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Asking "where are you from" to an american

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I don't see the problem...Isn't it going to be the next question most people ask anyway??
I'm British, and have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing a few Americans.
 
Its most likely habit from saying it so much. Like when I went away to college people asked me where i'm from and I would say my home town, which is a smaller city in Massachusetts.
 
IGSaint said:
The part of claiming of ancestry back across multiple generations. I haven't really heard of that.
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Hmm I'm probably more sensitive to it as I'm a first-generation immigrant or whatever. Moved from England to the US when I was little so I've had similar conversations to the one I've mentioned before and always found those types of responses odd
 
The US is one of the largest countries in the world by population. They can get away with it because states are so big. Lots of people know the major US states.
 
Rafaelcsa said:
Of couse I'm not from the USA so I'm not the most qualified to answer, but, even still, americans states share history, language and culture among each other. I'm sure there are differences between them, but you are comparing them to european countries thousands years old...
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Even history, language, and culture can and does vary quite a bit from state to state.

Also, maybe none of the states are physically thousands of years old, but some are so backwards that they might as well be living in a time period from 100 years ago, while others live in the future as much as possible.
 
TheKaeptain said:
When I lived in Germany I would just say California. Everyone knows Cali.
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Well, except for one guy.

good-bye-love.jpg
 
I'd imagine just vaguely saying "the US" seems kind of dismissive and rude to somebody asking because I assume most of us are pretty easy to recognize we're Americans when we talk. It's like "well yeah, no shit".
 
cr_blah_blah said:
I'd imagine just vaguely saying "the US" seems kind of dismissive and rude to somebody asking because I assume most of us are pretty easy to recognize we're Americans when we talk. It's like "well yeah, no shit".
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Hm, excluding really thick mid-west ones, I don't think I'm able to tell Canadian accents from American ones for the most part, so there's that.
 
Rafaelcsa said:
In any case, I don't think any US state is as different from each other as Italy is from Spain. You're really reaching there.
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You've never been to the US, have you? Tell me I'm like a Mississippian, or a Texan, or an Oregonian, and I guarantee you I will have a lesser opinion of you simply because you don't know what you're talking about. It's like saying to a Belgian "well you're essentially just like a Czech." The US has very large cultural differences.
 
I haven't traveled out of the country but if I did, I wouldn't be so presumptuous to think anyone knew where North Carolina was. But I'd probably include it, saying something along the lines of "I'm from the state of North Carolina in the United States." Perhaps I would also include "southeastern" to further paint the picture, I don't know.

Of course, I have no real intent to cross the pond so it's really just an academic exercise.
 
In my experience Americans more often than not say "I'm from the US" and I always ask them what state. I'd rather they tell me the state right away :P

Sometimes people from NYC or LA would use their city name to identify where they're from, which is fine since those cities are famous.
 
Every time I've been asked that question while abroad they meant what state/region. We are pretty obviously American by our accents.
 
SwiftDeath said:
Hmm I'm probably more sensitive to it as I'm a first-generation immigrant or whatever. Moved from England to the US when I was little so I've had similar conversations to the one I've mentioned before and always found those types of responses odd
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It could be that the guy you were talking to just really likes British culture or European culture and is using his far-flung ancestry to claim a sense of closeness to it.
 
Uh, guys, yeah, we're varied, but to actually argue that we're just as culturally different as people from different countries in Europe is a bit absurd. For one, we do actually speak the same language as one another.
 
When abroad I say USA and the reply is usually, "No shit, but where in the USA?" So I guess there's that.
 
Booshka said:
No one likes Riverside, it's the Inland Empire, where the Smog from LA gets blown to and people file into mega churches to escape the sweltering heat.
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Oh I know, I just found it funny he said fuck Northern California, then couched San Diego in it, like that's the only problem in Southern California.
 
Rest said:
You've never been to the US, have you? Tell me I'm like a Mississippian, or a Texan, or an Oregonian, and I guarantee you I will have a lesser opinion of you simply because you don't know what you're talking about. It's like saying to a Belgian "well you're essentially just like a Czech." The US has very large cultural differences.
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Guys, I'm not saying you are all the same. But in a global scale this doesn't matter. Do you really care that I'm from São Paulo instead of Rio?

I've been to Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and (briefly) Massachusetts and Washington D.C. Of course there are many differences, especially from Florida to the other ones, but it's the same kind of differences I see here in Brazil from one state to another. Culture in the end is still really similar.

I've lived in Europe as well and I'd say Germany to Italy to France have a larger gap in cultural differences.
 
For the same reason you don't say Europe when asked.
I assume.
Just because there is a central gov't doesn't mean different areas aren't vastly different.
 
slit said:
For the same reason you don't say Europe when asked.
I assume.
Just because there is a central gov't doesn't mean different areas are vastly different.
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This is interesting, there were a few people in the topic with this answer. Do you guys consider the US to be a continent in the same way that Europe is?
 
My wife and I travel a lot, and when asked always say 'Vancouver, Canada'. Come to think of it, most Americans we come across usually just say the city, like Boston, or New York. I think they assume we've already figured out they're American.

Oh, except people from Texas I notice generally say 'Texas'.
 
Habit. America is so large that many people rarely ever leave, so if you get asked "Where are you from?" it is most likely from another American asking you what state you're from.
 
Gentleman Jack said:
I get the reverse happening, where I'll just reply 'California,' only to get 'yeah but where are your parents from?'

'Where you from?' ends up being a coded question for 'why is your skin brown?'
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It makes my blood boil when people ask this and then insist I'm foreign and not American because of my name.
 
Probably habit. Also the follow up question is usually asking what state anyway. It is very strange how different the states can be. Example: Going from Arkansas to Northern California was really different.
 
I'm sure a better image could be found and it needs to be shifted vertically a bit, but this is essentially why it's often felt to be nearly on par with naming your country in Europe, right or wrong:

usav_europe.png
 
Rafaelcsa said:
Hm, excluding really thick mid-west ones, I don't think I'm able to tell Canadian accents from American ones for the most part, so there's that.
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I've always wondered how well people can tell the difference between Canadian and American accents. This guy has the thickest Canadian accent that I know of, but I've never known how many people can tell just by listening to him.
 
Here's another thing, do people that aren't from here in America Fuck Yeah know Michigan as a mitten?

Life if I held my hand up to talk geography, would people identify that geographical representation or is that something we only annoy our compatriots with?
 
I've never been asked and I've never witnessed anyone from the US answer that question with a state. Every person I've asked this to was American in the America.
 
Rafaelcsa said:
This is interesting, there were a few people in the topic with this answer. Do you guys consider the US to be a continent in the same way that Europe is?
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No, but it's simple semantics. Compare Mississippi to San Fran. They might as well be on different continents. To Americans it's not black and white, it's just where they identity from. Besides when I go abroad and people ask, they usually ask specifically where if I gave the U.S. as an answer.
 
slit said:
No, but it's simple semantics. Compare Mississippi to San Fran. They might as well be on different continents. To Americans it's not black and white, it's just where they identity from. Besides when I go abroad and people ask they usually ask specifically where if I gave the U.S. as an answer.
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Hell, compare San Fran to Stockton.
 
There's perhaps a degree of (unintentional) ethnocentrism behind it due to typically never leaving the country, as well. China, India, and Russia are all fairly large, for example, but it is a lot more rare to hear people identify by more than their nationality. India especially has a great amount of diversity in terms of religion, languages, and subcultures. (The order of the countries also reflects the frequency I've heard people state what specific area of the country they are from by their nationalities.)
 
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