“You look Russian!”

A Case of Mistaken Ethnic Identity, and On Being Carded When I Was in My Thirties and Forties

This post is prompted by an encounter I had a few hours ago in the grocery store around the corner in which the woman behind the counter was asked if I was Russian.

Though rare, over the years, every so often in a conversation with someone I’d get the question essentially framed as “What are you?” My reply is, “I’m an American.” Invariably the response is a puzzled look on the questioner’s part and a follow-up along the line of: “Are you Indian [Native American]?” To which I reply, “No.”

I am an American. My parents were born in this country, as was I and my siblings. That makes me a native-born citizen (Trump administration notwithstanding). In short, I. Am. An. American.

Now, if you ask me what my heritage is, that’s different. With respect to that, I’m Norwegian (father’s side) and German (mother’s side). I know, “Zimmerman” is a German last name. Also, Jewish (something I discovered after moving to New York City). Blame the federal immigration officer changing the spelling of my paternal Norwegian grandfather’s last name in the ledger when he was registered. Which reminds me of a classic regional ethnic “Ole and Lena” joke (and, boy, are there lots of those back home, along with Lutheran jokes in the Dakotas and Minnesota which have large Scandinavian heritage populations). Here’s the joke (one of many variations):

A cousin goes to a family reunion to meet for the first time his uncles. His mother brings him over to a table where they’re sitting and begins to introduce him to them. She points at one and says, “He’s your uncle Ole Oleson.” She then points to another, “And here’s your uncle Ole Oleson.” She points to a third, “This is your Uncle Ole Oleson.” This goes on for a couple of more uncles, each with the name Ole Oleson. Then she gets to the last man. She says, “He’s your uncle Sam Ting.”

The kid looks at his mother and then at his uncle, baffled. He then asks his uncle, “How come you have a Chinese name?”

The uncle, speaking English with a heavy Scandinavian lilt, says, “So there I was in line behind my broders. That immigration feller there, he asks my first broder, ‘What’s your name?’ My broder answers, ‘Ole Oleson.’ When my next broder steps up, the immigration feller asks for his name, and my broder says, ‘Ole Oleson.’ This here question and answer thing goes on to all my other broders. Finally, there I am in front of that immigration feller and he asks me my name, and I point to my broders and tell him, ‘Saim t’ing.’”

Yeah, it helps to be from the region.

I’ve a history of being misidentified, most commonly with regards to my age. I’ve always looked younger than my age (now 73). I was carded well after I turned twenty-one-years-old. Two carding incidents stand out. The first occurred in my late thirties when my wife, infant son, and I flew to Denver to attend my sister Mary’s wedding.

Mary and I went to the local liquor store to get the wine and champagne for the reception. We loaded up our respective carts, and she preceded me to the check-out. She went through without a hitch. I pushed up to the check-out counter and as I began putting my bottles on the counter the check-out woman said, “I need to see some ID.”

Upon hearing that, my sister stopped abruptly, turned around, and stared at me with a WTF expression on her face. I sheepishly looked at her, shrugged my shoulders, and showed the woman my driver’s license.

I’m four years older than my sister.

Boy, did I hear about that on the drive back to her house!

The second similar ID request happened about a decade later, in the 1990s, in San Diego. This time I was in my early forties. I was executive editor of Topps Comics, and we had a booth at the San Diego ComicCon. A co-worker and I were taking a lunch break and decided to go outside the convention center and grab a bite at a local restaurant. We walked around and saw a Hooters outlet and decided to go in. We sat down and when the waitress arrived we gave her our order, with both of us ordering beers to drink. The waitress looked at me and said, “I need to see your ID.” I did a double-take and asked her if she was serious. She was. I looked at my co-worker, who was about twenty years younger than me and whose age had not been questioned, and said to him, “You’re my witness.” I pulled out my wallet and showed her my driver’s license. I got my beer.

All of that to say . . . I’m now getting to the Russian anecdote. Yeah, it took a while, but the thing is, it sparked these memories.

When we sold our house in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood of Brooklyn and moved deeper into the New York City borough to the neighborhood of Midwood where we bought a co-op apartment, we landed in a multi-ethnic neighborhood that includes Pakistanis, Azerbaijanis, Uzbekistanis, Russians, Hasidic Jews, amongst others. The grocery store around the corner features in its storefront sign the Uzbekistan flag. Periodically I see a van unload goat carcass which are carried into the store’s meat department for processing. Weights are labeled in liters, not pounds, and typically I hear conversations in a Slavic language.

So, earlier today I picked up some stuff for dinner and when I was at the counter the woman behind it spoke to me in a Slavic language, to which I answered in English, asking her to repeat. She then asked me, “Are you Russian?” I told her I was not. She then said, “You look Russian!” I thanked her, silently thinking that if that were truly the case, I’d be in big trouble with my Ukrainian friends. I explained to her my heritage. She reiterated how much I looked Russian—a first. I paid for my groceries and left.

That caused me to remember another case of mistaken cultural identity. This was in the 1980s in my visit to Paris in the winter (a fun long story as it involves the woman who became my wife). So long as I kept my mouth shut, whenever I met a local and had to interact with him or her, that person always initially thought I was French.

Then I opened my mouth and spoke.