Where are you from?

There’s a funny video floating around on social media that’s getting a lot of attention. It shows a young woman of Asian descent preparing for a jog. A white man starts a conversation with her with the dreaded, “Where are you from?” For a lot of people, this is an innocuous enough question. If you say, “Maine,” or “California,” or “Florida,” that’s usually the end of the conversation. But if you look like I do, the series of questions won’t stop until your lineage is traced back to ancient fill-in-the-blank.