People move an average of 12 times during their life. The notion of a ‘hometown’ or culture can be complex
One of the questions I dread most is a seemingly innocent one: where are you from?
I begin my response with an awkward pause as I try to assess what the person asking me this query really wants. Where I was born? Where I live now? Where I spent the most years of my life? Where I consider home? Do he or she want my full “location history” or just a polite one-line response?
It might sound like a silly dilemma, but in my 31 years, I’ve lived in seven different places for a year or more. I don’t say this looking for congratulations or sympathy. It’s just a fact that makes it hard for me to really claim roots in any place.
As society becomes more mobile – and global – many of us don’t stay put in one area for long. We move across the country or around the world for job opportunities, school or family needs.
Questions about my hometown or where I’m from are easiest to answer when I’m abroad. Then I can get away with the broad brush of “I’m American,” although even then some people press me for more specifics: which state, which city?
The longest I’ve ever lived in one locale was nine years in the Washington DC area, but I haven’t resided there since I was 12. The city I was born in – which appears in my passport as if it had some official hold on me – I haven’t even visited, let alone lived in, since I was three.
When I explain to people that I lived in several states growing up, most of them immediately retort, “Oh, are you a military brat?”
The US military (and diplomatic core) tends to move families around every two or so years. The moves often entail promotions for the parents, but it’s well known upheaval for their children who have to experience the dreaded new kid in school syndrome on a frequent basis. I’m not sure who came up with the military brat moniker, but it doesn’t exactly have pleasant connotations.
But this lifestyle is the story of other professions and families as well. According to the US Census Bureau, a typical American will move 12 times during their life. In fact, Americans, Australians, Canadians and Brits all tend to move a lot more than citizens of most other countries.
My story isn’t even as complex as some. Outside of a four-year stint in the United Kingdom, I’ve always lived in America. I don’t face the cultural and linguistic confusion that some do as they try to sort through what their identity is.
We seem to want to put people in boxes, to size them up quickly. In the US, we are especially prone to wanting to know which state or part of the country someone is from. I’ve even had people ask me where my parents are from, as if knowing that (are they southern, west coasters, east coasters, midwestern) will somehow give great insight into our family character.
I know these questions often come right out of the handbook of polite conversation. When you tell people where you are from, they will often try to relate to you by telling you about when they last visited your country/state/city. My typical one-liner response when people prod me about where I’m from is “Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg-Hershey area”, since I lived there in my formative high school years and then returned for several years in my adult life. There’s a big amusement park in Hershey, and people will often tell me about a family or school trip there as a kid or whether they love or detest Hershey’s chocolates. It can be a way of connecting as much as sizing people up.
But I’m also amused at the increasing number of people I meet who are as tongue-tied by such a simple question as I am.
A fellow work colleague has lived in several countries and is fluent in three languages, but her family is originally from yet another country. Even though she culturally identifies with Latin America, people are quick to say, “But you aren’t Hispanic.”
I’ve seen similar instances where people feel the need to ask non-white Americans and Brits, “But where are you REALLY from?” as if they just can’t comprehend that someone with an Asian look was born in America or Britain, grew up there and feels (and sounds) entirely American or British.
I know these questions often come from well meaning places, but sometimes I wish we could just get rid of them entirely, much like the racial identifier question on job and school applications.
The reality is a lot of us move around frequently. The notion of a “hometown” or “place we’re from” can be complex. This is modern life in our “world is flat” globe, and frankly, it’s refreshing not to be so easily pinned down.
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My least favourite question: where are you from?
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