I get asked the same thing all the time. For me it's a little more obvious because of my name. Then I get the associated questions like "which parent is which, can you speak either language, etc". I do get tired of it at times... but I try to assume that they are just curious.

The funny thing is that most people tell me that I look full hispanic but I get strangers coming up and speaking to me in Japanese, Tagalog, and even Malay (scratching my head on that one).

Aahhh...the "So where are you from?" question. What a laugh. Not to be rude or dis-respectful but this question annoys me. Depending on my mood I usually reply "why, where are you from" or "from the United States, born and raised". If I am in a good mood I was said "from California but my Mother was born in Hawaii, why?".

Unless I am in another country when I am asked this question - there is no need to ask a question like this. To me it is like asking a complete stranger are you straight or gay. It rude. Why, can't people just ask "where is your ancestry?". It's so much, more polite and I am always happy to answer this question. ^_^

I used to always get asked "What's your nationality?" I always answered, American. They say, "No really, what..what's your..what are you anyway?" America seems to be the only country that hyphenates races. A black man born and raised in France is called "French", not French-African. French is his "Nationality". "What is your ethic background" is a much better question.

It used to really bother me, but now that I live in Hawaii, I only get asked this question by tourists, which makes me laugh.

When I used to Hitchhike, tourists would pick me up and ask my name, expecting some exotic Hawaiian or Asian name, but when I say Frank from Rhode Island, I could see the disappointment in their faces and the urge to pull over and let me out. Ha!

I was hitchhiking on the Big Island once and had a horrible time because I looked too Haloe for the locals and to Local for the tourists, I ended up walking half way around the island!

People who hear my full name before they meet me, expect me to be a blond, blue-eyed, albino and I love to see their faces when they realize I'm not. When I lived in San Antonio, people thought I was Hispanic, even Hispanics themselves! I learned 'No Habla" real quick. Lots of people think I’m Native American and I even got yelled at by a Native American once for wearing a feather in my hair and not being Native American. I don’t really understand that.

As a kid growing up in an all white part of Rhode Island, kids would call me chink, "Franco NON-American", sing "I come from the Land down under" to me(I would say to them, I'm not Australian!) and ask me the dreaded question, "What are you anyway?"

None of this bothers me now, being older, wiser and more in touch with myself, but back in 8th grade I got so sick of it that when a girl asked me, "Are you a Chink?", I became brave and said "No, I'm half Hawaiian!" She looked at me with a puzzled expression and I thought she was going to see through my lie, but the kid beside her said, "Yeh, because Chinese people don't stutter." (I still stutter slightly, but not nearly as much as I did as a kid)
From that day until I left High School, I was known as "Frank the Hawaiian Pollock" and no one picked on me for my race again.

See, when you live in a small isolated place like Rhode Island, anything that seems foreign and exotic is not acceptable, and kids are afraid of anything or anybody who is different. Thailand is too far away and foreign to accept but, everyone loves Hawaii right? Hula girls, surfing, Hawaii 5-0 and it's a part of the USA.

So, in Rhode Island, I learned that it was cool to be Hawaiian, but not cool to be Asian. And this actually caused me to become prejudice against my own race! What a shame! Well, I grew up and realized that I should embrace who I am and my ethnicity and be proud to be who I am and I am very proud of who I am, not because of my ethnicity, but because of the person I am, which is what truely matters the most.

I never thought that I would actually live in Hawaii, but when the opportunity arose, I leaped for it. It's funny how things can manifest.

I'm glad I found this tribe tonight and it feels good to have other people to relate with and who can relate with me.
Thanks all for being here!

I `pass` for white about 50% of the time. People give me weird looks more from hearing my conquistador-sounding Spanish name more than anything else. Ah, whatever.

I grew up in a town so white that they had to ship their black people in on a bus. There, on a *daily basis*, people asked me, using various levels of tact, about my ethnicity. The sheer redundancy of it drove me mad.

My favorite was, "What color is your blood?" I was amazed by how many people asked me that, to which I'd reply, "red," "blue," and sometimes "green."

The very worst was when a boyfriend and I were in a heated argument, and some guy who looked like Steven Spielberg decided that somehow it was appropriate to cut in and ask me about my ethnicity.

"You've got to be kidding me," I marveled, swiping at a tear. But he was unfazed, and just stood there, waiting for an explanation.

Once I moved away from Mill Valley, things got a lot better. I don't get accosted by random strangers as much these days, so I usually give up the information willingly when asked, and in one breath: "I'm Japanese-German-Irish-English-Scottish, with great-grandparents who very likely immigrated from the Netherlands." That's usually more than they bargained for and will shut them up. :)

MariNaomi
marinaomi.com