I was attending one of my courses at uni and the whole class got into a conversation about when it’s appropriate to speak Finnish or English to someone. One of my Finnish classmates said that if the person “looks like a foreigner, [she] will automatically speak English to them.”
I’m a first generation POC American with immigrant parents, so hearing this statement made my blood boil. I quickly responded, asking her ” Ok , but what does a foreigner looks like?”
After hearing her answer of “darker skin, dark hair, brown eyes…” I then made the example that our white Dutch classmate sitting in the room is also a foreigner and does not speak Finnish. “So how would [you] know whether to speak Finnish or English to him?”
I could see in her face that she was feeling shy and embarrassed to answer that, but I explained that foreigners have all different skin colors, hair colors, and eye colors and that even in the country I was born in, grew up in, and identify with culturally, people still assume I cannot speak my native English because I also look like a foreigner. I then suggested to her that if she speaks to someone, she should speak Finnish first because we are in Finland, regardless of what the person looks like. If the person does not understand and asks you to speak English to them, then switch to English.