Question: So, where ya from?

When people ask you where you’re from, what do you say?

And what does that, in turn, say about you?

I always go back to the source, Canada, because I was born there. But I’ve lived in an awful lot of different places. Surely I could say I’m “from” somewhere else and no one would be the wiser. Besides, sooner than later I will have spent more time living in the States than in Canada. And as I’m a dual citizen, I could just as easily say I’m from the US as from Canada.

But I never do.

(Although, sidebar: Thanks to the election of our new president, I’m actually feeling proud of this country I live in. Hooray!)

It seems dishonest to say I’m from somewhere I’m not (can you tell I’m Canadian?) but even just saying where I’m recently from is tricky. Because I lived with my family in Southern California for ten years. But I wouldn’t dream of saying I was FROM there.

Why? I don’t like the implications. I’m quick to distance myself from the shiny, silicone-botox-injected, faux-tanned, laser-teethy-bleached folks populating SoCal. (Please note: many people in SoCal are NOT any of the above things, they are gorgeous, deep and intelligent delights, but we’re talking about gross stereotypes and sorry, but if you say "Southern California" to most North Americans, they will and do think “vapid, eating disorder, tan, Hollywood.” They do. So I don’t want to lump myself in with them.)

I don’t want people to judge me based on my recent address. But here I am judging them and their ilk with the paucity of knowledge I have about their real lives. We all fall into stereotyping, but it’s dangerous.

But honestly, when people ask me where I’m from, I always say wherever-it-was-I-last-lived-but-I’m-not-from-there-I’m-from-Canada. I always skew north. And that’s a decidedly Canadian thing to do, to apologize for where you’ve lived. We tend to lower our status automatically when people ask us where we’re from, seeming almost contrite. But that contrition is bullshit, because we’re not sorry we’re from Canada.

We Canadian types tend to poo-poo American’s nationalism, but when it comes down to it, we are as rabidly nationalistic as they are, if not more so. We just couch it in passive terms, so it sounds like we’re putting ourselves down.

But we’re not. We just don’t want to look like show offs, so we undersell. Americans oversell. But both perspectives come from healthy senses of self-regard. Strong egos exist on both sides of the border.

Once in a blue moon somebody thinks I’m from Europe, probably due to my black clothing, angular haircut, and propensity to smoke on occasion (which I think I do just to prove that I can). I’m flattered, because Europe is large and European and thus exotic and interesting. But mainly because we don’t live there. If we lived there, Maine would seem exotic to us. It’s all a matter of perspective.

So where do you say you’re from when someone asks? Do you go all the way and claim the city, province or state of your birth, or do you blur the lines a little because you can?