In California a lot of "things" deem it necesary to know your ethnicity. I find it quite offensive actually that they differate between non-white and white hispanics and Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Burmese, Indian and Taiwanese and Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Samoan. Yet they lump white, African-American, and native American into one category each.

I don't see why it's important for others to know your ethnicity at all.
And here I thought it was because the Caucasus was believed to be the Urheimat of the Indo-European peoples. I should have known better.

From where I come many people demand that their ethnicity is known. There can be many reasons why, for example ethnic pride, avoidance of unpleasant situations like others assuming you are of another ethnicity and then referring to you as such (I personally get very emotional if someone assumes I'm a Czech or a Serb), when you apply for college or work they can accommodate you better by arranging teachers or co-workers who speak your native language, and generally people will take care not to insult you or do something inappropriate like joking about your ethnicity without your consent.

Well, for some things they do ask, like driver's license/ID card, but not for job applications or college admission applications, at least not in my experience.


Indeed. The concept of classifying humans into "races" based on superficial physical similarities is quite obsolete in modern anthropology, as far as I know.

Why on earth? That's silly. You're all Slavs, aren't you? How different can you look?

People assume I'm Greek all the time based on my surname (and I am not at all; I'm Polish and so is my name) but it doesn't offend me. I just explain my actual ancestry.
I admit this would be useful, but here everyone knows English, except some recent immigrants. Those who don't could make a request to have their language accommodated.
I'd rather people didn't joke about my ethnicity at all.

What does my appearance have to do with my ethnicity? Appearance is a part of race description. Ethnicity is language and culture not physical appearance. Sure, some ethnicities are exclusive to just some racial types, there aren't really any black Slovaks out there. You Americans have a very different understanding of ethnicity than we do apparently.

And you call me a Slav you got some explaining to do. Slavs is a term reserved for science, I'm a Slovak and I don't like being called a Slav outside of its context.


Then where is the freedom? I joke about other ethnicities all the time and people joke about mine. Joking is allowed in most situations. I don't like when people cannot take a good joke about them. I joke about us Slovaks all the time and like when someone makes a good joke about us too. They better just get right I'm a Slovak, otherwise I could get insulted.

Take this website for instance:
http://www.vicevi.net/
It's a catalogue of jokes. Like most sites of its type it has a list of categories. Many of those categories show ethnic or national groups. If you look on the left you'll notice some of them.

What I mean is, how can people tell you're a Slovak unless you start speaking Slovak (which they might confuse for Czech) or something.

And I'm not American, though people might think I was.
Why? Poles are Slavs. I'm a Polish-Canadian, ergo I'm a Slav. A Libyan is an Arab and a resident of Guangzhou is Chinese, even if their own ethnic group matters more to them.
People have the freedom to make these jokes. I just don't. They seem innocuous but they often hide some very malicious subtexts.

They ask me or I tell them what I am.


I am a Slav, but you better don't call me a Slav because I am first and foremost a Slovak. I am a Slav, but you should never refer to me as such unless an appropriate situation comes up and you have my consent. Most Slavs will definitely find it insulting if you call them Slavs or god forbid try to compare them with other Slavs. Refer to them by their ethnicity and not some language group they have vague understanding of, a language group in which other ethnic groups are also counted and most likely ethnic groups they don't like. During WWII the Croats hated the Serbs so much that they, Croats, declared and taught in all schools and universities that Croats were not Slavs but Goths only so that they would not be placed in the same group as the Serbs.

This is similar to when you couldn't understand why Greeks don't see themselves as European and do not like being called Europeans by others. I repeat for the hundredth time: facts of reality are irrelevant. People will describe reality as it fits them. I remember once reading a good essay about Balkan peoples' perception of Westerners and it was that to them Westerners describe reality in an odd and different way, always using logic and trying to be rational, instead of being selective and accepting only what fits them.


If you cannot tell an innocent joke from a malicious one then you lack experience with them. There is an appropriate situation and company for every jokes, you just need to learn when and how to tell them. Avoiding them completely is a bit dull in my opinion. I personal love jokes about Slovaks.

Then where is the freedom?

You have the freedom to call me what you want but there a consequences for that.