Reply to Kind of Felt Uncomfortable Because of My Ethnicity On a Tour

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why is it so offensive to simply ask someone about her ethnic background?  What's the crime in being curious about other people?[/quote]

Because if  you ask the question poorly, or if you use the information poorly, you insinuate a lot of really rude and offensive things, whether you mean to or not.  Asking where someone is from and not accepting an answer that they are from somewhere in the US immediately categorizes them as a foreigner, i.e. "not one of us" but  "one of them."   For those of us that are American citizens, you are saying that our family heritage is more important than our national affiliation.  That we aren't AMERICAN enough.  Even the well meaning teachers at the school, then categorized the OP as "one of them" by highlighting all of the incorrect associations with Chinese New Year, origami, and Culture Day for a culture that wasn't his.  What they said was that the fact that his ancestors came from some county in Asia was more important than him as an individual and the fact that he was born the US.  You place an artificially imposed importance on his race and categorize him because of it.  I'm the previous American-born Chinese from PIttsburgh and it doesn't make me feel more included when someone highlights my race to tell me the LOVE sushi or kimchee.  It says that the fact that I'm of Asian descent and random Asian stream of consciousness associations with Asia are more important than me as a person.

In a case of educators doing this, it is completely inappropriate.  I would expect the teachers teaching children to be more aware and be able to teach my children and the children that they are associating with to be more aware that everyone is treated equally and that no one's race should be made more significant than that person should wish.  Also, if that person DOES with to place significance on their ethnicity, to at least have the respect to learn what the ethnicity is and what's important about it rather than just to do random association with it.  Japanese, Chinese, Korean and ethnicities are very different.  And they are no more alike than Scandinavian, Mediterranean or Slavic individual ethnicities.[/quote]

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