Good English: Where Are You From?

In July 2018 I booked an Uber to go see the Incredibles sequel. I am in Ottawa, Canada, a new country with different ways.

My otherness grabs me like a warm hug from that aunt you don’t particularly like, but one your parents say you have to respect. The cabbie looks at my name again, and again and again — Tré Ventour. “Where are you from?” he throws at me. I saw this coming ten miles out, the question that’s been part of my life since I was old enough to speak. I translate this question as “Why are you here?” or “This place isn’t for you people” — or more potently, “Why are you brown in Europe or America?” — or in this scenario: Canada.

Back in England, at my university, on the third floor of the library, there are often conversations of this nature going on. In the evenings, the Third Floor is where many of the campus’ Black students like to work. I go there one day in January, to be asked “where are you from?”to the clitter clatter of keyboards. I answer this question honestly. “Northampton,” I say. Like the cabbie, what they want to know is why I’m brown in Europe. How did I get here? I was born in London, England but grew up in Northampton. My mother is a Northamptonian but my father was born in Lichfield, growing up between there and Birmingham. However, they were born to Windrush Generation parents, leaving those sunlit islands for a new life for better opportunities.