Where are you from?
As I explore new cities all over America (and occasionally Canada), I hear this question over and over: “Where are you from?” The more time goes by, especially in this season of life, I just don’t have a good answer. My job for the past 3 1/2 years has been structured around 45-day assignments that could be anywhere from the Iowa cornfields to downtown Austin, Texas. Between assignments, I have a two week break, and during that time I can go anywhere imagination takes me.
Relationships are important to me. Being “from” somewhere is less of a focus than it’s ever been.
This question has always stymied me. My background in a nutshell is on my blog’s bio: I grew up in east Tennessee, spent my teenage years in southern Africa, went to a small liberal arts college in northeast Georgia, and took a job north of Atlanta for a while before eventually finding this one based in Atlanta that lets me travel frequently. Of course, this is a long answer and never satisfies anyone, even me.
Atlanta is my home-base airport and where my source of livelihood is, but long since ceased to be any sort of home for me. My parents live so far northeast of the city it’s a different world – although it’s their hometown, I’ve never really lived there myself. My Air Force man is stationed in the low country of South Carolina, but since he also travels frequently we’ve dated all over America. My best friends are across a variety of time zones, even all the way in South Africa.
Things aren’t as complicated for me as they are for some. I have friends who are bi- and tri-racial with four different languages floating around their family who tend to shrug and say the world is their home as they get on a plane to visit their parent in Dubai while texting their other parent in Taiwan. My life is more simple: I know I’m an American from America and English is my language. My problem is dealing with Americans squinting at me, wanting to know: “Where are you from?”
When I hear this question, I hear people trying to place my accent. I hear people trying to put me in a regional box with all the stereotypes associated with this or that part of America. I hear people lazily trying to get some context on me. Simple answers (“I’m from Tennessee” or “I’m from Georgia”) mislead them to false assumptions. Maybe I’m just being pointy-headed and anal-retentive about this, but it’s a bad question that yields a bad answer.
We need to stop asking this question. With the rise of globalization comes a global society that makes this question more obsolete by the year. People move around… and they do it a lot. I believe it’s a new normal. The surge of American millennials to urban areas is well-documented. Even among the older generations, American corporate culture shifts people around the country quickly and unpredictably. It’s become rare to find people who haven’t moved away from where they’re “from” and may no longer identify with that place. People from small towns with tight-knit, hardworking communities might be the ones with the strongest urge to stay and the easiest answer to the question.
Maybe someday I won’t have beef with this question. Maybe I’ll even be able to answer with ease and no painstaking, painful over-explanations. For now, I’ll just leave these thoughts here for the benefit of hindsight and for those who feel the same.