Where are you from?

I used to remember one of the most common questions in elementary school. It was “where are you from?”. This didn’t mean what neighborhood, or where you moved from, it meant where did your family originally immigrate from.

Asking that question was how I first learned of Switzerland, Vietnam, Korea, and Nigeria from a small elementary school in coastal Florida. It’s also how I learned of Zambia, Poland and Portugal in a middle school in the Amish capital of Lancaster Pennsylvania.

The question is inherently American. Very few other places in the world ask a question and refer to you ancestry.

We should retain our American-ness by ensuring future generations are given the privilege to ask this same question.