Maya Lin, the famed designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, wrote the following in her book Boundaries in a chapter titled “Existing Outside.” It continues to be relevant…

Sometimes a total stranger - a cabdriver, for example - will ask me where I am from. I mutter, “Here it goes again” or I will respond “Ohio,” and the stranger will say, “No, no, where are you really from?” It used to upset me to always be seen as other - not really from here…not really American…but then from where? So I used to practically get into brawls with the person, insisting I was really from Ohio. At that point, more than a few have lectured me on how I shouldn’t be ashamed of my heritage. So now, practiced at avoiding conflict, I say, “Ohio…but my mother is from Shanghai and my father is from Beijing.”
The questioner generally seems satisfied.
But the question, however innocently it is asked, reveals an attitude in which I am left acutely aware of how, to some, I am not allowed to be from here; to some, I am not really an American.