Have you ever been mistaken for another race, ethnicity?

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15 Aug 2012, 7:42 am

I guess Eastern Europe.



dancing_penguin
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15 Aug 2012, 11:50 pm

lostgirl1986 wrote:
People have thought I looked Latino, Filipino, Chinese, Ukranian, Russian and Native in the past. Don't ask, I know some of them are way off. Sometimes I ask people what ethnicity they think I look like. I'll post a picture and you can guess. If you know my background please don't tell people, I want to know what people think I look like.


I'd also guess something eastern European -- Polish? From a neat generalizations chart I found (link), Latvian or Lithuanian would also be another guess (also eastern European).
(As a side note, I would suppose it is the relationship between the top of your eyes and your eye brows that led to the prior Chinese guess by someone.)

Personally, there were some random people at a place where I worked that seemed to have reached the conclusion that I was Jewish and asked me one day if I was. I said I wasn't, but then when I told my Dad about the incident recently, he told me a story about how I apparently do have a sort of Jewish relative or two a ways back. And then on my Mom's side, there are the mystery parents of one of my great grandpas, rumored to be at least half native Canadian; so, I end up with a bit more of a tan than I should considering how little sunshine I get.

Edit: I see later you have answered your question in another thread, and the guess was incorrect. (One of your answers was not in my chart, however, but does appear if I google for "average faces + [nationality which is not in the chart but that you still have left as a mystery in this thread].") Combining the two answers together and comparing your face with these two averages, it is interesting to see how they combine to partially create your facial features; from one we see the wider and rounder face, and the other pulls it all upwards giving higher cheekbones and gives you a thinner and wider mouth, for example.


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rpcarnell
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16 Aug 2012, 4:36 am

I am guessing Eurasian. I wish my eyes were as big as yours.


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16 Aug 2012, 7:05 am

zxy8 wrote:
I'm Australian, and some people think I am European. English and German were two. Also Swedish I think. It is probably because I am white with not much tan, and I have dyed blonde hair. Also I apparantly talk with an English accent. Sometimes I do it deliberately, but others times it seems I do it without knowing XD


People also say that I sound pommie and even english ex-pats ask me where in the UK i am from. I was born and raised in Australia.

It is hard to mistake my german heritage though. I am a 6'4", pale, blonde hair, blue eyes, round rosy cheeks.



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16 Aug 2012, 7:42 am

Solvejg wrote:
zxy8 wrote:
I'm Australian, and some people think I am European. English and German were two. Also Swedish I think. It is probably because I am white with not much tan, and I have dyed blonde hair. Also I apparantly talk with an English accent. Sometimes I do it deliberately, but others times it seems I do it without knowing XD


People also say that I sound pommie and even english ex-pats ask me where in the UK i am from. I was born and raised in Australia.

It is hard to mistake my german heritage though. I am a 6'4", pale, blonde hair, blue eyes, round rosy cheeks.


Lol, that's funny XD But strange though XD

Go you :D



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16 Aug 2012, 10:37 am

I have been mistaken for a black man on the phone before. I had a customer call in and did not want to speak to me because I was black. so I transferred him to my coworker. She was able to get his problem solved and he was happy to talk to her.

ME: Caucausin (half German/half Polish)
HER: Black

So we transferred him from the white guy to the black lady. And he thought we were both the other ethnicity. lol



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16 Aug 2012, 3:48 pm

Adventus wrote:
I have been mistaken for a black man on the phone before. I had a customer call in and did not want to speak to me because I was black. so I transferred him to my coworker. She was able to get his problem solved and he was happy to talk to her.

ME: Caucausin (half German/half Polish)
HER: Black

So we transferred him from the white guy to the black lady. And he thought we were both the other ethnicity. lol


:lol: That's pretty funny. I was surprised that he refused to talk to a black man! Can't he get fired for racism?



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16 Aug 2012, 6:09 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
lostgirl1986 wrote:
People have thought I looked Latino, Filipino, Chinese, Ukranian, Russian and Native in the past. Don't ask, I know some of them are way off. Sometimes I ask people what ethnicity they think I look like. I'll post a picture and you can guess. If you know my background please don't tell people, I want to know what people think I look like.


I'd also guess something eastern European -- Polish? From a neat generalizations chart I found (link), Latvian or Lithuanian would also be another guess (also eastern European).
(As a side note, I would suppose it is the relationship between the top of your eyes and your eye brows that led to the prior Chinese guess by someone.)

Personally, there were some random people at a place where I worked that seemed to have reached the conclusion that I was Jewish and asked me one day if I was. I said I wasn't, but then when I told my Dad about the incident recently, he told me a story about how I apparently do have a sort of Jewish relative or two a ways back. And then on my Mom's side, there are the mystery parents of one of my great grandpas, rumored to be at least half native Canadian; so, I end up with a bit more of a tan than I should considering how little sunshine I get.

Edit: I see later you have answered your question in another thread, and the guess was incorrect. (One of your answers was not in my chart, however, but does appear if I google for "average faces + [nationality which is not in the chart but that you still have left as a mystery in this thread].") Combining the two answers together and comparing your face with these two averages, it is interesting to see how they combine to partially create your facial features; from one we see the wider and rounder face, and the other pulls it all upwards giving higher cheekbones and gives you a thinner and wider mouth, for example.


Good guess though!



I am actually Filipino/Dutch and I have some Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French that goes way way back. Good guesses everyone.



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16 Aug 2012, 8:17 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:

Personally, there were some random people at a place where I worked that seemed to have reached the conclusion that I was Jewish and asked me one day if I was. I said I wasn't, but then when I told my Dad about the incident recently, he told me a story about how I apparently do have a sort of Jewish relative or two a ways back. And then on my Mom's side, there are the mystery parents of one of my great grandpas, rumored to be at least half native Canadian; so, I end up with a bit more of a tan than I should considering how little sunshine I get.



That's one reason the Aryan philosophy doesn't make any sense. I'm sure a lot of white supremacists have someone part Jewish in their family history, and they don't even know it.



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16 Aug 2012, 10:09 pm

Venger wrote:
dancing_penguin wrote:

Personally, there were some random people at a place where I worked that seemed to have reached the conclusion that I was Jewish and asked me one day if I was. I said I wasn't, but then when I told my Dad about the incident recently, he told me a story about how I apparently do have a sort of Jewish relative or two a ways back. And then on my Mom's side, there are the mystery parents of one of my great grandpas, rumored to be at least half native Canadian; so, I end up with a bit more of a tan than I should considering how little sunshine I get.



That's one reason the Aryan philosophy doesn't make any sense. I'm sure a lot of white supremacists have someone part Jewish in their family history, and they don't even know it.


Even though this invokes Godwin's law (that suggests an internet discussion of sufficient length will approach the topic of Hitler or Nazis), Hitler himself is said to have been likely of partial Jewish descent. See link for a bit about the DNA testing that was done recently to find out more.


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16 Aug 2012, 10:29 pm

dancing_penguin wrote:
Venger wrote:
dancing_penguin wrote:

Personally, there were some random people at a place where I worked that seemed to have reached the conclusion that I was Jewish and asked me one day if I was. I said I wasn't, but then when I told my Dad about the incident recently, he told me a story about how I apparently do have a sort of Jewish relative or two a ways back. And then on my Mom's side, there are the mystery parents of one of my great grandpas, rumored to be at least half native Canadian; so, I end up with a bit more of a tan than I should considering how little sunshine I get.



That's one reason the Aryan philosophy doesn't make any sense. I'm sure a lot of white supremacists have someone part Jewish in their family history, and they don't even know it.


Even though this invokes Godwin's law (that suggests an internet discussion of sufficient length will approach the topic of Hitler or Nazis), Hitler himself is said to have been likely of partial Jewish descent. See link for a bit about the DNA testing that was done recently to find out more.


It's pretty funny that most of the high-ranking Nazis didn't look anything like their ideal pure-aryan with the exception of Reinhard Heydrich.



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17 Aug 2012, 12:23 am

Yep. I have olive skin that tans very easily, have high cheekbones, small slits for eyes and dark wavy hair (not so dark now...lots of gray). I've been mistaken for Hispanic and Native American. In truth, I'm a mutt -- a combination of lots of things. Mostly Scottish on both sides, with a big glob of Ukrainian and a splash of Chinese on my mother's side, and some English, Irish, German and Hungarian on Dad's side.



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17 Aug 2012, 7:08 pm

With blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin that burns easily, nope.



ItalianStallion1119
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18 Aug 2012, 1:14 am

Haha yep...I am Italian but I have pretty tan skin...couple that with a lot of facial hair, I have been viewed as a Mexican, Cuban, Filipino, and even African-American.



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18 Aug 2012, 11:52 am

I've been mistaken for Russian by Russian immigrants here, although I am 1/4 Russian (Belorussian to be specific) and another 1/4 Polish by ancestry. A few people have said it's not just the Slavic facial features, but that I have the gait and countenance of a Russian. It's never happened to anyone else in my family, even the ones with more Slavic ancestry. Russian culture is more introverted than American, and smiling in public isn't normal-- so maybe its a combination of my shy and socially reticent nature combined with the 50% Slavic ancestry.

One time a walking on the street smoking a cigarette some started talking to me in Russian and I just looked at him puzzled; then in broken, heavily accented English he told me he needed a light and then said: "You do not speak Russian?! You are not Russian? How can you not be Russian?! You loooook so much Russian!" Then another time in a college class I arrived about 10 minutes early on the first day sat next to a girl who was speaking Russian to her friend seated on her other side, after class she approached me and asked if I was Russian, she said she thought I was listening in on their conversation, just pretending to be a non Russian-speaking American.

Funny thing is, at the time I didn't know much about Russia or have much interest in it, but since then, Russia has become one of my special interests/obsessions, and now I've learned to speak Russian pretty well. I don't speak it well enough to pass as native, but well enough that many Russians say they think I must be a native speaker of some other Slavic language.

I was also once thought to be Hispanic-- considering I'm tall, pale, blue eyed and light brown haired I dunno how that works.

A few times I've been thought Jewish because my Slavic surname looks Jewish to many Americans, and a few times because I knew so much about Jewish topics and can even speak a bit of Hebrew (the history of the Jewish people is a special interest of mine). OTOH another time, at a Jewish acquaintance's wedding, where the attendees were probably 90% Jewish or so, I was asked, "you're not Jewish are you?" by a woman there. I asked how she knew and she said I "didn't look Jewish."

Not an ethnicity, though often carrying certain ethnic connotations-- but some people have also assumed I must be Catholic when I revealed an immense knowledge of the history, practice and ecclesiastic procedures of the Roman Catholic Church (another special interest).

Once I someone said I look Italian, no idea why.

Once an English person said he was shocked to find I'm less than 1/4 English by ancestry since I looked "so English."

Several times I've been told I look like I'm a European (from Europe) though I'm born and bred in America. One time it was because I was smoking a pipe, which is not common for twenty-somethings in America (though I don't believe it really is in Europe either). Another time at a party someone told me they thought I looked like I was from Europe-- I think it may have been because I was being such a wallflower that they thought I didn't speak English well. Another time I was eating a croissant and drinking coffee while smoking my pipe on my college campus. Someone approached me and said they thought I was European because the pipe-coffee-croissant combo and "the way" I was eating/drinking seemed "so European."

When I actually was in Europe (Austria) for two weeks, people never seemed to think I was American 'til I opened my mouth and revealed poor German language skills. My family joked that I would be easily picked out as American since I didn't try to wear "more European" clothes and even kept wearing my Baltimore Orioles cap, but the opposite. Several acquaintances also said they tried to dress "more European" when in Europe so as not to be too conspicuously American, yet were still usually picked out as American tourists very easily.

So maybe one's introverted nature can make one seem less conspicuously foreign when in a country with a more introverted culture; and the same introverted nature combined with one's personal eccentricities can make one seem a foreigner in his own country.



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18 Aug 2012, 1:37 pm

TE,

Very much so, I think, in terms of appearance, because with Americans people generally expect the ugly American stereotype: they expect you to be loud, combative, and sloppy. When you don't fit it, you come off much less conspicuously. I suspect many American Aspies often do not come across as Americans.