Kind of Felt Uncomfortable Because of My Ethnicity On a Tour

[Anonymous]

I recently visited an open house/tour of a pretty nice private school. It's kind of an upscale place, with a very nice campus. The admissions staff and volunteer parents were extremely nice and raved about the school. They did this really cool slide show presentation and I really started to like this school. However, I kind of got weirded out when the teachers kept asking me about my race.

I'm asian, but I've lived all my life in New York. I went to school in DC, worked a bit in California, and just came back to the DC area with my family for a new job. I don't have an accent, except for a Brooklyn one. Other than the color of my skin, I'm about as American as you can be. Maybe too much as my mother likes to complain.

So when I go through this tour, I think of myself as a regular parent. But for some reason I am constantly asked where I am from teachers, as part of the small talk. At first, I just say Brooklyn, as I thought my accent would give it away. Then it becomes an awkward conversation where I think they are trying to ask about my ethnicity without actually saying it. I throw them I bone and casually mention where my parents are from. They then launch into this cultural awareness spiel and talk about "culture day," etc. They then bring up this other asian parent who comes in with wearing a traditional outfit and talks about customs from his home country where he grew up and how the kids really liked hearing about it. It was really weird because I never brought any of this stuff up. Two teachers and a parent brought this asian parent up in conversation unsolicited and the "culture day." Another teacher kept talking about some Chinese new year thing the kids are doing (only to me, not the other parents; by the way, I'm not Chinese). The art teacher brought up how they have done origami in the past year. Another brought up how he loves to travel to asia (that's nice, I've never been there, sounds fun). One weird thing was that there was a parent actually to his wife in Spanish on occasion and no one asked them about where they were from.

Anyways, I was kind of weirded out by it and thought that these teachers are kind of tone deaf on how to interact with minorities. I've told this story to my wife who says I'm just overly-sensitive and they were just trying to be nice and trying to establish some rapport or commonality with me. So it was them trying to be nice. We know a few asian or half asian mothers that have done the tour and they say nothing like that happened to them.

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.

Am I over-reacting?

[Anonymous]

Where is this school - Nebraska? Because I can't imagine a DC area school even noticing ethnicity these days, especially Asian. Sounds like the school isn't a good fit for your family.

[Anonymous]

I think you must one of the few Asians they have met or know. They are trying hard to connect with you and just don't know any better.

[Anonymous]

"Tone deaf" sounds spot on. This was kind of painful to read, it must have been really bizarre to experience. It sounds like they were well-intentioned but totally inept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently visited an open house/tour of a pretty nice private school. It's kind of an upscale place, with a very nice campus. The admissions staff and volunteer parents were extremely nice and raved about the school. They did this really cool slide show presentation and I really started to like this school. However, I kind of got weirded out when the teachers kept asking me about my race.

I'm asian, but I've lived all my life in New York. I went to school in DC, worked a bit in California, and just came back to the DC area with my family for a new job. I don't have an accent, except for a Brooklyn one. Other than the color of my skin, I'm about as American as you can be. Maybe too much as my mother likes to complain.

So when I go through this tour, I think of myself as a regular parent. But for some reason I am constantly asked where I am from teachers, as part of the small talk. At first, I just say Brooklyn, as I thought my accent would give it away. Then it becomes an awkward conversation where I think they are trying to ask about my ethnicity without actually saying it. I throw them I bone and casually mention where my parents are from. They then launch into this cultural awareness spiel and talk about "culture day," etc. They then bring up this other asian parent who comes in with wearing a traditional outfit and talks about customs from his home country where he grew up and how the kids really liked hearing about it. It was really weird because I never brought any of this stuff up. Two teachers and a parent brought this asian parent up in conversation unsolicited and the "culture day." Another teacher kept talking about some Chinese new year thing the kids are doing (only to me, not the other parents; by the way, I'm not Chinese). The art teacher brought up how they have done origami in the past year. Another brought up how he loves to travel to asia (that's nice, I've never been there, sounds fun). One weird thing was that there was a parent actually to his wife in Spanish on occasion and no one asked them about where they were from.

Anyways, I was kind of weirded out by it and thought that these teachers are kind of tone deaf on how to interact with minorities. I've told this story to my wife who says I'm just overly-sensitive and they were just trying to be nice and trying to establish some rapport or commonality with me. So it was them trying to be nice. We know a few asian or half asian mothers that have done the tour and they say nothing like that happened to them.

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.

Am I over-reacting?

Sounds like the teachers were trying too hard and , in some cases, you may have been over- reacting. "where are you from?" is a pretty soft ball question. You could have answered: America. end of awkward small talk, right.

[Anonymous]

Until you said 15% black I would have guessed this was a certain MD school where I got a similar vibe but not the same type or level of stupid comments. (I am black and we are rare at that school.) Yes, they are trying to be nice and trying to reach out to you, but no, you are not overreacting and you do not need that stupid crap from well-meaning white folks. nor does your child. You know what good intentions lead to, don't you? Why couldn't they just treat you like a person instead of like 'the Asian.'

Your DC deserves better than that. Can't you find a better school for DC? I don't just mean a better 'fit,' I truly mean a better school that is grounded in the 21st century.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the teachers were trying too hard and , in some cases, you may have been over- reacting. "where are you from?" is a pretty soft ball question. You could have answered: America. end of awkward small talk, right.

Then would have smiled and said, no where are you REALLY from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the teachers were trying too hard and , in some cases, you may have been over- reacting. "where are you from?" is a pretty soft ball question. You could have answered: America. end of awkward small talk, right.

Then they would have smiled and said, no where are you REALLY from?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like many here, including OP, are making lots of half-baked assumptions about what other people are thinking. You really have no idea what they're thinking or how they're viewing you. You wouldn't want them making such assumptions about you, so why are you doing it to them?

[Anonymous]

People in DC love to think they are so worldly. I had a weird experience also at a local private school. I am becoming uncomfortable by much of the multi-cultural stuff. It seems so phoney here.

[Anonymous]

ITA that it sounds like trying to hard.

[Anonymous]

I don't think OP is making assumptions about what people think, he's reacting to what people actually said.

If you feel you have to assert that you are American, there's something wrong. Run from this school.

[Anonymous]

Huh. I've had similar experiences. The only thing is I'm from Pittsburgh and I *AM* of Chinese descent (although I, too, was born and raised in the US). When people ask where I'm from, I answer Pittsburgh and I've seen a lot of the same squirming and awkwardness as they try to figure out how to ask the question they know they aren't supposed to ask. Sometimes I do get the "Where are you really from?" I personally would have spoken with the administrator of the school after the visit/tour and mentioned that his staff really weren't very well trained in handling race issues and ask whether they had appropriate training in handling minority issues. I would explain that while his staff tried to be polite, they went out of their way to segregate you based on your race even when you tried to avoid the topic of race. How the administrator handles such a discussion would tell me how comfortable I might be in considering the school. If the administrator recognized the issue and problems, then I might consider it. If the administrator made no apologies for the inappropriate behavior of their staff, then I would definitely not put my children in that school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like many here, including OP, are making lots of half-baked assumptions about what other people are thinking. You really have no idea what they're thinking or how they're viewing you. You wouldn't want them making such assumptions about you, so why are you doing it to them?

Regardless of what they are thinking, they are behaving very inappropriately for staff of the facility. While they may be trying to be polite, they are clearly segregating this visiting parent as foreign by isolating his race as a topic of conversation even when he tried to divert the conversation away from that. In this day and age for educators to not even be aware of how inappropriate this is suggests that this school and its faculty need to have race-based sensitivity training.

Let's phrase it this way. If they went out of their way to ask where your grandparents were born and you answered "Spain" and people started telling you all of their stories about how they love Portugese food or that the school celebrates Bastille Day for its French students would you think this was appropriate behavior? That's the equivalent of what happened to this parent. They singled him out, awkardly grilled him about his ethnicity and then proceeded to tell him unrelated facts about other Asian cultures such as "culture day" for a parent of a different Asian background, origami and Chinese New Year. Whatever their point, however well-intentioned, it was very wrong and educators should know that. It doesn't bode well for the teachers, the school or its students if the teachers do not understand this. They'll be teaching a whole new generation how to be racially insensitive. Great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently visited an open house/tour of a pretty nice private school. It's kind of an upscale place, with a very nice campus. The admissions staff and volunteer parents were extremely nice and raved about the school. They did this really cool slide show presentation and I really started to like this school. However, I kind of got weirded out when the teachers kept asking me about my race.

I'm asian, but I've lived all my life in New York. I went to school in DC, worked a bit in California, and just came back to the DC area with my family for a new job. I don't have an accent, except for a Brooklyn one. Other than the color of my skin, I'm about as American as you can be. Maybe too much as my mother likes to complain.

So when I go through this tour, I think of myself as a regular parent. But for some reason I am constantly asked where I am from teachers, as part of the small talk. At first, I just say Brooklyn, as I thought my accent would give it away. Then it becomes an awkward conversation where I think they are trying to ask about my ethnicity without actually saying it. I throw them I bone and casually mention where my parents are from. They then launch into this cultural awareness spiel and talk about "culture day," etc. They then bring up this other asian parent who comes in with wearing a traditional outfit and talks about customs from his home country where he grew up and how the kids really liked hearing about it. It was really weird because I never brought any of this stuff up. Two teachers and a parent brought this asian parent up in conversation unsolicited and the "culture day." Another teacher kept talking about some Chinese new year thing the kids are doing (only to me, not the other parents; by the way, I'm not Chinese). The art teacher brought up how they have done origami in the past year. Another brought up how he loves to travel to asia (that's nice, I've never been there, sounds fun). One weird thing was that there was a parent actually to his wife in Spanish on occasion and no one asked them about where they were from.

Anyways, I was kind of weirded out by it and thought that these teachers are kind of tone deaf on how to interact with minorities. I've told this story to my wife who says I'm just overly-sensitive and they were just trying to be nice and trying to establish some rapport or commonality with me. So it was them trying to be nice. We know a few asian or half asian mothers that have done the tour and they say nothing like that happened to them.

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.

Am I over-reacting?

No, you're not over-reacting. It gets very irritating when people ask you mid - conversation, where you're from? They're to busy trying to gather biographical data about you instead of listening to you. They want to figure out as quickly as possible which box to place you in, when all you care about is being placed in the American box. When this happens, It always changes the rhythm of the conversation. It can put you on guard because you feel you're being assessed and analyzed. This happens anyway in conversations, but it feels like the person is trying to have the upper hand. There's a controlling element to it. Even when the person is not trying to be rude; it feels rude. For some of us, being asked 'where are you from' by relative strangers is a personal thing. I don't care how benign the question is it is still prying, assuming, concluding, and just plain ol non of your business. If you want to connect, invest a bit of time and disclosure will happen naturally. It must feel worst for you OP because you feel as American as apple pie, and here is this person assuming all kinds of things about your ethnicity, bad intention or not. I have a strong accent, I still don't like being asked where I am from. The only people who have ever asked me that question are native born Americans, others wait until I tell them.