In our increasingly globalized society, the question “where are you from” has gotten mighty complicated for people. While it used to incite some inoffensive small talk, the question now raises a litany of asterisks and asides. For some, it even carries racist undertones, seen as a less direct way of asking “why don’t you look like the rest of us?” For myself, getting asked where I come from either requires me to lie for brevity’s sake or to recount the entirety of my family history: “I was born in Brazil and spent a lot of my childhood there—but my schooling…