You can belong to a culture that strangers cannot identify by looking at you.

Belonging is not always visible. Language, food, faith, family history, the whole texture of where you come from can be entirely invisible to a stranger, so you carry a culture that nobody assigns you and repeatedly have to declare or let pass. Recognition and belonging come apart, and each direction has its own cost.

If you carry something unseen, you get to decide when it is worth explaining, and it is fine to decline. If you are meeting someone, hold off on the conclusion your eyes offered you. Asking where someone is from tells you less than asking what they grew up with.