Ask me about my ethnicity

photo by sky stockton

From a young age, I’ve had a hard time knowing how to discuss my culture and race with peers. Because my mother moved to America from India in her late 20’s, Indian culture is a part of my life, but it’s rarely something I bring up. 

It wasn’t until I had an experience freshman year when I found out that a boy I had known for two years thought I was Native American, that I realized race is a discussion too often put off out of fear of saying the wrong thing. 

Asking questions about someone’s ethnicity or culture shouldn’t be avoided. Though people may fear sounding insensitive or uninformed, the only way to build an understanding of another race is to learn about it. 

“People kind of avoid that type of thing, like they don’t want to talk about a race because it usually has a negative connotation,” Paige Pierce, 12, said.  “But, I’ve found it’s easy to just talk about personal experiences.” 

“People kind of avoid that type of thing, like they don’t want to talk about a race because it usually has a negative connotation,” — Paige Pierce, 12

Often, the first question that someone has when meeting a person of another race is, which race? This is a completely valid question because it’s often hard to tell, and it’s a great place to start, but there is an appropriate way to ask– and, “what are you?” really isn’t it. 

“I’d just rather be asked more politely,” Jon Askew, 11, says when describing an experience being asked his race. He prefers when people don’t guess at his race.

I’ve found that the best way to find out someone’s race is to ask, “what is your ethnicity?” This is a better question than “where are you from?” because though I’m from Detroit, that isn’t the information that the question is really asking for.  

Anna Russel, 12, lived in Sweden for seven years and her mother is Swedish, but she says that she doesn’t get very many questions about the Swedish culture or her experience living in a different country. 

“It has a lot to do with who I am because I grew up there, and I identify as Swedish,” she said. For Anna, learning about her culture is a big part of learning who she is, so she enjoys talking about it.

Having healthy discussions with people of another race, culture, or gender has enormous value. It’s an important way to gain insight into other people’s lives and be understanding of other people’s situations.