I immigrated to the US at the age of 8. I’m Asian. I think I mastered the language at like probably 12 or 13.
I recall often in my life, people always assumed I didn’t speak English for some reason. Like before I had a chance to open my mouth, that question gets asked…
Not sure if it was because I was perhaps being quiet and unaware I was being quiet, so they made an assumption based on that, or if it had to do with how I look.
I kinda always felt a bit uncomfortable.
“Perpetual Foreigner” kind of.
I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was just maybe I was quiet. But still. A white kid could stay quiet and I doubt the first thing a person assumes is oh he must not speak english.
Um… sorry if this is a weird ask, but those of you who live in immigration countries, have you ever been asked “Do you speak [Language of the country]?” Have you ever made an assumption about someone?
I live in Japan, a white person, and some people will assume that I don’t speak Japanese. The reality is that there are a great number of international tourists and there aren’t that many non-Asian foreign residents, so sometimes people make bad assumptions.
Usually it doesn’t much matter, isolated incidents meh, but occasionally when it happens on a regular basis over a few days or weeks, it can definitely get irritating as fuck.
But look, if my response to “Konnichiwa” were delayed by five seconds, I would definitely expect them to say “Hello”. They tried Japanese, it failed, so they moved on… And if that’s what you’re experiencing, I sympathize, because probably it is going to stay that way for the rest of your life.
I mean I think its slightly worse if you are in an immigration country. If I was in a country with very few immigration, I’d understand and I’d just accept it. But the US, where I’m at, is literally built by immigrants, and a lot of naturalizations and non-white people being born with citizenship, so… it kinda feels a bit worse, if you know what I mean.
Japan, in contrast, is a mostly homogenous society with very strict immigration controls, and it has never been an immigration country, so I do not fault them in anyway for thinking that way.