“So, where are you from?”
Every person of color has heard this question. If you also happen to be a woman, and, say, have your nose pierced, you’ve unwittingly guaranteed yourself a stream of questions about your cultural background. Whether you’ve ever worn a sari or not is apparently considered a suitable question. Throw in the occasional “Your English is really good!” and you might have to fight every snarky urge in yourself to respond, “So is yours.”
Working in the service industry, I was involuntarily subjected to this uncomfortable and often intrusive examination of my history on a regular basis. It’s as if I had tacitly agreed to become an object of scrutiny — on display — due to my job and my background, and every inch, every aspect of my life was fair game for questioners. In a context in which responding in kind to a rude question is never an option, I felt trapped by the need to maintain a professional demeanor, even if I would prefer to be flippant. You know how “the customer is always right”? That phrase takes on a whole new meaning when you get inappropriate questions about your racial and ethnic background in your place of employment.
When people assume the role of customers, they often feel entitled – they take liberties, developing additional expectations of those whose job it is to serve them. They presume their servers will always be polite, attentive, and friendly — and that doesn’t even include the disproportionate expectations of charm and submissiveness when you’re a woman. For those in the service industry, a clear power dynamic exists — you’re put in a socially and professionally vulnerable position that leaves you without an obvious exit strategy. As someone whose sole purpose in a service environment is to cater to other people’s requests, you can start to feel small and somewhat dispensable. From the treatment I received daily as a server, I was reminded of the inherent inferiority accorded to my position. The economic compensation for a server doesn’t provide any amelioration for dealing with offense or intrusive questions or basic incivility. The only real incentive is a disincentive: the high likelihood that you’ll be fired if you challenge a customer’s rudeness.
When given the third degree by a customer, I would usually grimace to myself and try to think of any excuse to leave that table. Walking away, I would replay the exchange in my head to make sure it happened as I remember. Did he really ask me that? And is that really how I really responded? I felt caught off-guard, confused, and conflicted all in the same moment. And afterwards, those feelings would turn to anger, because I wasn’t on a level playing field with customers who questioned me; I was seen as beneath them, by default. Eventually, my anger would turn to regret, because I didn’t defend myself.
I’m very attached to my culture and ethnicity: speaking Urdu so other people can’t eavesdrop, ranting about the politics in Pakistan, pretending like I can cook desi food because it’s my favorite. It’s when people start defining and confining based on their own assumptions about me that I am denied the possibility of determining my own identity.
The entitlement of customers often allowed them to easily vocalize stereotypical perceptions they could use to slot me neatly into their worldview. When I informed a customer who asked that I’m from Minneapolis, it would generally prompt a follow-up: “Where are you really from, originally?” Which, as we all know, roughly translates to: “Then why aren’t you white?” If I then assured them, with great restraint, that my nationality is in fact 100% American, I was often subjected to further questions about my ethnicity, beliefs, and cultural practices.
I have also experienced the upside of the service industry: genuinely pleasant human interactions with customers, the establishment of friendships, the unsolicited but surprisingly helpful professional advice, and even the occasional intelligent and witty mind that intrigued me more than I might care to admit. But all throughout my time working in a restaurant, I was conscious of being in a position that left me constantly exposed to all sorts of remarks — as a woman and a person of color — whether they were complimentary or offensive. I began to wonder whether this was simply what I signed up for. Had I agreed to routine public interrogation when I took the job?
Working in the service industry, I was so often reduced to a single idea that some stranger had about me. I was identified, pinpointed, as a brown South Asian woman, which in itself holds a number of associations for people. I could be misconstrued as the passive and docile South Asian woman with limited agency, a socially constructed image reflective of a colonial past. I could be viewed as someone entirely bound by tradition, a victim of oppressive religious and cultural practices and at the mercy of patriarchal dominance. I could be fetishized as the “exotic” foreign woman, the object of an Orientalist mentality. I could be all of those things, but not a struggling writer, a soccer player, a die-hard Manchester United fan, a very-in-debt Master’s student, an aspiring intelligence analyst, a feminist, a disillusioned diasporic. To some people, I couldn’t even be an American, because I am Muslim and brown.
I shared these frustrations with my friends and fellow servers, people I was sure would understand me. I tried to explain to them why these interactions bothered me so much. According to many of them, I should be more forgiving of people’s ignorance. They (i.e., white Americans) haven’t been “educated” about ethnic minorities and their histories, and are therefore not conscious of how they should react or behave. It’s my responsibility to teach them, because they are, at the core, well-intentioned.
The wisdom of this supposed “teaching moment” eluded me. Was I supposed to have incorporated the additional task of enlightening the ignorant into my job description? And if ignorance was really the issue, why was I the one responsible for providing this education to customers? If not mine, whose responsibility was it?
The expectation that my purpose was not, very simply, to think and be what I want, but to devote time and effort into justifying why it’s acceptable for me to do so, was an exhausting thought to contend with. “Educating” white people who would violate my privacy and dignity while I attempt to serve them coffee seemed to be a task far beyond the scope of a menial worker, and it was also something no one had the right to expect or demand from me. I did not have the time or energy or responsibility to educate the ignorant and the insensitive, one customer at a time.
That left no other option than to insulate myself from these daily indignities, to accept that I had no control over other people’s idle curiosities, and to understand that this was where I could and must remain disengaged. If someone demanded to know my ethnic lineage in order to initiate contact, I might be tempted to respond rudely or correct their mistaken assumptions, but I wouldn’t. I also wouldn’t take the risk of refusing to answer outright, because that might be reflected in my tip. I decided to simply and clearly answer, “Yes, I am American” and “Yes, I really am from Minneapolis,” and if they insisted I would even clarify that my parents are Pakistani. After struggling for a time to bear it, I decided to let go the burden of accepting or accommodating my customers’ perceptions of me, or falling in line to “educate” them. You know why? As a server, I was not paid to think.
Anyone who uses the phrase “the customer is always right” with any degree of sincerity instantly trips my alarm for generally awful behavior. See also: “politically (in)correct.” No better way to signal to me that you just find it so very burdensome to treat other people with a basic level of respect and humanity!
It’s like those remarks that begin, “I’m not a racist, but …”
‘I’m not racist, but…’
‘It sounds like you are.’
(obviously not going to work in a customer service environment, but damn is it satisfying.)
Cabin Pressure would like to remind you that ‘the customer is always wrong, rude, late, witless, loud, drunk, thieving, and sly’.
Thank you for this!
Yes, this is so difficult as a server! I remember in college waiting on an acquaintance who had done something pretty terrible to me and she apologized while I was serving her, which just made me more angry, because I had to act like I accepted it. You’re at work, and have to be professional, but they are under no such constraint.
Presumably if these strangers had asked you on the metro where you were from you could pretend like you didn’t hear them or tell them you found the question rude. It is a personal question, and good manners dictate that you not ask strangers personal questions. But with the American restaurant system and its emphasis on “friendly” service, people (stupid people) often take liberties–calling their female server sweetheart, for example–because they feel comfortable doing so.
It’s one of the million reasons why we should get rid of tipping. You could probably come up with a perfectly polite response (I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable answering personal questions at work) that wouldn’t get you in trouble with management but didn’t indulge the bad manners of customers.
In my current job, I work at the front desk of a gallery, appearing to be a receptionist of sorts. Actually, we’re just a very small staff (2 people) and I’m managing the gallery. People ask me all the time if I’m an art student. I haven’t figured out the right response yet–saying, no, I’m a mid-career museum professional feels too defensive.
What about, “oh I finished my degree(s) in XYZ some time ago” (insert benign but judging STARE)
Working customer service while keeping your sense of self is a weird balance.
I think “Actually, I’m the co-manager of this gallery–let me tell you about [whatever cool piece you want to feature]” is a perfectly acceptable response.
I’m not totally sure if you’re looking for suggestions on what to call yourself when people ask if you’re a student, but if you are… would saying “No actually! I’ve been working in museums for 10 years/more than 5 years now/whatever!” in a very casual tone be sufficient? Not that you’d necessarily want to reference your age, but I think the sticking point for me is that calling myself a “professional” makes me feel like I’m dressed up in my mom’s heels and lipstick.
What about a nice subtle engraved nametag with your title on it? As a young-appearing female with a high level job, I find my nametag gets me a lot more respect.
I manage the natural history collections at a university, so I am the one giving tours to the public, dealing with maintenance staff, etc. Whenever someone asks me my major or something similar, I just respond “Both of my degrees are in Biology” /smile. It usually takes people a second to get it, but it clears things up.
No, people take liberties because it’s the one situation in most of their lives in which they have servants. I’m serious. They are actually paying for the experience of lording over someone and for a lot of people that includes emotional abuse and casual racism. The truism that you should pay attention to what your date does in a restaurant is a truism for a reason: because this is how they behave when they have power over someone and they can take them for granted. And for a lot of heterosexual men, that’s how they behave six months into a relationship.
Trust that what the article writer just talked about is MILD. She is holding back.
Oh god, no service industry shit ever again.
I’ve had people break phones, call me a cunt because their gift card wasn’t working (white teenage ill brought up brats forever!) scream “dothead” to me (this terrified the old lady waiting for her car to be fixed), back into gas pumps and otherwise make messes. I’ve had a bunch of stupid white entitled bitches ask for a bargain while subtly accusing me of stealing from my workplace. Universally, I’ve seen white people go around eating food before paying, accuse other customers of stealing because they were brown or looked homeless, and outright ask if they can walk out without paying. You should have seen the rage when I didn’t let able bodied white people pump then pay, like I should assume their white face meant they wouldn’t drive off. They whine and whine about having to show id to buy cigarettes or alcohol when they drive to the store and yet wanted me to carry around national citizenship ID at all fucking times because “brownness”. I’ve never seen a minority do this ridiculous behavior. They know better than to act like a bunch of shoplifting, merchandise destroying perps.
And to add tips on top of that? Girl, no.
This. Industry employees need to be treated as trained professionals, not bleeding servants. The work is hard, and it deserves to be appreciated.
Also people are awful and i am sorry you have experienced those things.
No, people take liberties because it’s the one situation in most of their lives in which they have servants. I’m serious. They are actually paying for the experience of lording over someone and for a lot of people that includes emotional abuse and casual racism.
Yeah, I think you’re right. Why else would people throw an outrageous fit when restaurants eliminate tipping and raise the price of the meal, when the cost is the same? Because they perceived that they had power over their server/ant and that was taken away from them.
My discussion about pseudo-friendly informality was maybe a different issue entirely, because while these patrons may tell themselves they are just being friendly, they are actually using the unequal power dynamic to be not only rude, but racist.
“I’ve seen white people go around eating food before paying”
WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS/let their kids do this – it horrifies me every time. Isn’t that the main rule of entering a store, that you don’t use the merchandise until you pay for it? Wherefore the social contract??
Ugh the student thing. SO annoying and SO frequent. I work at a college, in the front of our office, and whenever someone asks what year I am or what my major is, I smile and (in the most polite, friendly voice I can muster) say, “Actually, I’m not a student.” And don’t elaborate. It makes the person feel sufficiently awkward, and makes me not have to explain. Because 99% of the time, I don’t feel like it!
That left no other option than to insulate myself from these daily indignities, to accept that I had no control over other people’s idle curiosities, and to understand that this was where I could and must remain disengaged.
I identify with this so much. After 9/11, at some point in my teenage years I made the decision to respond to every pointed inquiry of my background with, “Oh my family is Italian” which on one hand makes me feel relief because the questioner is put at ease (books can be written about how messed up this is) and I weasel my way out of an uncomfortable situation, but on the other hand kills a piece of my soul because it’s a bald-faced denial of my self. The fact that I feel it’s necessary to lie about my reality as a Middle Eastern woman to other people makes me so sad, and so angry.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I have never understood the entitlement that people over the age of 12 feel to ask personal questions about race/religion/disability/sexuality/gender identity etc. Okay, you didn’t mean any harm, but MOST ADULTS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A FILTER. (There are exceptions obviously.)
And when it comes to educating well-intentioned white people, why can’t they go find someone whose actual job it is to answer those questions? Google an article written by someone who is PAID to answer this stuff.
While it’s certainly true that (most) white Americans don’t learn much about people of other ethnicities, it’s also true that most communities in this country have libraries, and librarians who are trained and would be thrilled to help you find books that will answer any questions you have, and who are also (this part is key) paid to do so.
One of the things that I’m constantly shocked by when I read about the experiences of people (especially women) in the service industry is just how low the bar is to being a good customer. I mean, truly, the bar is so low.
Step one: remember your server is a human being and therefore worthy of the same respect as yourself.
Step two: … nope, that’s it.
You’re right, it shouldn’t be that hard!
It seems the worst customers are also the ones you randomly run into at the grocery store. Then you have to pretend they’re a grizzly bear and back away slowly while making as little noise as possible.
When I was a bartender people (probably always men) asked me where I’m “from” all the time. I’m white so they would usually guess a British Isle or a Northern European country. It didn’t bother me but a big part of my job was to talk to customers so any attempt at conversation on their part was helping me out.
And how often did they follow up on your answer with “Yes, yes, but where are you really from?”
Thought so.
I get “where are you from” immediately after people hear my name (since it’s quite obviously ‘Eastern European’), and sometimes even “where are you really from” when I say I grew up in Nashville. It doesn’t bother me ‘that’ much because I’m a white guy and it lacks the kind of negative subtext.
I am so, so sorry. I come from a family of horrible tippers who treat service industry workers with the same disrespect in this article and ask horribly intrusive and inappropriate questions, and I’ve been trying to get them to stop for YEARS to no avail. I just cannot seem to convince them that their attitudes and questions are not okay no matter what angle I have approached it from or how I’ve worded it. All I seem to be able to do successfully is leave a large tip when none of them are looking, but that doesn’t solve much of anything.
I will be sending them this article and hope that this finally does the trick.
Solidarity. My current rule for my father is that we get takeout when he’s with us because getting so mad I see spots cannot be good for me.
Is it rude to ask “Where are you originally from?” to someone with an obvious foreign accent while speaking English? This often comes up for me with cab/Uber drivers, many of whom in my area are immigrants from African countries. While we’re trapped in a small space making small talk anyway, it often seems to lead to an actually interesting conversation.
But I know how loaded that question can be, and I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, particularly in a situation where “the customer is always right” is a particularly freighted concept due to rating systems and the like. (When I remember to, I phrase it as “Have you always lived around here?” And I only ask if they seem small-talk-inclined in the frist place.)
If that situation, I quite often ask something like, “How long have you been driving a taxi?” If they want to talk about their background or if/where they’ve immigrated from, that works as a good lead, and if they don’t, the conversation can go somewhere else.
“Have you always lived around here?” is a nice question and usually what I want to ask anyway.
I also use “Have you lived in CITY long?”, or if I am not sure if someone is a tourist, “Are you local to CITY/STATE?”
I have on occasion asked someone about their accent (specifically, “Is your accent South African? I have family there!”, because I find the accent itself so comforting/familiar and people are usually very happy to talk about it) but otherwise I try to let people lead when it comes to their background.
These are really good questions. I work in a border town and I get a lot of tourists in the store. Sometimes they are looking for something we don’t have and I need to know how well they know the area. It gives me an idea of how much I need to help them because sometimes they aren’t tourists, but people from other places that have moved here or are living in Canada and pass through the area often.
My own rule of thumb in my quest not to be accidentally an asshole just because I’m privileged (a difficult quest. light a metaphorical candle for me) is to try to make sure my questions are directly about the thing that has made me curious, not about the assumptions I am making based on that thing. This is really hard, because these assumptions are unconscious and easy and have to be consciously and deliberately ferreted out from the chaos of my brain.
So for example, if you’ve noticed an accent, then that means someone is speaking a language that is not their mother tongue, right? So asking “where are you from” based on an accent is already connecting the dots between language and belonging. It’s already making an unconscious jump, based unfortunately on the privileged assumption that I have the “right” accent for belonging here. I don’t want to do that. So the “correct” direct question about the actual thing you’re noticing is more like: “You have a nice accent in English, but I can’t tell what it is. What’s your first language?” (Yeah, I think about this a lot, not being an asshole is hard work for some of us…)
Wow. It’s as if you have come and observed my day at the restaurant where I work and have written an incredibly accurate depiction of it. I actually cried at one point reading this because of how much you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for writing this article.
*INSERT SARCASM FONT*
As a white person who never ever comes across people of color in my personal life, how else am I supposed to confirm the ‘otherness’ of a non-white person if I can’t probe deeply into their personal background, and the heritage of their ancestors? Am I expected to simply mind my business around people who look different from me? THE HORROR!!@!
This didn’t happen to me too often but I do have one good story. I’m half-Mexican and pretty white-passing; I like to say I have “vaguely ethnic” features. A while ago I was serving at a bar/restaurant that was named after the Italian family that owned it (although I’m fairly certain they’d lived in Wisconsin for at least a couple generations). Once I served a table of three retirement-age white guys, who at some point in the interaction asked me if I was one of the family members; I said no, figuring that was that, but no. They went on to ask “German? You know, there are those ‘dark’ Germans,” and when I waffled a little (I actually do have a tiny bit of German ancestry) they proceeded to talk for like five minutes about it–no, actually, about me, without really trying to involve me in the conversation, but keeping me standing there. It was a really slow day in the restaurant so I didn’t have a good exit excuse. It really did not feel good. The whole time I just wanted to scream “I’m Mexican!” but I just KNEW they were the type of people to have Opinions about Mexicans/Latin@s and good god did I not want to open up that can of worms.
eta: this was in a midwestern city with a huge German history/connection, so it wasn’t exactly a bad assumption? It still felt really really gross.
This didn't happen to me too often but I do have one good story. I'm half-Mexican and pretty white-passing; I like to say I have "vaguely ethnic" features. A while ago I was serving at a bar/restaurant that was named after the Italian family that owned it (although I'm fairly certain they'd lived in Wisconsin for at least a couple generations). Once I served a table of three retirement-age white guys, who at some point in the interaction asked me if I was one of the family members; I said no, figuring that was that, but no. They went on to ask "German? You know, there are those 'dark' Germans," and when I waffled a little (I actually do have a tiny bit of German ancestry) they proceeded to talk for like five minutes about it–no, actually, about me, without really trying to involve me in the conversation, but keeping me standing there. It was a really slow day in the restaurant so I didn't have a good exit excuse. It really did not feel good. The whole time I just wanted to scream "I'm Mexican!" but I just KNEW they were the type of people to have Opinions about Mexicans/Latin@s and good god did I not want to open up that can of worms.
eta: this was in a midwestern city with a huge German history/connection, so it wasn't exactly a bad assumption? It still felt really really gross.
I’m a white woman working in a Vietnamese restaurant, and more often than I would ever have imagined, customers look right past me to ask my Korean coworker what dish “best represents her culture.” That is, unless there is a white male working, in which case we both get ignored and they just ask him what’s best. It’s astonishing to watch, and the fear of losing a customer and thus our jobs because we weren’t gracious enough in our responses to their bs is so. real.
I’m Native American, and my sense of humour would compel me to answer something along the lines of “No speak the language!” and move quickly off.
Oops, I ask people where they’re from quite a lot (usually preceded by “You have a lovely accent”), because I love the world and travelers and foreign cultures (and conversing in other languages when possible). I never thought of it as a microaggression, but I can see how it might be received that way, especially if I’m the 18th person to ask that day. Thanks for writing this. Sorry on behalf of myself and other well-intentioned but thoughtless people.
I do really think it is more the persistent nosiness and not following social cues is the problem though. If someone answers curtly “I’m from here”, it’s a micro aggression to persist. The nice thing about conversation is that you can go on to fix/mitigate perceived rudeness in the way you continue – by letting the other person take the lead. Humans aren’t mind-readers and if we’re constantly terrified of making mistakes, it’s very hard to make new friends/have pleasant interactions with people. I generally don’t pry or ask personal questions of people in the service industry for the power dynamics reasons, but at a party I think it’s a different situation. Very often when you’re meeting new people everyone is kind of asking “where are you from” but tacking on “originally” is pretty rude. People will go into detail if they want to.
So I think “you have a lovely accent” is fine as every single person, whether they know it or not, has an accent! As long as you don’t pretend that your own english is the correct, standard english.
There was a commenter further up thread who mentioned that if the other person has an accent, you can ask what their original language is … to me that’s a huge assumption as english might very well be their mother tongue. Eg: would you ask a southerner what their mother tongue was? If you wouldn’t ask a white person the question, don’t ask PoC that, would be my general rule, and I think it has worked well.
So “where are you from” or “I like your accent” to me are perfectly normal questions in social situations, (unless the person gets uncomfortable in which case you can switch tracks) but I would never ask those questions in the service industry unless the worker is bringing it up themselves, for all the reasons mentioned in the article.
as I would frequently tell my team at my last job:
“the customer is not always right. the customer is frequently wrong, and occasionally they are a belligerent asshole.”
i really wish more coworkers/managers/companies would take this shit seriously. i ran into this a number of times when escalating concerns from my team about coworkers or customers being inappropriate. the concerns of WOC (especially younger WOC) are completely discounted on a regular basis and it’s infuriating.
great piece, thank you. will be sharing this.
Sorry, I am one of those people likely to ask “Where are you from?”. Hopefully I am not rude or invasive though that depends on the perspective of the other person! Such questions can be a bridge between cultures. It is much more ‘real’ to mingle with people of other cultures than googling it.
Excellent article describing the unease of being pigeonholed and/or being subject to passively active bigotry.
I am brown and have been subject to such questions. But mostly they are not in a professional setting and hence it has been easy to deal with. When it does come up in workplace, answering it vaguely and following up immediately with a professional question always gets the message that their line of questioning is not welcome. Easy for me to say because my compensation did not include tips!