“Where are you from?”
I have often asked this question.
And I know that it can hurt people.
For me, it was never meant to be derogatory.
It was an attempt to place the other person, to understand, to find a basis.
That’s how I was socialized: origin helps with understanding.
Maybe that’s typically German.
We think a lot about background, titles, and context.
“Who are you?” here often depends on where you come from—
not just in a geographical sense, but also socially.
Only later did I understand
that this question means something different to others.
When you hear it all the time,
it no longer sounds like curiosity,
but like a silent test:
“You don’t quite belong yet.”
So maybe it’s not about curiosity at all,
but about security.
About being able to categorize the unfamiliar.
But what if belonging actually begins
where we let go of categorizing?