I've been thinking about this a bit since my hospital stay. It seems that asking "Where are you from?" is consistently considered to be a microaggression.
Johnathan Haidt probably had the best take on this that I've heard. In a nutshell, he argues that it's not so much a microaggression as it is a faux pas. Most of the time, when people ask that question, it's out if genuine curiosity. What Haidt pointed to that I hadn't thought of before is how tiring it can be to be asked that question fifteen times per day. Namely, if I'm getting Haidt's take correctly, as I think I am, "faux pas" is probably the better term because, in reality, 99.999% of the time, the intention behind the question is innocent and we should understand that; but, at the same time, we should have some understanding that it can get annoying.
I kinda went through this in the hospital. With the nursing rotation, I was basically being introduced to ten people per day. "leguna" is an unusual name. Surely enough, just about everybody asked me where I was from. After a few days straight, it did get rather tiresome to keep repeating, "Best to my knowledge, I'm Finnish, English, and Scottish." Eventually I just started making jokes like, "I'm from a birth canal."
I was never offended; but, I finally got a taste of the frustration that people sometimes experience.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that, for the most part, the concept of microaggressions is pretty dumb at its core and it encourages people to always assume the worst in people. I think that we should assume the best. I just found it funny that I finally did make that connection that, "Wow, answering this question over and over again really is kinda annoying."
