(Scott Meyer’s website)
.
Deborah Fallows, in the Atlantic, has been writing about “the curious geography of American greetings“ — what strangers at a gathering ask each other in an attempt to establish common ground. Her latest post on the topic:
“Hello. Where did you go to high school?” When so many of you nominated this question as your natural conversation starter, as I mentioned here last week, it was tempting to dismiss it as an example of how Americans never quite get over high school… But you wrote with such enthusiasm, thoroughness, and conviction, that it looked like something else was going on. So, I decided to look again…
From your descriptions, it became clear that “Where did you go to high school?” is another way of asking “Where do you live?” But you aren’t seeking a simple answer of name or geography with either of those questions. You are using those questions to seek valuable information about the socio-economic-cultural-historical background of a person. It helps you orient that person in the context of the world as you live it and interpret it…
I can understand the context behind the question, but in forty years I’ve never had it asked of me as a conversation starter. Possibly because I left a community where “What’s your parish?” was as much sociocultural granularity as anyone needed, for a midwestern state university town (“Where are you from?” — back in the 1970s, when I answered “the Bronx” the most common responses were “Oh, so you’re Jewish?” and “I know someone from [general NYC area], do you know them?”) before ending up in an area north of Boston where the conversation-starter is one’s town…
Is “Where did you go to high school?” actually that common, or do Fallows’ readers not share much overlap with Balloon Juice commentors?
**********
And apart from weird memories, what’s on the agenda for the start of the work week?
raven
Normally it would follow “where are you from originally”? If some one is from the same city that is a good way to narrow it down further. I will say Chicago but I really lived in the western suburbs. I can always say I went to GED!
Hal
I think my favorite all time opening greeting directed at me was back in junior high when a fellow student who I did not know, or had ever had a conversation with asked me: “What color’s yo momma? Are you black or Puerto Rican?”
raven
Oh yea, when I was overseas and talked to indigenous personnel they would ask “where you from”? When they heard Chicago the immediately would say “Ah , Al Capone”!!!
Stella B.
In California it’s assumed that you were born someplace else. “How long have you lived here?” would be a more likely question.
Schlemizel
Nope, maybe at college but never as a general party starter. “What high school did you go to?” isn’t going to tell you much anyway.
I went to John A. Johnson High School – what info could you glean from that? Its a pretty stupid question unless the people are relatively close in age as neighborhoods change over time so a kid graduating from Johnson today would not have the same socio-economic background as I did.
Schlemizel
@raven:
We went to Boston on vacation a few years ago & took the kids to the childrens museum. I was wearing my Minnetonka Fire Dept. T-shirt & the ticket seller asked where that was, I said, “Minnesota”. Her response was to ask me if I was a farmer, when I said I worked in IT security her response was “Oh, so how is farming this year?” I answered “I don’t know, the Indian attacks have been so bad this year we hardly ever go out of the fort.”
raven
@Schlemizel: Hahaha!
raven
@Schlemizel: Hahaha!
raven
@Schlemizel: Hahaha!
Schlemizel
Just realized that the article is from Deborah Fellows – This isn’t a legacy hire is it? Sorry, I have never run across her & the article is not particularly well written or thought out (in my totally useless opinion). The first thing I though of was could she be someones daughter at Atlantic who really is not ready yet?
Schlemizel
@raven: @raven: @raven:
Biggest laugh I have ever gotten at BJ :)
dr. bloor
Deborah Fallows’s readers appear to be a remarkably parochial bunch.
Mustang Bobby
@Stella B.: The same goes for South Florida. It’s unusual to run into someone who was born and raised here, even more so to meet someone who’s parents are native. The usual question is “Where are you from originally?”
The only time I’ve been asked about my high school is when I’ve met someone close to my own age from near my home town of Toledo, Ohio.
HeartlandLiberal
In Alabama, first thing your new neighbor or person you have been introduced to will ask you is “So, what church do you attend”?
I am 68 and have lived four states and overseas in Europe, and never ONCE has anyone asked me what high school I went to. Seriously, I can imagine such a question in only the most parochial communities which experience very low population turnover. Otherwise, the question has zero meaning. Maybe it is popular in gated communities, which is probably where the author of the article lives.
Central Planning
I meet new people all the time and never have I asked, or been asked, what high school I went to. The only way I see that happening is if the person was from my town and we had two high schools.
Usually “Where are you from?” works fine and doesn’t seem weird.
Schlemizel
@Mustang Bobby: When I lived in Cocoa Beach “Where you from?” was always followed with “What made you move to Florida?” Those two questions told you a lot about a person.
BillinGlendaleCA
In college, usually the question was: “Where are you from?”. Being that it was a large state university people were from everywhere. We had a large group from Hawaii, they all went to the same high school.
kindness
I suspect that is a poor greeting because most of us don’t spend much time idealizing our high school years. I never think about them unless an old facebook friend from high school says something about them.
JPL
What an odd question.
dmsilev
Yeah, “where are you from” is the usual opener in my experience. I’ll generally answer “Boston area”, and only get more specific if someone asks for more specifics.
OzarkHillbilly
Sounds like all her readers are from St Louis. VERY common there.
Josie
@Schlemizel: Those are the two most common questions in South Texas also, since one has to travel through a lot of country to get here. The second question is more commonly phrased, “How in the world did you wind up here?”
Ultraviolet Thunder
“Where did you grow up?” usually works. The answer reveals a lot about a person’s values and expectations.
henqiguai
@Schlemizel (#6):
Too funny. When we moved here to Massachusetts we would be asked where we were from. When ‘We moved here from Minnesota’ was heard, a number of the locals did ask, in all seriousness, ‘Is that in the United States?’. Thus started the long slid of our estimation of the general run of New Englanders…
Lee Rudolph
@Schlemizel: Isn’t James’s last name “Fallows”? Or have you just primed me for thinking of farming-related terms?
No one, by the way, has ever asked me where I went to high school at a party.
Botsplainer
Where did you go to High School is the standard, all-purpose Louisville greeting. It serves two purposes – the first, to identify whether there may be shared acquaintances (this is a VERY chummy town, and people pride themselves of being part of a number of social circles), the second, as a socioeconomic marker not so much to use as a bludgeon, but instead to identify proper approaches to appropriate conversation.
In other words, you might not initially bring up the last innovative play you saw at the Humana Festival of New American Plays if someone says that they went to Fairdale, Bishop David/Holy Cross, Doss or Southern, but you might want to talk sports, NASCAR and guns instead. Conversely, the Collegiate, Country Day, St X, Trinity, Sacred Heart or Ballard graduate might be interested in hearing about your three week trip to archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. And then there are many flavors of schools in between.
It is an imprecise way of managing social interaction, but as a starter, it helps steer things.
Mustang Bobby
@henqiguai: That question “Is that in the United States?” is so common to people from New Mexico that the monthly magazine New Mexico has a column “One of Our 50 Is Missing” wherein they regale readers with tales of being treated as foreigners when they say they’re from Santa Fe. The license plates say “New Mexico USA” just to make sure. But when I lived in Albuquerque, it was a frequent question from people calling from out of state. Ejole!
OzarkHillbilly
@HeartlandLiberal: HEh. Anytime I first met someone out here, at SOME point in the conversation I was always asked, “Do you belong to a church yet?” Inevitably followed by “We have a very nice one if you would like to come to service this Sunday?”
I always tried to be nice and polite when I turned down their most kind offer, but I have a feeling my face always said, “I’d rather get my fingernails pulled.”
Geeno
I’ve been asked that, but only in surroundings where it’s assumed everyone at the party is a local. Then the question has a bit of “why don’t i recognize you?” about it.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: When I lived in Evansville, Indiana, I got that a lot. My reply, “I’m a Quaker,” usually got a frozen smile followed, in no particular order, by “Is that a real church?”, the usual joke about breakfast cereal, or “But you drive a car,” confusing the Quakers with the Amish.
WereBear
I KNOW!
In my small Florida town, everyone went to the same high school.
Tyro
“Where did you go to high school?” isn’t uncommon among people who grew up in NYC. It places them geographically/ethnically and serves as a way of finding common ground (“Oh, my mom/cousin/best friend went there!”)
Mark C
Grew up in the NYC suburbs and have lived in the city since college. I’ve never been asked about HS, sometimes I’ll get the “where did you grow up” question or “where did you go to school”, which is about college not HS.
cminus
I’ve never encountered “where did you go to high school?” as a conversation opener with any sort of frequency but I’ve been told by friends who are natives of Delaware that it’s relatively common there, typically followed up with a question about someone the interlocutor knows who would have been at the same high school at about the same time. Small state.
Around here (Washington DC), the classic opener is “what do you do?”, meaning “where do you work?” but I sometimes try to be a bit more holistic about my answer. “The best I can.”
cminus
@Mustang Bobby: In South Bend, Indiana, people generally knew who the Quakers were, but occasionally I’d get the “but you drive a car!” line, or even “but they don’t exist anymore!” from people who somehow got us confused with the Shakers. Since moving to Washington DC the confusion has totally disappeared, even though I do not, in fact, own a car anymore.
Matt McIrvin
I get “what high school did you go to?” sometimes, but only from people who also grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia or nearby areas.
WereBear
@Hal: I’ve given it some thought, and now I think “What color’s yo momma?” should be an icebreaker everywhere.
IowaOldLady
I can’t imagine anyone asking me where I went to high school. The place has been torn down and the teachers are probably all dead.
Colleague of mine is the son of Lebanese immigrants who gets asked where he’s from all the time. “Toledo,” he says. And then Iowans say, “No, where are you from ORIGINALLY.”
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Oh yeah! I lived in Bourbon, MO for years population less than 1200. They had 12 different churches, 6 alone were some type of Baptist. Felt like the Baskin Robbins of the Bible Belt.
gelfling545
When I was attending a state college where about 50% of students were local I might have been asked this a few times once it was established I was a local. Other than that I have never been asked this question as a conversation starter. Ever.
Baud
I typically greet people with “What the fuck are you looking at?”
Which is probably why I tend to spend most of my time on the intertubes. :-(
Tokyokie
I don’t like answering the question when it’s infrequently asked of me, because I feel obligated to establish the context by which I wound up at a Swiss boarding school despite not having a trust fund. And the high school I attended in the States has now been a middle school for far longer than it was ever a high school and never has been displayed in a Terrence Malick movie, unlike the town’s high school that is still a high school.
Gretchen
The first time I met my future mother-in-law, she asked me where I went to high school, which I couldn’t understand since she’d never been to Detroit. When I answered “Immaculata”, she smiled approvingly, and I realized she was tring to find out if I was Catholic without asking.
RSA
@dr. bloor:
That was the first word that came to my mind as well. My high school is three states away; other places I’ve lived it’s been as far as 4,000 miles away.
I do like the last question she received: “What’s your story?” I wouldn’t phrase it that way, but it’s better than “What do you do for a living?” (as if work is the most important thing about a person). In my experience the best common ground question is a variation on “What do you do for fun?” or something that asks people what they find interesting.
Boudica
@Matt McIrvin: Lake Braddock alum here…
maurinsky
I live in New England. We don’t really start conversations with people we don’t know.
IowaOldLady
@Gretchen: You went to Immaculata? I went to St Rose, which in a completely different league. And I suppose that demonstrates the usefulness of the question in some contexts.
raven
And if you are a dreaded vet, “what outfit”?
Baud
@raven:
Now you’re just inviting the trolls. :-)
Gretchen
@Schlemizel: Deborah Fallows is the wife of James Fallows, who’s a regular at the Atlantic. She wrote a good book called “Dreaming in Chinese” about learning the language after the two of them spent several years in China. I think they’re traveling around the country now doing some long-term writing project about America. I haven’t been following it.
raven
She said oh no
Guadalajara won’t do
beltane
@Botsplainer: I used to get asked the “Where did you go to high school?” question all the time in NYC. It was a way of letting people know which “crowd” you were likely from and which places you likely hung out. And, yes, it was a way to locate mutual acquaintances. No one asks this question at all where I live now, and if someone asks me “Where are you from?” they almost always mean what country I am from since I’m quite a bit darker than the average person around here.
C.V. Danes
I used to watch He-Man, but only because Teela was such a babe…
bk
@raven: My (then) wife and I were sitting in a cafe on the waterfront in Marseilles during the summer of 1978, and struck up a conversation with a husband and wife from (if I recall) Holland. When he asked us if we were American, and we said yes, he then asked “Cleveland, Ohio?”
Cervantes
Never been asked (not in that tense; not to the best of my recollection).
In kindergarten: “Can I play with you?”
And really, not much has changed since then. For example:
In many areas, Boston certainly, this question (“Where do you live?”) is often a thinly veiled proxy for “Are you in my social class or aren’t you?”
beltane
It turns out that I went to the same high school as my grandfather, a fact I was never made aware of until last year because 1) the high school had changed its name due to a “commie” scandal in the 1950s; 2) my grandfather had died twenty years before I was born; and 3) no one in my family was remotely interested in me or whatever high school I was attending.
Sourmash
Never asked, never been asked, unless it is like a recent situation where I was introduced to a guy as being from Chicago, then it was to which town, then which HS since there were two, three if you count the catholic one. But as a greeting? Never. Strange people out there.
OzarkHillbilly
A good story with a good ending that if you think about it will depress the hell out of you:
New Jersey man escapes 5 year sentence after dash cam footage clears him, indicts cops
raven
@bk: I’m pretty good at accents. It’s weird that Chicago, Upstate New York and places in Washington state are very similar.
Betty Cracker
@Mustang Bobby: True, especially in coastal and South Florida. In the interior and northern portions of the state, being a native isn’t as uncommon. I’m fifth generation, which is very unusual. I think there are like 10 of us.
jibeaux
Unless you are from the same town, or you are asking because you know someone from that town and you want to see if they know each other, I don’t know why you’d ask that. Here it’s more usual to ask where someone is from originally, or what they do. You will sometimes still get what church you go to, but fortunately that’s becoming less of a thing.
Aimai
@dr. bloor: the only time anyone would ask you where you went to highschool is if they already knew gor a fact that you were from their hometown or small state where there is such a limited number of highschools thst this designation trlls you everything else youd wsnt to know about social ties and experiences.
raven
@Sourmash: When my dad went to York there were EIGHT schools in the entire Chicago Suburban League.
hoodie
The most common I’ve heard is “where are you from?” but I have heard the high school inquiry in St. Louis, where a lot of my family is from. That practice may be attributable to the parochial/segregated character of St. Louis, particularly the northern and western suburbs. The weirdest I’ve heard is from some friends from NJ, who geographically locate based on freeway exit numbers.
beltane
@hoodie: I’ve been to family events on Long Island, NY where the standard introduction includes “What mall do you live near?”.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
More than ten. Last time we were in your neck of the woods, not long ago, just for kicks we went to Cross Creek to commune with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and her orange groves. Lots of Florida crackers were visiting — we had a great impromptu picnic lunch with some of them, and everyone stayed until the host — that day a local historian, Chamber of Commerce type — kicked us all out at dusk.
PS: How is the fourth generation doing? As well as can be expected? In good spirits?
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Er … thanks?
Matt McIrvin
@IowaOldLady:
This is a perpetual annoyance to Asian-Americans: “No, where are you REALLY from?” There are a lot of white Americans who grew up in places and times in which there was a recent influx of East Asians, and someone East-Asian-looking was likely to be an immigrant, but the children of those immigrants are now grown.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: Same in Cincinnati, which is actually 2 towns – the East Side and the West Side. It’s a question only for obvious natives; there are so many corporate transients and not-from-Cincinnati folks that obviously it wouldn’t tell one anything to ask them.
But the answer is a marker for many things, and can steer further topics into an appropriate area. It’s a weird question I would never ask, but I understand why people do so – and heard it as recently as last year. From a woman trying to determine what (or who as acquaintances) we might have in common – she new my profession and (unrelated to it) professional degree.
Anya
NNax: Maureen Dowd Slams Obama on Benghazi
Anything new or is Maureen Dowd running out of ideas?
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: sorry….
Suffern ACE
I guess I go with the “what do you do?” I have more follow up questions I can ask about occupations, especially if someone is enthusiastic about their work.
beltane
@Anya: Maureen Dowd ran out of ideas 20 years ago. She was never much of an ideas type writer to begin with and she’s just deteriorated from there.
Cervantes
@bk:
That’s hilarious. Bet you did a double-take.
It could make sense if they were following the news from America for some reason, as that was the year the city of Cleveland defaulted on its debt. It was the first time such a thing had happened in the US in decades. More likely, I suppose, is that they had relatives or friends in Cleveland and were just trying to ask after them. Or perhaps one or both of them had gone to graduate school at Case (or Case Western).
NotMax
Never have been asked that and never in a million years would ask that outside of someone telling a story of something unusual about the school (e.g., Everyone rode lavender-painted donkeys from class to class? Where was that?). Struck that people who do use that as an icebreaker are either demonstrating a very limited capacity of the art of conversation or are those who lazily find it somehow gratifying to pigeonhole and stereotype others (or both).
In any case, have little curiosity in where people are from as initial conversation; much more interested in where they are going.
Personally, have maybe three memories of high school, all of them mundane in the extreme.
@Schlemizel
Small world after all. I taught at that school at one time.
Cervantes
@beltane:
Seeing as how the NYT gave her the column in ’95, I’d say you’re precisely correct.
Matt McIrvin
@Boudica: Chantilly here.
But for senior year I went to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. That was the first year it operated, and for the first three years they had some seniors from across the county attending classes there while the first real graduating class grew up, I suppose to give their staff some advanced students to teach.
At the same time, the preexisting Thomas Jefferson High existed in the same building and was being gradually phased out as the last graduating class grew up, and most of our not-science-or-math classes were mixed classes with TJHS. It was an odd situation with some tensions.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE: What if they are really excited about microbiology or particle physics?
cmorenc
In the south, the traditional conversation-starter was to ask some question about your family. Which usually sort of led into the questions of where your roots are from, where you went to school, etc. But it always focused on what family and personal connections you had.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin:
Marginally better than: “You speak English really well for a foreigner. Where are you from?”
(I bet Amir Khalid has tales he could tell.)
Suffern ACE
@OzarkHillbilly: cool with me. I don’t want to talk shop, per se, and get into the details, but find out how the person feels about their work.
Matt McIrvin
@IowaOldLady: I’ve actually been to two of my father’s high-school reunions (though I’ve never been to any of mine). He went to Bridgeport High in Bridgeport, Nebraska, and high-school reunion time seems to be a big deal there: a large fraction of everyone who used to live in Bridgeport comes back.
raven
@Cervantes: Did you have a pound party?
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
If you’re going to apologize, then please apologize for this:
A story linked from the page you sent me to.
Speaking of which, I can’t wait to see what happens to those police officers. Thanks (seriously) for calling attention to the story.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
After getting through business, I usually ask my patients “where do you live?” 90% of the time, it’s somewhere in Iowa. If they happen to be from my home town (duluth, MN) I ask “what part” which will usually tell me what school, if that even matters to me (it does not.)
Basking in the (relatively) early morning sun, drinking coffee, and listening to music on my headphones. It’s going to be a good day.
Face
This from TPM ends with a money quote from a Rethug:
He then added, “I would, however, like to see them denied a seat at a restaurant, denied a hotel room, and perhaps an oil change”.
These fuckers are clinical.
sw
“Where did you go to High School?” I would find that just fucking weird. After all these years and many migrations I suppose my only response would be “Some god forsaken town in the mid-west, why do you ask?”
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Matt McIrvin: I have a friend named Ernie Mumbailastname. His parents are 2d generation; their parents were from India. He frequently is asked “where are your from?” When he responds Wisconsin, the question becomes “but where are you really from?” A variant on the response to “Hi I’m Ernie Mumbailastname,” which provokes “but what’s your first name?” His reply is “Ernie” which gets “no. what’s your Indian name?” His reply to that is also “Ernie.” He’s a much better sport about it than I would be.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE: I asked because a caving buddy of mine was a doctoral student in particle physics (Stanford) before he switched to karst geology and his wife has a doctorate in some branch of microbiology. For some reason all our conversations end up at, “So, where you been caving?” ;-)
aimai
@maurinsky: Too right.
Cervantes
@raven: Only in the sense that everyone was eating the food we had brought. We always pack too much and, apparently, inexplicably, no one else had come prepared for a picnic. Anyhow, it was fun.
(PS: As you may know, you can pick your own oranges at the Rawlings homestead and eat them there or cart them away.)
aimai
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): This reminds me of when I was studying Hindi and we were learning the construction “guy from”–believe me people ask you where you are from all the time, in India and Nepal because, look–if they don’ta lready know you you are from somewhere else. In fact in my village in Nepal the way to ask, politely, who you were was “you look like a new person?”
Anyway the construction in hindi is ” Ma X walla manche hoon” “I Cambridge guy (from) am.” Someone in the class, supposedly, had completely thrown off the teacher by saying “Ma walla walla walla hoon” because he was from walla walla.
Daniel's Bob
Senior class trip, 1970, New York City, my friend and I went for breakfast on Sunday morning dressed in our “Sunday” (and only) suits. A busboy briefly conversed with us in heavily accented but perfectly serviceable English. “You from California?”, he asked. “No, Illinois”, we replied. His face lit up with a huge grin. “Welcome to America”, he cried as he shook our hands.
raven
@Cervantes:
It was a chapter in Cross Creek and a very bittersweet scene in the film.
eta I’m guessing you knew this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: If you thought that one was bad, try this:
Judge orders guns returned to blind FL man who ‘stood his ground’ against drinking buddy
And no, it is not from the Onion.
Keith G
“Where did you go to (high) school?” is a perfectly workable way to start some conversations. I do believe there are time, place, and demographic considerations that would lead it’s usefulness to vary a bit. But then, I like asking questions and getting to know about folks in an expedited manner.
aimai
@OzarkHillbilly: Yup. I read that yesterday. Truly baffling. This country is nuts.
beltane
@Cervantes: I remember reading her first, or one of her first, NYT columns. It was one of those transformational, hate at first read experiences.
low-tech cyclist
“Where did you go to high school” would make sense after you knew the other person grew up in the same general area you did. Otherwise, it would make no sense at all.
If someone from, say, Colorado asks me what high school I went to, the name of my school wouldn’t mean anything to them, even if my high school still existed, which it hasn’t for a few decades now.
Cervantes
@raven:
Yes, in that social context (speaking of folkways), a pound party used to be where you’d take your extra food — a pound or two of it — when you went to visit an impoverished family (hence my response to your question about our picnic, where we supplied the food).
Thanks for the Rawlings paragraph. It brings things back to mind.
(PS: Re that film: just remember, as the Chamber of Commerce type kept reminding everyone, it is not a reliable guide to the book, or to Rawlings.)
Southern Beale
Where did you go to High School? No one has ever asked me that. Maybe because I live in a city where so many people are from somewhere else.
“What do you do” seems to be the most popular conversation starter around here. This is a very American thing and something I’ve learned people from other countries find very offensive and bizarre. I was involved in an international training thingie last spring and had this very same conversation with people from Central America and Africa. The non-Americans all agreed that our habit of asking people what they do for a living as a conversation-starter would be a big social faux pas in their countries. It was something they had a lot of trouble adjusting to when they came to the U.S.
Gex
@IowaOldLady: Ugh. That is the worst. I get that sometimes. Fucking racist assholes who believe only white people are born in the US.
Suffern ACE
@OzarkHillbilly: yep. I would go “gee, a geologist, like Indiana Jones” if I wanted to end the conversation.
Southern Beale
@HeartlandLiberal:
“Where do you go to church” used to be asked a lot in Nashville, too. But the city has grown and changed so much, you can’t guarantee that someone goes to church at all anymore.
I was asked that questions a couple of times when I first moved here, and I always thought it was a way of labeling people, to determine if you’re worth getting to know. “OH you’re CATHOLIC.” “Oh, you’re JEWISH.” “Oh, you’re a HOLY ROLLER.” {mental note: other. Move along…}.
Fucking obnoxious.
I worked for a music magazine ages ago and when I’d have to attend Christian music events I was occasionally asked “how did you come to know the Lord.” First time I was asked that I about choked.
aimai
@Southern Beale: Yes, it is a big no no on the other hand the Brits have a billion work arounds for finding out what they feel they need to know about your class status and income. I have a friend who married into an upper class british family (she is both american and half japanese /half chinese) and she used to go into stitches describing the complex ways people would spelunk each other’s histories (not hers because she was straight out of the system) by eyeing cars/homes/watches/paintings/school networks.
Fester Addams
@WereBear: A: As white as two light-bulbs!
wagon
When I moved to Baltimore a while back I kept getting the question, “Where did you go to school?” I’d tell them where I went to college then they’d say, “No, high school.” It was a way to see if you were a private or public school kid. I always tell people that the only folks that went to private school where I grew up were either super religious or kicked out of public school.
aimai
@Gex: You know I have asked white people that question, because I’m interested in ethnic history and everyone here is from somewhere else. The only person who I’ve ever offended was my husband’s brother’s wife who is one of those conservative white people who think of themselves as “pure american” because their point of immigration was so long ago. To me, qua immigrant from Russia/jew every one is from somewhere else and it may be one of the most interesting things about them or a facet of their lives which is cherished and important.
beltane
@Southern Beale: What do you do?=How much money do you make and is it worth my time to continue this conversation? I’ve always found this question to be incredibly rude and obnoxious though it is the one most commonly asked here.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE: That would certainly end the conversation!
tokyo expat
Living overseas it’s “Where are you from?” and it means country. Though my colleague Dave, when asked where he’s from always answers, “I’m from Ohio.”
You really never know where someone is from here. One of the part-timers in my department is Korean-born, adopted and raised in the UK until high school when his family moved to America where he finished out hs in Wisconsin. Think Asian with a Liverpool accent.
In Japan people ask where your hometown is and when they ask me I flounder. I mean I grew up in NY, but the folks moved to CA when I was in college in IA and CA is where I go back to when I visit. I’ve pretty much lived my entire adult life overseas, so where the heck am I from?
ericblair
@Southern Beale:
“Met her backstage at the Grammies. Nice kid, but an awful lot of hair.”
Southern Beale
@beltane:
I know that some folks view “what do you do” as another way of asking “how much money do you make” but I don’t view it that way at all. To me it’s just a way of finding out more about a person’s life. You’re a doctor? That’s interesting, what field? You’re a student? Cool, what are you studying? Or, you’re a teacher? Cool, so am I. What grade? Oh, adult special ed? That’s fascinating, tell me about your students. There are so many more questions to ask and other ways for the conversation to go.
What high school did you go to is weird. Of course, I’m over 50 years old. High school was a looooong time ago. I’m not sure I even remember it.
Funny though, in 20 years are people going to ask “what high school did you go to” and have a bunch of “I was homeschooled” responses?
Southern Beale
@ericblair:
LOL I’ll have to remember that one if I ever go to another Christian music event. Which isn’t likely but hey …
Southern Beale
I guess if you can’t ask people what they do and you certainly don’t want to talk about religion that just leaves the weather.
“Wow, how about that weather, eh? Crazy!” and then that opens the door to “Al Gore is fat” and other denialism.
Politics has ruined EVERYTHING.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess I am so used to stories that show some policemen in a terrible light that I was just happy to see one with a happy ending. Not only did the innocent guy get off, but the bad police were indicted. Yay!
Also, your comment did make me think of something I have never quite understood…
Eww, this smells/tastes/is disgusting – here, try it.
rikyrah
Brian Beutler: The right’s sociopathic new scam: Using Americans to harm their own health plans
GOP-aligned groups are now exploiting innocent people who need Obamacare — by having them campaign for its demise
Every time an enemy of the Affordable Care Act promotes a new Obamacare “horror story,” the law’s supporters, and a handful of diligent reporters, are given an exciting new opportunity to assess whether the story really stands up to scrutiny, or whether it’s a product of exaggeration, ignorance, malice, prejudice or a combination thereof.
But at the same time, it places Democratic politicians on the horns of an awkward dilemma, because even if the story is completely bunk, it’s still a human tale, and no elected official comes out well by questioning a constituent who claims to have been harmed in some way.
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/24/the_rights_sociopathic_new_scam_encouraging_americans_to_oppose_their_health_benefits/
Gex
Are my posts just going into moderation?
ETA: Yes, they must be. Oh well. FYWP.
OzarkHillbilly
@tokyo expat:
The planet Earth.
jake the snake
I have asked local people what high school they went to, but never as a conversation starter.
The local schools are pretty mixed socio-economically so that does not tell much other that what
area of the county you live in.
The most common would be what do you do, or where do you work. Church might be second,
but people don’t ask that as much as they would have 20 years ago.
Xjmueller
In Chicago many kids went to catholic schools. Four kids from one catholic grammar school could go to four different high schools. Asking what high school you went to helps identify you and your friends. Do you know folks in common – kids from your parishes? Kids who went to St Rita HS were (are) a different group and culture than those from Br Rice, Mt Carmel, Leo, or Marist. It also says something about where you live in the city or burbs. It marks your tribe.
My kids went to public school In the burbs. Because the lower and upper grade districts often have different boundaries, your classmates in eight grade may not be going to your high school and kids from other junior highs and middle schools will. Same rule applies to them.
beltane
@Southern Beale: I see your point, but I guess I’m more interested in who people are than in what they do to pay the bills. To reduce one’s who identity to a job title seems dull, dreary, and very, very American.
OzarkHillbilly
@tokyo expat: Along the same lines, a buddy of mine was applying for a drivers license (I think) and when he was asked where he was born he said, “Bermuda.” The woman then asked, “Are you an alien?” He replied, “No, I’m an Earthling.”
She did not laugh.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I read that yesterday. Well, I sort of read that yesterday. My head was about to explode by the time I got to the beginning of the second sentence. I had to close the tab in my browser and walk away.
Paul in KY
I have frequently used ‘where did you go to HS’. Usually only use it with people who I know are from Kentucky.
WaterGirl
The only time I have been asked that question is if it’s already established that you grew up someone near the other person.
Even on BJ, lots of us grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and once that’s established there have been conversations like, you grew up in Berwyn? What high school did you go to? I went to Fenwick.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I couldn’t read it either. The headline said it all. Question: Are we sure Miami is in Florida?
beltane
@Paul in KY: It’s a question generally asked of people who are from the same area as oneself no matter where the particular area is. Obviously, no one will ask that question in a mixed crowd of transients because the answers to this question will not have any meaning.
I met my husband at a party. Though he is not American and mostly grew up overseas, he did happen to go to a suburban NY high school that was the arch-rival of my mother’s HS. This led to a lively, hours long conversation about the old neighborhood.
eyelessgame
“Where did you go to high school?” is extremely common in Hawaii, though asked in local dialect – “What school you go? What year you grad?” … and that’s because everyone you meet will have gone to a high school you’ve heard of.
IowaOldLady
One of my husband’s co-workers is from England. When he was buying a car, the salesman said, “You speak English really well. How long have you been here.”
NotMax
@eyelessgame
Must travel in different circles, or perhaps it is a generational marker. Have lived in Hawaii for more than 30 years and never been asked that, nor have heard it asked.
Chris
“Where are you from?”
“Bethesda, Maryland.”
“Really?”
“No, but the truth is more complicated.”
/what happens when you toss “where are you from” at the child of an FSO and a foreign national who was born in yet another country.
cat
“Is “Where did you go to high school?” actually that common, or do Fallows’ readers not share much overlap with Balloon Juice commentors?”
I think in New England what town you are from provides the same information as what high school you went to. This seems to be because the towns have their own highschool while in the rest of the US many towns would goto the same highschool because the country controlled the education system. The counties would build highschools specifically along socio-economic borders. I was bussed by a highschool because we lived in a wealthier part of town. When the county built a new school they built it in a place where the richer suburbs would goto it.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Usually, if I feel moved to ask the question, I try to phrase it as, Where is your family from originally? and throw in a little bit of my family background for context (My grandfather came over from Italy as a toddler). It definitely gets a better response than my old, Where are you from?
chopper
@IowaOldLady:
i’m surprised that what follows aren’t references to corporal klinger.
Mnemosyne
Also, a frequent conversation that my blonde, blue-eyed friend would have in California with other people from Michigan:
Them: “So what part of Michigan are you from?”
Her: “Detroit.”
Them: “Really? Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills?”
Her: “No, DEE-troit. The city.”
Them: (slowly backing away)
Linnaeus
@Mnemosyne:
Having grown up in the Detroit burbs myself, if I heard that someone grew up in Detroit, I probably would follow up with “what part?” or “what area?” I wouldn’t assume, though, that they were from a specific community. Although it’s usually a safe bet that a white Detroiter is not from the city proper.
Mnemosyne
@Linnaeus:
Usually, but not always, and other white people were always horrified to discover that she’d grown up in the ‘hood (though at least she was above 8 Mile). It was like she had cooties.
Mnemosyne
@Linnaeus:
This same friend lived in Inglewood (CA) for several years, which is predominantly African-American. She always felt totally safe because EVERYONE on her street knew exactly who she was since she was the only white woman living there.
IowaOldLady
@Mnemosyne: I have had that exact same conversation. I am a white woman who grew up in Detroit.
Paul in KY
@ericblair: ‘Think she might be related to Joe Cocker’.
Paul in KY
@beltane: Being from ‘Kentucky’ is the same area, geologically speaking :-)
Also, I used to do some reffing & am quiet familiar with most state HS, so I can usually pick out alot by hearing where you (the Kentuckian) went to HS. Also familiar with alot of Cinn schools.
hb27517
@WereBear: hee hee!
Conversation starter? Nobody asks what high school you went to unless they already know you grew up in the same town they did. Which, in my case, means they already know what high school
you went to. Usually folks from my hometown want to know why you left.
I live in North Carolina now and even though I’ve had decades to assimilate, I sometimes get “You from around here?” This gets translated in my head to: you’re not from around here, are you? A bit of gentle paranoia, I don’t get out much.
Bill in Section 147
@raven: You said what my first thought was. I have never asked, been asked, or discussed High School without the reference first being identifying someone from the area in which I grew up.
And then, if they are from my town, I use it more in the hope of finding a connection, like, “Oh they had a great basketball team when I was in high school.” or, “My sister dated a guy from there.”
Also the place I grew-up was just reaching 100,000 people in the metro area and now it is almost 2,500,000 so unless someone is my age it is ridiculous to even assume they even know the 20 or so High Schools I can remember.
ljdramone
@Botsplainer: Yeah, “where did you go to high school” is like that in Baltimore too, usually phrased as “what school did you go to?”
It’s definitely used as a socioeconomic marker by native Baltimorons.
Not that I would know this firsthand or nothing, but if by chance you have to appear in a Baltimore-area court for some reason and the judge realizes you graduated from the same high school as his wife, say, things may go better for you than they might have otherwise.
different-church-lady
@Schlemizel:
That’s a relief — because I skimmed the name, I had been thinking, “This is remarkably shallow subject matter for James Fallows”
As for high school, I’ve never heard it even once, but that’s probably because I grew up in a place and time when there was only one high school in each suburban community and nobody sent their kids to private school. So there wasn’t really any point in asking. The only variety was the regional technical high school, and you didn’t usually have those kinds of conversations with your auto mechanic anyway.
Bill in Section 147
@Matt McIrvin: A guy that owns a Fed/Ex or Mail/Stop business near me is dark skinned and looks like he or his family is from India. Most of our dialogue has to do with shipping stuff and the closest we ever came to the subject was when he mentioned something about him being pumped that Vijay Singh won a golf tournament because they are from the same town in Fiji.
Anyway, I was in his shop and some guy asked him casually where he was from and after naming our town he moved to the ‘originally’ so he answered Fiji. The customer seemed to get a little peeved like he was being played, he finished his business and then as he was just about out the door he said something in a foreign language (Hindi would be my guess) and the shop owner responded in kind, this guy said, “Gotcha.”
Shop owner looks at me, I shrug, he shakes his head. Thank goodness we Americans are past all that.
Mnemosyne
I remember hearing one time that during Elvis Presley’s first radio interview in Memphis (?), the interviewer made a point of asking Presley what high school he’d gone to. That was to reassure listeners that Presley really was white despite “sounding black.”
Helmut Monotreme
@Boudica:
Ditto to 3 years at Lake Braddock…
Growing up as an Army brat the question “where are you from?” used to bug the shit out of me. I understand that people were mostly trying to make conversation, but also trying to make assumptions about me, guided by their sterotypes of “people from region X”. And, having lived in Wisconsin since 1988 I get it, there’s a lot you can know about a person if you know where they are from, but it still bugs me when people think they can learn all they need to know about a person from the answer to that question.
Betsy
When I went to South America with a friend from there, I learned from him that “what do you do” is a weird, rude question. A lot of people have crappy, low-wage jobs and to have to reveal that as the VERY FIRST identifying information about themselves is kind of shitty.
So I never ask that question (unless the other person opens up the topic first). Instead I say something like, “What do you like to do when you’re not at work?” or “What do you do for fun?” If they love their job they may talk about it, …otherwise it’s more fun to talk about other things than work, anyway.
I’ve come to enjoy seeing how long I can talk to someone or know them without knowing what they do to make money. It really isn’t the most important thing about someone. Unless you think of people as occupations, which I don’t like to.
Now if they just love to talk about their work, that’s another thing (and it could be good or bad for conversation!)
burnspbesq
Halftime score: Women’s Rights 24, Notre Dame 3.
Judge Posner’s opinion denying the Fighting Irish their preliminary injunction against having to submit the form in order to get exempted from the so-called “contraceptive mandate” is a thing of beauty.
http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2014/D02-21/C:13-3853:J:Flaum:dis:T:fnOp:N:1295328:S:0
Nutella
It’s common in St Louis and other cities that are big enough so you don’t know everybody but small enough so you feel like you have to know socio-economic status of people you meet. High school gives you that plus religion if it’s a Catholic school.
Interrobang
I hear that question a lot, but usually only from people who are locals and around the same age. In my case, people are definitely looking for the “who-do-you-know” factor, because everyone knows everyone here like it’s a small town, and the population of this burg is inching up toward 400K.
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Can you say more?
IANAL, but I made it to page 16 before my eyes started to glaze over. It appeared that things were not going the way Notre Dame would like, and I skimmed a bit after that, but at the end it appeared to be a total reversal.
A summary from an attorney would be helpful.
protected static
@Nutella: Yeah, in St Louis, you can frequently get religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status all in the answer to that one little question.
mclaren
Fallows is a zillionaire writing for other zillionaires. Apparently no one ever responds to the question “Where did you go to high school?” with: “Why do you care? What business is of it of yours? Why are you so interested in my socioeconomic class? Observe my behavior and deduce my socioeconomic class.”
But of course that involves refusing to roll over and cringe like a good little doggie before your masters, so that’s considered bad manners in Shithole America, the mecca of failure and crematorium of imagination.
evodevo
@Botsplainer: Same in Maysville, Ky – basketball rivalries are taken VERY seriously in Ky. The statewide high school basketball tournament every March is attended by almost everyone in the state. WHERE you went to HS is VERY important.
opiejeanne
@Schlemizel: We get that same question a lot in Seattle, but it’s generally friendly because almost everyone who has asked it is from California, like us.
pam
@raven: That’s funny. I am from upstate NY and when in London was asked if I was from Chicago, because of my accent.
JoyfulA
In Philly, it was about which parish. As a Protestant, I didn’t find this much of a conversation starter.
Here in the southern part of Pennsyltucky, we have a great many Asians of many varieties and different generations. (I’m not sure why.) No one asks what country they’re from.
We also have a lot of Southern US transplants. Because of accents, people generally ask where they’re from.
The only place I’ve heard of as asking about high school was New York City, which unsettled my coworker who expected more sophisticated conversation in a Manhattan nightclub.
pluky
@cminus: The prestige of Sidwell Friends’ might have something to do with that.
pluky
@Helmut Monotreme: My response (army brat here) if the questioner is annoying is “when?”
PhilbertDesanex
Never been asked what high school, but ‘where are you from’ is common. I’m a CA to Seattle transplant 35 years. One week I was visiting in East Texas, it was ‘oh, you’re from Washington ( pregnant pause ) are you from anywhere before that ? ” I’m from California, near SF’…. .
On another occasion, talking with someone from the East Bay, it came out I’m from Berkeley, to 2nd grade anyway. ‘Which totally makes me or what. ‘What elementary school did you go to?” Evidently there are only a few, and which one placed me on precisely somewhere on the yahoo pole. For anyone from anywhere else just say Berkeley and that’s that.