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People ask each other where they're from, even though it gives you precisely zero amount of concrete information about a person, and then proceed to paint a picture going forward of that person based on assumptions about other people from there. They also do it to show interest, but it doesn't stop the painting.

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Mostly I do it to make conversation. I am almost never asking the question of random strangers, and probably in most cases the social context tells me more about the person than their growing up in Winnetka or Brookline would.

It is true that fifty years ago many people in Denver (and no doubt not only Denver) regarded New York as the embodiment of The Other and were very quick to pick up on a New York accent. But this was silly.

So you say where you grow up has zero influence on who you are?

No, it does. I'm saying asking someone where they're from yeilds no facts about that person if all you get back is a name of the country. It doesn't mean they definitely grew up there, or that they hold citizenship. But it's easy to just take the name of the country and assume a bunch of things about the person based on things you heard about people from there. There may be statistical probabilities there but no certainty. People have done it since forever and it's essentially the same mechanism as OP described.

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