I’m from Canada so everyone except for the indigenous originally came from somewhere else. I love it when people ask my about my roots, but someone told me it was rude.
I’m from Canada so everyone except for the indigenous originally came from somewhere else. I love it when people ask my about my roots, but someone told me it was rude.
As a Chinese American, I don’t find it offensive. I mean at this point I kinda just embraced my background, I mean I still have a Chinese name as my legal name and I still speak Cantonese and Mandarin (with very basic fluency tho)
Unless you say it like: “Oh, your English is very good! Where are you from?” and the person clearly has a native-accent 🙄 (don’t do it like this)
(hasn’t happened yet, usually people are either much more overt like using racial slurs, or just not display racism at all)
I think you should just ask something like: “What is your ancestral background?” more direct and IMO sounds a lot better. But I think the context is key, you need to feel the vibe in the room is good before you ask that, don’t just walk up to someone and ask that as the first question.
But I was born in China, so I am technically speaking not “from” here, but if you are in the US and ask an Asian person born and grew up in the US that question, they might not like it. You should probably frame it like: “Hey I’m just curious, what is your ancestral background?”