We're all immigrants here

I recently read an interview with the Sri Lankan-born Wellington novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam. In it he talks mainly about the challenge of being male in a culture that he sees as clinging to a narrow and not always attractive idea of masculinity. But he also comments on the frequency of “casual racism” and his regret at having lost touch with his heritage, presumably as a result of feeling pressured to fit in to a predominantly white society.

One thing in particular struck me, and I quote directly from the article:

Being asked where you’re from, for example, is a “ridiculously common” experience for a non-white person, he [Gnanalingam] says. If it’s someone at a hostel overseas, or someone wanting to establish whakapapa links, that’s one thing. If it’s someone who’s noticed your skin is a different colour from theirs, that’s another. “I often get slightly sassy and respond, ‘Well, where are you from?’” he says. “It always throws them.”

But hang on a minute. I’m happy to admit that I’ve often asked people with dark skin or unfamiliar accents where they’re from – taxi drivers especially, since I’m sharing the front of the car with them and it’s an obvious way to get a conversation started.

I supposed I could play it safe and make meaningless small talk about the weather, but I ask about their background because I’m genuinely interested. It’s posed as a friendly inquiry, not as a demand that they explain their justification for being in New Zealand. Still less is it intended to imply judgment of them on the basis of their appearance or way of speaking. I see it as a way of establishing a connection with a fellow human being. Can that be so bad?

Sometimes they have an interesting story to tell, like the irrepressibly cheerful cab driver from Bhutan I met in Christchurch a couple of years ago, or the lugubrious Afghan who once picked me up from San Francisco Airport. If I sense that they’re not comfortable (which I don’t recall ever happening), there’s always the weather option to fall back on.

I welcome the fact that New Zealand has become a multicultural society, as do virtually all the people I know. To me it seems the most natural thing in the world to want to learn more about people’s cultural origins and the circumstances that led them to settle here. Quite apart from anything else, it adds to my knowledge as a journalist about the demographic forces shaping this county. It’s not intended to make immigrants feel like outsiders, still less that they’re not welcome. We’re all immigrants, after all; some just more recent than others.

Would it be better if I said nothing and completed the taxi ride in silence? That would seem far more cold and unfriendly.

And really, is it so different from someone asking about the origin of your surname, which happens to me all the time? Or inquiring where your accent comes from, as in the case of my Polish wife (who never minds being asked, although she’s been a New Zealand citizen for more than 50 years)? Or are such questions okay if you’re white, but somehow different if you’re brown or black – in which case, should we be asking whether the people who condemn the question as racist in those instances are themselves perversely promoting a sense of “them and us”, which is the very thing they profess to oppose?

I’m aware of the fashionable view that only the victims of racism can recognise and identify it. Using that yardstick, a taxi driver who thinks my question about where he comes from is racist must be right. But if the question is asked with goodwill and genuine curiosity, doesn’t that count for something?

Here, of course, we come to our old friend unconscious bias; the notion that you can be racist without realising it. If we accept the idea of unconscious bias, we also acknowledge the possibility of casual or unintended racism. But I reject the notion that by simply asking someone about their nationality or ethnic background, you’re somehow demonstrating racial prejudice. That strikes me as a complete non-sequitur.

In fact I’d suggest that treating discussion of ethnicity as a no-go zone is potentially an impediment to good race relations, because it risks amplifying awareness of difference rather than encouraging acceptance of it as normal. How can tip-toeing around questions of ethnicity in a “don’t mention the war” fashion be more inclusive than openly engaging with people about their origins?

I could go further and ask who’s more likely to drive a wedge between the predominant white culture and ethnic minorities: the person making an innocent inquiry about someone else’s race or nationality, or the person assuming it must be underpinned by racism?

So I intend to continue asking people where they come from. And if they turn the question back on me, as Gnanalingam says he sometimes does, it won’t throw me in the slightest. I’d be very happy to tell them that I come from Waipukurau and long before that, from Ireland on my mother’s side and France and Denmark on my father’s. There’s no stigma in that, and I wonder why it should be seen as potentially stigmatising if you tell people you come from Sudan, Taiwan, Iran or wherever. Perhaps more to the point, who exactly is doing the stigmatising by suggesting such matters should be off-limits? After all, as I said, we’re all immigrants here.