Kind of Felt Uncomfortable Because of My Ethnicity On a Tour
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Anonymous
| A friend of mine told me that he thought foreigners were even worse than Americans in trying to figure out where you are from. |
Anonymous
| When someone ask me that question I immediately feel excluded. |
Anonymous
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I tend to ask people where they are from but usually I'm talking about states because I have moved around a lot. I think it is inappropriate to ask where some is from on a tour unless they are talking about what town, in order to let you know ~ how many students are coming from that town. Or if they know you are international and they want to let you know % of international students.
They were probably trying to hard and made you feel uncomfortable. Of course, when we were looking for apts., I had the opposite happen, where people went on their sales pitch for ten minutes about their great tanning beds that they had onsite. My husband and I just looked at each other and chuckled internally. They eventually had the aha moment and realized that this was not a selling feature for blacks. |
Anonymous
| I'd love to know what school this is, because it sounds AWFUL! |
Anonymous
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I find the whole post weird - so I am going to say over sensitive.
You said... I'd also mention this school did have some racial diversity, about 15% of the students were black, but I only saw a few asians students. They did have a few asian teachers as well. How do you know the asian students/teachers were not from NY as well. Aren't you judging them based on their skin color."putting them in a box" A friend of mine looked at our school and when she asked about diversity they said they didn't categorize kids that way - she was turned off by that. If you didn't like the school - don't go - but I think you are making more out of this than there is. People say to me all the time - OMG look at those freckles - Irish? Yes I am Irish - I have never been to Ireland. So. If they want me to make Irish Stew or being some Guiness - I will. They just need somebody to step up on International Day. |
Anonymous
| I don't believe this school is in DC. |
Anonymous
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I'm sorry but the only way *So where are you from?* isn't a case of being insensitive and inappropriate is if it's followed up by "Oh really? [Some person I'm familiar with] is from/works/drove through there! What brought you to DC?" In other words if it's used as a way of actually getting to know the person and not trying to figure out what Minority Box to shove them in.
Dancing around "Where are you really from Foreign Looking Person?" is extremely exclusionary and is ironically used most by clueless *Oh we don't see color* annoying uber PC types. |
Anonymous
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7:04 - the "you must be Irish" comment is a little different. Flip this around. If you went to visit a school where the percentage of caucasian kids was small, well under 10% say, it would be closer. So let's say you did visit that imaginary school and on the visit everyone asked you where you were from and when you said DC they seemed skeptical and asked where you were really from. Then they started going on and on about how their school even talks about places that white people are from and they bring in a Dad who is German to talk on Culture Day (so the children can really *understand* your non-German but also white family) and they do this great Ukranian egg craft (so your similarly white child should feel at home) and they even do a Bastille Day celebration (which you probably celebrate in your caucasian family, right?)! And hey, maybe your kid could bring in some authentic kolaches on Culture Day, right?All the while you're thinking, what does this have to do with me or my kid, we're just Americans from DC like most of the families here.
None of those things would be intended to be mean or unkind, but they also would be pretty offputting, don't you think? I don't think OP is overreacting to have felt a little uncomfortable with the tone of the visit. I also don't think OP would be overreacting to have left with a sense that his kid would be asked random questions about being Chinese or asked to bring in special food from China on culture day in spite of not being Chinese. In a kind of hamfisted attempt to say "we value everyone's culture" they pretty much told the OP that they don't value his culture. In pursuing the "look at all the cool "Asian" stuff we do" line to try to make him feel at home, they sent an all Asian cultures are the same message. And perhaps most importantly, it sends the message that people at this school, no matter how well meaning, are making huge assumptions about people based on their appearance. It doesn't make them bad people, but I can certainly understand why it would give anyone pause about sending a child to school there. |
Anonymous
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I sympathize, OP. My family is FIFTH generation Chinese American (traced back to Northern California), so we have been in the US far longer than many of the white people we meet here in DC. And yet, I still get the, "Where are you really from? question all time time--from white people at private schools, but also from Ethiopain cab drivers on the way to the airport.
Because there hasn't been a large community of Asians in the DC metro area for multiple generations, people here are just ignorant. That, plus you get a lot of transplants who grew up in parts of the country where there are even fewer Asians there than there are here. I think that the admissions people where, in all honesty, just trying to be nice and inclusive, even though it came out very awkward and ignorant. Still, you have to ask if this is where you want to send your child to school. In my experience, visiting mostly NW DC private schools, you don't have as much of the ignorance about Asian AMERICANS (vs Asian nationals) because so many kids in these schools are half-Asian. The presumption (rightly or wrongly, but usually rightly) is that the Asian parent was raised in the US, if not born here. |
Anonymous
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@8:09: I get it - and I am not saying it's the best situation - I also said if it makes her feel uncomfortable then don't send her kids there.
But I think she is an adult and may want to wonder - hmm! Why does this make me so uncomfortable. I have a friend who is from Puerto Rico who gets mistaken for Asian all the time. I have a friend who is black but we go to get Peruvian chicken and they speak Spanish to her - she is like - dude - no comprende. A boy who is from El Salvador said to my friends daughter who is Peruvian - something about food. She was like hey I'm Peruvian - we are all about the squid and raw fish we don't eat that food. How is the kids to know - to him Hispanic is Hispanic. We are all just learning - nobody is perfect. People need to just chilll - why not say - Oh - My grandmother was <fill in the blank>. The OP won't even say what the heritage is - just hey "I'm NOT Chinese". I have been in a school where I was the only white girl - it was brought to my attention by professors - like "yea we got a white girl" (Not really like that - so I could have been sensitive and I did ask one professor did they only accept me because they needed a white girl on their roster - he said - no but it really helps the class room with a different perspective - I was doing computer modeling of drug disposition. The librarian would say - so you want to be a model - I was like - this book is on COMPUTER modeling.) I am not saying that OP should send their kids to a school if they do not feel comfortable our kids are not social experiiments. But she asked "am I being sensitive" and I frankly think "yes". I get it sucks being called something you are not or having assumptions made about you. This was 1 teacher from the school. |
Anonymous
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9:00 - I swear I am not picking on you but is it okay to call people "white people"
I wonder this because my son has a bunch of friends who say "you know how white people are" - my husband and I giggle at it but I think when they get a little older we may say hey - in the real world that's not the best way to express yourself. BTW - they were refering to what and when we eat. Like eating dinner at 6pm was crazy to them. |
Anonymous
| I do not get how this is making you uncomfortable OP. People ask me all the time, what I am mixed with. When they try to guess, I get a bunch of everything. No big deal to me, I know I may have that exotic look. People like to know where people are from. I think some people are way too sensitive. |
Anonymous
Not to side-track the issue - but how do people ask what ethnicity someone is? I use to be the one that asked "where are you REALLY from?" but have since learned that is rude and is the same as saying they aren't American - which was never what I meant. I am one of those people that am genuinely curious about different ethnicities. I have lived all over the world, and am still facinated. One of my friends growing up was Swedish/Japanese mix, but looked Native American so it was always funny to see how poeple reacted when they met him. My family is as blah American as you can get with NO cultural identity or customs, so I like to hear about other people's customs. And, these things do "happen" to white people. My (married) last name is Irish. I am not Irish. But everyone always assumes that I am Irish and makes Irish jokes. I just laugh and say its my husband that's Irish, and I have never had corned beef and cabbage. |
Anonymous
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If it had been 1 teacher I think the OP might have been overly sensitive in viewing the whole school by that one person's comments, but OP said teachers plural.
I'm also Irish American (clearly Irish name, and I look sterotypically Irish- reddish hair, tons of freckles, pale) and absolutely I've gotten asked if I'm Irish and heard jokes. I'm second generation American on both sides (German and Irish) and we do hang on to a lot of my grandparents' traditions in my family. No one assumes this on meeting me though and starts going on about culture week. I've never been treated as less American because of this or gotten asked repeatedly where I'm really from when I've named my hometown. I would be kind of confused if someone did do this. I can also understand curiosity as a motivator if someone is clearly a non-native English speaker, but OP is from Brooklyn. When he said that it should have been left alone. He's given an answer, identified American as the point of origin he cares about. I don't think anyone was trying to be rude or make him uncomfortable, but I can also understand that there can be a really different vibe between accepting cultural differences and focusing on cultural differences. The whole thing becomes extra weird because of the assumption that the OP would naturally identify more as generically Asian (the origami and Chinese New Year being lumped together bit) than American. I doubt that happens very frequently to non-accented caucasian parents visiting that school. If it does that's a "unique" environment, to say the least. |
Anonymous
You wait until you know them better. You can certainly ask your friends what their ethnic heritage is, but wait until they become your friends. If you are getting to know someone (colleague, parent of a child in your school) and they are actually an immigrant from a different country, they will often volunteer that information at some point. (Well, back home in S Korea, we did things a different way; We're taking a week off after Christmas break to visit my mother in Switzerland; etc.) If you need to know it'll come up! Otherwise, you wait until they are friends. |