Episode 6: "Native Son from the land of 'Where are you from?'"

I find myself stuck on a momentary interaction, just recently, that I realized had been decreasing in occurrence over the past few years. Is my time reference here exactly four years? Can't say. But what is important here is that in the moment, I realized it had been a while, and so the question startled me:

Where are you from? But really?

I will remind you of the high horse I do not sit upon when I say that the asker of this question would have adequately matched the impression you get mentally when I say the name "Karen," which is to say that I have not been beyond a degree of mental stereotyping, as prescribed by the torrent of media that bombards us all.

The difference is: I didn't ask her about her sweet tea. I didn't joke about whether she needed to see a manager. I don't make a habit of scrutinizing other peoples' backgrounds, and maybe that has to do with the lifetime of casually tracking when the last occurrence of being asked "where are you from" was.

But what's so bad about such a seemingly simple question? Well, I guess it has to do with context.

The question naturally slips in small talk situations, but here in New Orleans, there is a specific, if unintentional menace to its delivery.

See, if you grew up around here, and are talking to someone you assume also grew up around here, the question itself has historically been, "what school you went to" … or so I was told when I first moved here from Pennsylvania. Most locals through Katrina had a really good understanding of their neighborhoods based on the schools within them, and there was proud history in some of those schools. As I understand it, the Post Katrina system of public, private, and increasingly charter schools has changed that… some of those charters seem to rapidly grow and fall away for one reason or another, and I guess it makes the question multidimensional, in that your answer will indicate your age as well.

I bring it up because many cities have similar sorts of localized lingo around discussing neighborhood locality.

"Where are you from" is a question reserved for someone whose locality is not assumed within whatever local colloquialism. Where are you from, at its basis, implies the idea that the person being asked is not from around here.
 

So what? Why should that bother anyone? Well ok, Let's say one person asks another, and the response is something like, "Pennsylvania"
In some cases, this is met with immediate acceptance, and might even be followed by sharing commonality "ME too," or "Oh I've been there, what part are you from?" This is what we might expect.

But some of us don't get to enjoy that acceptance and corroboration, instead, the conversation turns into something of an interrogation.

"No but like, really, where are you from?... Where's your family from?"
This is where even the faintest awareness of national headlines becomes a bludgeon on a person's emotional well-being. I suppose it's relatively easy in many cases to shield one's social feed, and not turn on your tv, and never pick up a periodical, and even avoid walking into an airport or a barber shop or a bar… and maybe you could be completely unaware of "Politics" … cuz that word has become an absolute taboo in so many settings.

But, unless you are living under a literal rock in the middle of deep forest with no other human interaction around, one of two things is possible.

Either you are someone who has skated over the idea that our incoming government is aggressively stoking fires of anti-immigrant hate, or you ARE aware. If the former, congrats, you might have standing on the "innocent curiosity" but unfortunately, you have failed to consider your audience, and how unlikely they are to share your balloon-baby status regarding current events.

OR, you are aware of it, and trying to sus out some level of "foreign-identifying" marker in who you are talking to, which of course is going to generate a response, and I Don't care how subtle you think you are being.

On the receiving end, even if you are unaware, you might still recognize the element of being immediately marked as non-local. And no matter the awareness level of current events, I am here to say that there is an increasing level of fear and unease now being triggered by the question, and it scales with that awareness. 

So yes, a simple question stands a greater chance than ever of eliciting negative feelings in the person being asked, as they become increasingly aware that the only people asking are increasingly likely to be looking for ways to otherize. Don't see how that connects? Let me ask you, when was the last time you asked a white person where they were really from?

Even without any other information, the assumption there is information being withheld already casts someone into a shadow of suspicion. The fact that it doesn't happen to white people might well be a dismissal into the generic and boring area of having been born in the same one-horse town as their grandfather. But in a public environment that is increasingly channeling despots of days gone by, I'd find it hard to believe anyone hearing the question is thinking about that.

I remember being frustrated in college, after considerable effort in naturalizing as best I could, the never-quite eliminated toll of that assurance that no matter how I tried, I would never actually be local to where I was. I remember that nagging feeling following me from Texas, to Indiana, to Pennsylvania, California, Louisiana. Yes, I will acknowledge that not all of those areas are as monochromatic as one might imagine this problem to be… the feeling came most powerfully in that I was never more than a few conversations away from being asked where I was REALLY from. About the only place I don’t remember being asked about where I was from was in Egypt. I remember walking that Khan el Khalil market alone in non-descript clothes, and being approached by vendors who made their living starting conversations with people, They were trying to engage me in my own local language, and it seems I gave them a tough time… Arabic, Italian, French, Greek, Hindi, Portuguese, and yes, Spanish or English… I was fascinated by the guessing game, as their cultural standard -not as Egyptians, but as sales-people-- seemed to hold that the best way to get a sale was to meet me where I was, and in every conceivable way as fast as possible. The market was a vast hub of varied cultural identities so the merchants seemed to be fluent in as many languages as their sales could be supported by. I tested this on several occasions by trying to respond in whatever language I was greeted in. I could manage pleasantries in a half-dozen or so, but beyond that was quickly constrained to the three I know best. Sometimes I would switch more than once, just to see, and was quickly shown that I was not up to the task of playing language games at their level. But even in this guessing game of communication, no one asked where I was from.

My friends have probably heard this story a few times, perhaps even too many times, and I bring it up now as an anecdote of cultural stereotyping that seems to lack the menace of being in a historically white country, where the implication of foreign identity has in several key moments had a disastrous effect on some folks. Even still, I think if someone approached me here and asked how my day was going and if my mother was well, in Spanish, under the assumption it was my native language, I might cheerfully engage them and see how far we got before I had to laugh and acknowledge it as my third language. Yet the question of "where are you really from" engages the listener with a suspicion that is backed by history of camps and deportations-- the camps where Asian Americans were concentrated, oh wait, sorry, interned during world war II, among other so-called undesirables of the day. The camps where migrants and those swept up in raids would be -- and if the news from ANY channel is to be believed, will be-- concentrated or rather, detained to await an almost inevitable deportation regardless of potential status as a refugee or even a US citizen.

"Where are you from," in the land where "America is for Americans and Americans ONLY" was already an accusation of other-hood. But as the new administration attempts with its FIRST strokes of penmanship to end birthright citizenship, the question now has the backing of possibilities that involve being ripped from one's homeland, stripped of whatever life and dreams and goals you had pursued, and repatriated to who knows where by a government hell-bent on demonizing anyone in attempt to draw attention from their own mis-deeds in sweeping fashion.

What's the likelihood it could actually happen to me? Currently, pretty slim, and I know that. But I also have known folks who have lived in direct fear, who joked about having plans for where to hide if "la migra" happened to visit the job-site. Folks who carry their documents with them at all times, and still can never be sure if the documents would be accepted, or discarded as alleged fakes. I also have to ask, if not now, what is the appropriate time to be concerned?

An executive order has already attempted to discard birthright citizenship, a policy enshrined in our nation's constitution since the civil war, in an amendment which also stipulated that we never allow an insurrectionist to hold public office… whoops.

The plan seems to be to use that abandonment of the law of the land to strip folks of their citizenship if their parents weren't also citizens. Should I wait till then to be concerned? How far back do you suppose they will go? Will they strip my grandparents of their citizenship if records show that their parents weren't citizens? I don't actually know much about my great-grandparents, or whether they were US citizens. My family has lived in a similar enough region long enough to see their local governments fly 6 different national flags, so at SOME point a flag flew which they had not been confirmed as citizens under. What then, if the birthright is denied to someone who has children, also born here… does their citizenship also get revoked? Who is going to arbitrate all these cases, and will any of them be held to a set standard of consistent legal protocol?

If it starts to seem then, that they are taking shortcuts to determine citizenship cases on whims just to achieve a political goal of white-protestant hegemony, should I be concerned then?

Oh wait. Regardless of whether they have come for anyone in particular, the raids have begun already. And even if you ignore the realities of millions of asylum cases already documented in the system, and just look at the most recent actions of an administration who couldn't be bothered to check whether their own supporters were guilty of violent crimes… well, I can't quote the president directly on FCC radio, but "[eff] it, release them all" Does sound pretty indicative of a legal standard that is isn't too far of a shift from "[eff] it, cage them all."
 

I know I am not a legal expert, and I do intend to interview one as soon as I can, to ask some of the questions about what legal actions are real, and how they will affect the folks in many communities. If you would like to hear answers to any in particular, feel free to drop a line.

For now, I retain a position where I can speak freely about things. I will try not to take liberties with the law on the air, but the same seems not so applicable to the incoming administration.
As legal questions go, it certainly seems that the government is outright done with the very notion of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
The Chief of the Coast Guard seems to have been dismissed just ahead of the inauguration, under an apparent assumption that she only achieved the highest rank in that branch of military as a gift under DEI policy. While the Reuters article from Tuesday doesn't explicitly call her appointment DEI, it did cite an anonymous source who claimed that Commandant Admiral Linda Lee Fagan's own advancement of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies was excessive and among her "leadership deficiencies." Fox News of course took that a step further, alleging that her DEI focus diverted resources and focus from operational essentials. It will surprise no one when I say that Fox indeed went much further in excoriating the decorated commander, but those rantings are not where I want to focus. The point that I am going to make here is that even among the highest offices in the land, DEI is being rolled aggressively back.  How far will they take that, and when should we start being concerned?

At present, at the federal level, anyone who works specifically to enforce, advance, or suggest that DEI values be present in government is on administrative leave, and is being told to expect termination. With them will go any expectation of a national standard of anti-discriminatory employment. How long until state governments follow suit? How long thereafter will it be until heads of business can approach their employees and say, "Well, it seems like this company hired you in the interest of complying with DEI directives, so regardless of your skills and term of employment, we are doing away with DEI and with it your future here."  Should we be concerned then?

See, the problem with the delay in action around these issues is a general notion that proves itself daily, when the question gets asked, what will they do? The response is, "whatever they think they can get away with."

our new Felon in Chief is walking through the once hallowed halls of US democracy, dancing down those corridors with a man who used the permissiveness of the 2015 Citizens United decision to buy his way into a regulatory capacity that is being written for him, to his specifications, with a mandate to undermine the stability of the government. There is a logical and historical path that seems to be predictable here, and it ends in court-martials of officers who oversaw horrendous atrocities saying things like, "I was just doing my job,"  a line that already isn't enough to save the officers of our government's DEI objectives.

Before you tell me I am leaping to conclusions with the comparison, I do have a quote from a German periodical popular enough there that its title translates simply as, "The Times." While my own German skills are not something I am comfortable displaying on live radio, I can translate easily enough, A hitler-salute is a hitler-salute is a hitler-salute. The subtitle of the article released Tuesday remarks that Elon Musk raises his right arm, and everyone jumps over it. "Willkommen im neuen Aufmerksamkeitsregime." Welcome to the new attention-regime.

From <https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-01/elon-musk-hitlergruss-amtseinfuehrung-donald-trump>

The article states quite simply that the gesture speaks for itself.  Any attempt to interpret around it is an obfuscation of the very real actions already in progress, which underscore what the gesture is speaking about. But there are more than attempts being made, and the view from overseas seems to be that Americans are too caught up in the nuance of every bubble in the water to be aware of the steam steadily rising as we slowly boil. But this pot has not gone unwatched.

So when I say that the otherwise simple gesture of asking someone where they are really from is speaking for itself, I am saying that it simply doesn’t matter what your sincere curiosity is, or what you think you are saying. Just as a gesture that supposedly once conveyed roman solidarity has been stuck for nearly a century as emblematic of the menace that is fascism, This query now holds in it the capacity to make the person who hears it fear for their safety. Short of that, you will have told the person that based on how you think they look, they will never not be considered some kind of interloper.

So what then? What are we supposed to do?
I am certainly not advocating that we stop trying to communicate. No one needs help with that. Almost every day, I get on facebook, and I sift through ads and Ai posts and clickhole sensationalism, I delight in the updates from friends I haven't actually had a meaningful conversation with in years, where I get to know they are doing well. It's the good news segment of my media consumption. But increasingly, I find posts detailing another old friend who is abandoning the public posts, abandoning the forum where we engage in a digital community that promised solutions to isolation.

Sometimes they don't post, they just disappear. The hole they leave in fabric of connectedness is immediately filled with those aforementioned ads and bots, subtly trying to stoke either a rage that burns and cannot be channeled into action, or mindless escapism. The last one that did say something wrote wistfully about the days when the platform served its stated purpose as a means for connection, coordination, and facilitating gathering for a brighter future. But then they described a growing numbness which was eventually attributed to the negativity more frequently found in the feed. At a certain point, a shift out of such public space seems a logical move of self-defense. If you got mugged every time you went to your local grocery, how long would you keep going, even if they did have the cheapest breakfast cereal or whatever… Ok Mugging is extreme, but what if walking into that big box superstore was an experience that frequently put you in the vicinity of people you didn't like to be near? Sure, on a digital platform you can certainly block people, or "snooze" unsavory content… but how much of that will you actually, actively manage, before it feels like a chore that undermines the point of engaging in that particular platform. So people disengage… we've all seen it.

I won't disparage the people losing faith in social media, especially as the move away is undeniably one toward a better mental and emotional well-being. But we certainly do not need any help disconnecting from each other. The numbness is real, like a child disassociating into an iPad while adults in the next room hurl their emotions into the air. The first administration rolled on a stated goal that used the term "shock and awe" and its architects have only become more emboldened by that success, bantering on public channels that the new directive is termed "rolling thunder" and the aforementioned salute is a clear anecdote of what they mean by that. See, the headlines are designed to be such a flurry of blasting negativity that keeping up with them is draining, exhausting, and ultimately debilitating. We are being worn down in our public gathering spaces, to discourage unity, to dishearten the public, and this is not some secret conspiracy. They told us ahead of time exactly what they wanted to do, and as a nation, we seem to have accepted it.