Overheard at breakfast this morning:
Waiter: Good morning
Young woman: Good morning. (Then in Spanish – making a big assumption) Is the orange juice fresh?
Waiter: (in English) no, it is not freshly squeezed.
Young woman: Okay. Where are you from?
Waiter: Bangladesh
Young woman: Ah! India!
Waiter: No, not India. Bangladesh. India is Hindu. I am a Muslim.
Young Woman: You’re from Pakistan!
Waiter: No.
You could run a seminar on it…
I almost did run a seminar on something like that once. (The topic for the week was ethnicity and an extensive discussion about identification, ascription, knowledge and power developed after two students from new EU states started talking about how they had felt when working in the UK hospitality industry and British guests had been asking them questions about where they came from that they perceived as nosy. It turned into one of the best seminars we had during that whole course unit.)
I wonder what Indian Muslims and Bangladeshi Hindus would have to say to that?