“Are you from The Philippines?”

On my way to taking my toddler to pre-school, a man stopped me and asked me, “Are you from The Philippines?”. I smiled and said no and he said Ok, sorry.

This is not the first time, or the last I’m sure, that strangers have stopped me and asked me this, although usually it is “Are you Chinese?” instead. When these things happen, it raises very mixed feelings in me (especially when it happens in England because I’m not English either and I’m not from here). Initially I am offended because it’s none of their business and they are making assumptions that are wrong. However, I am also intruiged and want to know why they feel it is OK to ask someone where they are from when they haven’t even asked them their name nor have they ever met them before. In a social situation, if I start talking to somone who i suspect is not English either because of their accent or what they’ve told me during our conversation, I might ask them where they are from. I feel this is acceptable. Also, if I were to help someone I had never met before, for example, I helped a non-English speaker in a shop once when they were trying to find something, then I might ask where they are from, just to make conversation and to be friendly. I feel this also is acceptable.

In addition, it is also a reminder that even though I am not English, I do not necessarily look American either. In fact I would guess American would not even be in the list of nationalities people would assume I am just by seeing my face. I don’t mind this too much, but at times it is annoying when people just assume I’m Chinese when I’m not. Then when I tell them I’m actually American, they looked puzzled and say “But where are you from?”. So when I tell them i’m from America and grew up in America they look even more perplexed and just repeat their questions. It’s exhausting answering such a would be simple question! I write alot about this in the last chapter of my book, Bringing up Brits.

Because I was in a rush to get the whole drop off trauma over with, I didn’t stop to ask him why he asked me that. I would really like to know! Did he used to live there and wanted to reminisce about his life there? Does he have relatives there? Is his wife Philipino? Did he want to know because he spoke the language and he thought I was a native speaker too? Was he just being nosy? Was he just being friendly? The next time this happens, they are going to get blasted with my questions because now I really want to know!