15 Answers to the Question: “Where are you from?”

Where are you from?

This question sometimes makes me laugh. It sometimes makes me agitated. It’s no one’s fault, I just don’t always have the energy to explain why this is such a complicated question. I usually answer depending on my mood or how much I can sense the person really wants to know.

Summer festival in Japan with my yochien sensei

1. I am from the U.S.
2. I am from the Midwestern U.S.
3. I am from Minnesota.
4. I grew up in Japan.
5. I am from Minnesota, but all of my relatives live in the Southern U.S.
6. I am from Minnesota, but I am not really Minnesotan (I had never stepped foot in MN before I moved there at the age of 13).
7. I will always have a special place in my heart for Minnesota.
8. I was born in Alabama, but I never lived there.
9. My parents were living in Saudi Arabia when I was born.
10. My mom flew back to Alabama to be surrounded by family when I was born.
11. I took my first airplane ride back to Riyadh when I was 1 month old (unless you count the previous flight in the womb).
12. My parents have southern accents, but my brother and I do not.
13. I spent 8 years of my childhood in Japan.
14. I learned to speak Japanese in a Japanese kindergarten.
15. I spent the rest of my childhood years in a military DoDDS school.

I think I’ll stop there. If you ask me this question, you could get any, some or all of these responses from me.

See what I mean? It’s a complicated question for Third Culture Kids like me!