When someone asks me where I’m really from, I answer with this question

I found this story, which will resonate with many people of color and immigrants, to be worthy of reflection.  Here is the beginning of the story:

“Taking a sip of my drink, a friend of a friend smiled at me.

‘So you moved to London a few years ago,’ she said. ‘Where are you from?’

I’m from the West Midlands,’ I explained in my thick Black Country accent. ‘Born and bred in a town next to Wolverhampton.’

I crossed my fingers that this would be the end of that particular line of conversation, but sadly not. She gave me a look of curiosity, opened her mouth again and there it was, the response I always get.

‘But where are you really from?’

It’s a question I’ve grown to dislike, dread even.

It implies that perhaps I don’t belong here, and that my appearance somehow negates my Britishness. “

KJ