and habit, then imposed on me.
“What do you do?” the man asks, then becomes distracted with commotion on the other side of the bathroom door. He listens for a moment, looks at me again.
This is the second question. It is inevitable, like the next breath. I want to say I run, I read, and I play sports with my friends. But I know what the question means. I am in software, I say instead. He nods and smiles. I sense that to him it is impolite not to ask. It is impolite for me to answer in my own way.
But why is this the question? Many of us shoehorned ourselves into a career in our youth without understanding much about life. Then, we spent the rest of the years finding a way to be what we actually want. Yet, what we want is seldom a question. Even among friends.
What inspires you? What makes your life interesting? What do you like to share with others? These questions are not for a casual conversation. Unwelcome. They are too close. Too personal. We are expected to front politeness in a bathroom line and smile. But never to push too close in a scripted casual exchange.
‘Hey, I just met people from Wisconsin, but really from Russia,’ the man says when he returns to his own table. ‘He is in software.’
These two are good questions. They offer a rope bridge to inch across to a possible friendship down the line of many interesting questions. They are not the problem. I am rallying, instead, against a version of these that force an answer that the other person may not want to give. I don’t want to give. You can ask me, ‘What do you do?’ and ‘Where are you from?’ I will answer. But when you ask me, “Where are you really from?’, I will answer too, but quietly think - “What a dick!”
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Egor, I enjoyed this article very much and have to say I'm sorry cuz I asked you those questions! But we love you both and always look forward to seeing you and hearing about your new adventures. This article provoked a lot of thought about meeting new people for me. Love ya, Lynn
Egor, I can relate to both questions and the essence of your post. The first is on account of my visible ethnicity, and the second is the inevitable social and cultural judgment, as you imply. I find the context and the wrestling with the person asking always interesting. Is it a lack of awareness, lazy questioning, or something more sinister behind it? I appreciate how you frame it as maybe a bridge to connection, but it can still be provoking, and the ire is real.
I know I will sit with the question of where is home, and like our identity is its definition, a joint venture?