WAYF, an acronym for the question, “Where are you from?” It is a seemingly harmless question to some, yet it is deeply rooted in assumptions and microaggressions.  The question itself is pointed and personal, but to us it is as broad as “where have you been?” “What have you seen?” “What has made you?” When broken down like this, it is a deeply serious question to ask a total stranger.

So, they say instead, “But no, like really –where are you frommm?” The slow accentuation of the words and the drawn-out “frommm” really clarifies the assumptions behind the question. Then comes a brief moment of social anxiety and panic: does that mean geographically from, your nationality or, more than likely, it is a question of your exact ethnicity the inquirer is after. A presumption about the way you look is being made, and it says that you don’t belong, whether it’s intentional or not. An answer to that question isn't always simple.

We at WAYF believe that a question as big as where a person is from is not only where they come from, but more of what has made them. Maybe they have no connection to their ethnicity, maybe they have no connection to where they are physically from.

Where you are “from” is a fusion of culture that is you; it is where you have  spent your early years, it is where you have traveled to, it is where you have grown into -or out of- yourself, not just the confines of geographical origins. Where you are from is what the people were like that raised you, or didn’t for that matter, and lastly, where you are from is your family. Whether you were born into it,  chosen to be part of it, or chose it yourself:  these are the experiences that make up where you are from.

So here is WAYF NYC: decorative and wearable answers to the most relentless question.