Racially Ambiguous

I had someone ask me what my ethnicity was today.

Again.

This is a recurring question in my life. It usually comes in the form of "so...what are you?" from people who stare at me but haven't ever talked to me before and probably don't even know my name. That's a fun question to get asked. I mean, how do you even respond to that? What would you say? I typically reply with "um, I'm a person?" and hope they realize how ridiculous their question just sounded. Then they give away the idea that's been forming in their mind about what race I probably am and say something along the lines of "no, I mean like are you [insert ethnicity here] or something?" and then I end their mental torment and answer the question they meant to ask in the first place.

Granted, this is a tricky question to ask someone. I don't know why people can't just ask straight up "what ethnicity are you?" as if I'll be offended that they were curious about it or think they're a racist or something. When you think about it, we're all racists anyway so it doesn't really matter; anyone who says they're not a racist is lying. But I honestly don't think it's a big deal if people ask me what ethnicity I am.

In most cases, the people who are the most inclined to ask me what race I am are the people who think I'm the same race as them. Often the follow-up question I get sounds more like "no, I mean are you [insert ethnicity here] or something? Because I'm [insert same ethnicity here]". I guess it's a bonding thing, a cultural thing, you know? Because if you find someone else who is your same ethnicity then you're no longer strangers, but kin. And aren't we all just looking for people in this world who aren't gonna think we're weird and will just love us and accept us for whatever we are?

To be fair, I don't always get the "so...what are you?" question - some people jump straight to the second question, or some variant of it. I'd like to leave you with some of the questions people have asked me:

--"So are you like Indian?" - that was from the girl today
--"[some unintelligible Spanish]" - apparently I'm so convincingly Hispanic that you can just speak to me in Spanish
--"Da dove vieni? Messico? Spagna?" - some guy in Florence ran up behind me and was determined to woo me. Oh, Italian men.
--"So where is your family from?" - people who try to be delicate will ask me this question, but considering my history, it's still a complicated/confusing question to answer because saying "North Carolina" doesn't really answer the question
--"Are you half and half?" - our waitress at Disney asked me that out of nowhere and I thought she was talking about the bowl of soup I was eating. After I looked at my bowl, back at her, and said "huh?" she said "oh, I meant like are you half Asian and half white--because, I mean, that's what I am." I don't know who she thought the two grown-ups I was sitting at the table with were, but I said "um, kind of?", gestured to said grown-ups and then said "these are my parents." Must've been a busy day for her.


If I marry someone who has been asked questions like these but is a different ethnicity than me, our children could give Tiger Woods a run for his money.