Where are you from?
A simple question with a complicated answer.
The question I get asked the most is "Where are you from?". It comes in many varieties, such as "Where is your accent from?" or "I hear you have an accent, can I ask where it is from?" or people will simply add a polite "Do you mind me asking..." in front of the question. Sometimes, when we are out and about and people hear us chatter in our Flemish dialect, they'll try guessing what language we are speaking. Usually that guess is either German, French, or Scandinavian. No one ever guesses Flemish or Dutch. Not that I blame them, it must be a challenging language to guess if you are not familiar.
When we first moved here, I didn't mind the question. I still felt very much like a foreigner, almost as if I were just passing through rather than residing in a different country. Sometimes people would assume we were just tourists, and I usually would not even bother to explain that we were actually living here now.
As time passed and our new country started feeling less new, and after we got our green card and bought our first house here, the question started to feel more daunting. Not because of the many times that I still have to answer it (our standard response is "We're from Belgium but we moved here for work a couple of years ago", which typically suffices), but because of what that question symbolizes in my mind. I am neither American nor do I feel 100% Belgian anymore.
There are aspects of American culture I can’t embrace. I'll never stand in line at a drive thru when I can also get out of my car and walk inside to place my order. I'll never eat ice cream in my car. I'll never buy pre-packaged bread. I'll always shake my head in misunderstanding and murmur “why?!” every single time I enter a public restroom, look at that big gap under and on the sides of the door and wonder if anyone can see me pee (it’s no fun having to wonder, I can tell you that). I'll never wear sweatpants or leggings as my daily attire. I'll never understand the love for guns, nor do I ever want to understand it.
Conversely, there are aspects of my former daily life in Belgium that I am certain I couldn’t adapt to anymore. Everything here is bigger. You name it, it's bigger - houses, cars, streets, parking spots, appliances… You get the picture. I can fit three sets of sheets (ours and the two sets from the kids’ beds) in my washer at once, whereas in Belgium, for sure it would take three separate cycles. People are so much more polite, and then you have to take in consideration that I live in the Midwest, where people often perceive themselves as less polite than those in the southern states. I have fully embraced the convenience of using credit cards for nearly everything as I've come to realize how much advantages come with that (as long as you can pay off your credit card debt every month obviously).
Although there is much to be said about American healthcare, I appreciate how much more thorough medical visits are here. I can say the same about my kids’ education. The system certainly has flaws but at some levels I wish I’ve had received the same education as they are getting. It's also a relief not to pay half of your paycheck to the government and it's liberating the government doesn’t control almost every damn aspect of your life. Seriously. Covid did it for me. Following the news, reading and hearing about the ridiculous number of rules the government had issued, for months on end, living with the set of Covid-rules we had in Michigan would be considered a walk in the park in comparison.
So here I am. A seemingly simple question that has grown complex: “where am I from?”. The answer has become more difficult as the years go by. I was born, raised and built a family in Belgium but my kids are now being raised in the US and will likely be more American than I'll ever be. I expect to never fully feel a sense of nationality again. It took me some time not to get lost in that idea. Who I am no longer includes a nationality and that’s okay. There's uniqueness in that.