So Lee, do you think these people are trying to make you feel bad when they ask you questions like "do you speak Vietnamese?"? I think they subconsciously want to put you in a box to better understand you, like all of us. They may ask these questions to understand you little by little, or simply to have a nice conversation. Feedback?
It's the thread of conversation not the individual questions that are most striking. Sure if the ask that and I answer honestly and they accept it that's one thing. As they should. But usually they do not accept the answer and turn the discussion into a condemnation of my lack of asian-ness. That tells me that subconsciously they do not want to learn. That tells me that they want to put me in a box and make me stay there.
It is a good question- also something I hadn't mentioned was that people actually get upset sometimes and the questions become demands. Instead of, 'do you know vietnames?' It becomes, 'you must learn vietnamese. You must go to vietnam.' But it's only for their satisfaction, to appease their vision of who I'm supposed to be, not mine.
