Where are you from? A rather innocent question, isn’t it? Well… it depends. To many Irish, this question carries no emotional charge. At the same time, to many of my friends and colleagues who do not quite have the ‘typical Irish look’, this question evokes emotions, which can range from amusement to annoyance or frustration. So let’s unpack this a bit more, shall we?
What prompted me to write this piece is a poignant 6 minute 2018 YouTube video, posted by a friend, titled “What Does “Irishness” look like?”
Although I’m much older than the youth in that video, it resonated deeply with me and reflected many of my own experiences. The topic may be sensitive for some, which is why I think we should address and talk about it and, more than in any other place, in a university setting. No better place for starting such a conversation is UCD, the most internationally diverse university in Ireland.
I’ve lived in Ireland nearly 17 years and for about 10 of them as an Irish citizen. Though I didn’t spend my formative years here, it’s the second longest place I’ve lived in. Though, ethnically, I’d be considered ‘white’ (or off-white...), I have experienced HUNDREDS of those mini exchanges and heard nearly every response quoted by the young ones in the video (I especially loved Karen’s re-enactments... so apt!). Many of the Irish people who asked me this question and didn’t get the ‘right’ answer (that is, what they expected, which was anything but “I’m from south Dublin”) were unhappy with me and, as mentioned in the video, displayed mini-aggressions, which often took the form of ‘why are you being difficult?’
I have chosen Ireland as my second home for many good reasons, the top one being its people. They are among the most humane, considerate and gentle I found in the world. I also think that, on average, they are less racist than most Europeans. At the same time, it has been an ethnically and religiously homogeneous country for so long. And, as a relatively new modern nation, Ireland still deals with a lot of identity issues. The combination of these, coupled with a history of foreign invasion, leads to a commonly held narrow views on what ‘being Irish’ constitutes; the notion of most Irish on Irishness is still a generation or two back, before the strong changes in demographics its experienced in the past 20 years.
Curiosity is a most natural phenomenon and I’m sure have my share of it! As an avid traveller in far-away lands, I have been asked where I am from more times than I could ever recount. But here there is an additional element: it is the reluctance to accept one’s answer to this question. Most Irish I met are really nice people who do not want to see themselves as having ethnic or national prejudices or holding stereotypes; they feel that they are asking the ‘Where are you from?’ question from a well-intended place; I don’t want to argue that this isn’t so; however, for those who wish to be genuinely honest with themselves, they need to examine what presumptions exist in their mind when they ask this question. And, moreover, their reaction when one of us, the not typical-Irish looking folks, tells them: ‘I am from Dublin’. This will create a ground for much richer and genuine dialogue.
"Where are you from?" is #2 on my List of Most Hated Questions, for the reasons described by you. By the way, I do not mind "Where are you from originally?", because in recognises that people come from different backgrounds and this matters. Same as for ethnically Irish people it matters if one is originally from Wexford or from Cork (especially if they are from Cork!), it matters that someone has cultural roots in Russia or Brazil or Germany.
My #1 most hated question, though, is "Do you go home much?", because it has an implicit assumption that I am just visiting here. It switches me into a defensive mode, having to explain that for 11 years now "home" is Dublin. Sometimes this is followed by clarification "do you go visit your parents?" which leads to even bigger confusion, because my parents now live in Lithuania (imagine this, two generations of the family emigrating into two different countries!). Anyway, the person asking always expects to get a short and simple answer, and instead gets a long and complicated story - not what they bargained for! Welcome to the era of global mobility (hope it comes back soon from the COVID pause).