“Where’re you from?” Up to you.

Ami Bogin,
England.

I get “where are you from?” so often (or the polite “Your accent’s different…” of the British, or the more rude “You Chinese? Japanese?” sometimes from everywhere) in my life and thirty years in I still don’t know how to provide an answer, or at least an answer that will satisfy the questioner. It nearly always feels like there are assumptions behind this question, and in asking they’re only asking for confirmation of their own fabricated story of me, my face, or my accent.

I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I identify with that the strongest, so I usually just say I’m American. Sometimes that will elicit a frustrated face, and I’ll continue that my parents were both born in Europe – my dad in France and my mom in Bulgaria. People will either say something like “ahh mixes breeds are cool” or something equally trite, or press on, helpfully mentioning that I look “Chinese or something,” and where are my grandparents from. That’s a bit harder – most were born in Russia but my Grandma was born in Istanbul. Sometimes people will then ask if “I’m from” the “Mongolian side” of Russia. But the truth is my grandparents all look Asian as well and descended from a small region in European Russia called Kalmykia. When they try to convince me of the region’s location in the Asian side of Russia and I point it out not far from Ukraine and Georgia, they press further. Only until I mention that the area was populated by people who descended from the Mongols in 17th century do people back off – “Ah, you’re Mongolian.”

So there’s your riddle. What am I? Am I what you would consider “Russian” even though the people I descended from were exiled from that region in the early 1900s, forcing my family to immigrate around central Europe? Am I American/French as my passports allude to? Am I Mongolian, despite no one in the family knowing any Mongolian, or indeed having any cultural heritage remaining connecting us to it? Or Am I just me?
And is that enough for you?

To throw a final spanner in the works, I’ve been living in the UK for the past four years. To quote a Russian friend I met here “Americans are complicated”. In my experience, so many people are so complicated… But okay, I’ll take it.

I always hear about Asian Americans who have to hide from or embrace their roots, but what do you do if you don’t really have roots? It seems the “correct” approach to identity to to embrace the cultural ancestry, but can’t we just be okay being who we are?

I know my face will precede my story every time, but next time you ask, please do so out of genuine, open curiosity about me, and not to satisfy your own inner assumptions. And for those of you who get me on a bad day, a day when I’ve been ching chonged at (yes it happens on the streets of London and New York even), or Konnichiwa-ed at, have patience if I just don’t feel like answering.