A little background: I am Chinese American. I live in a university town in the Midwest that is fairly multicultural, but that is also surrounded by farming communities that are generally 100% white and very insulated.
I work at a magnet teaching hospital that is affiliated with the university here. The problem is, that many of the patients from these rural communities get transferred here. They have a tendency to say really awkward things to me.
For example:
"Your English is really good!" (English is my primary language)
Or
"Where are you from?" And then they don't believe me when I insist that I am, in fact, from Midwestern America.
Or
"Would you ever go back to China?" No, why would I do that? I'm a citizen and this is my home... They continued to look puzzled and then said, "but why not?"
Or
Asking me a zillion questions about what China is like, and continuing to ask them when I've politely explained that I probably don't know any better than they do.
Or, my favorite is when gentlemen who are World War II vets start speaking Japanese to me, and look confused when I don't understand. (Actually the Japanese came over to china and committed horrible atrocities... But that's another thing entirely).
Generally I am polite, and patient with these patients. Most of the time i try to have a sense of humor abut the situation. i know they aren't being intentional in their insensitivity, but it still grates on me that despite growing up here, they insist on treating me like I'm a foreigner. I find that if I try to correct them, it just leads to things being awkward. "actually English is my primary language that I speak, much like you don't speak polish, mr. Wienawski (not an actual name)"
At the same time, if I ignore it, then it continues with the patient making my race and heritage a constant topic of conversation.
Has anyone else dealt with this before? How did you deal with it? Should I just ignore it, or should I try to politely correct them, if appropriate?
