What happened while I was working at my part-time job at Kumon several years ago…
I used to work as a grader/instructor at the Kumon learning center. A boy around 5th-6th grade sat down next to me to have his paper graded by me and asked me this question. I know my response was a bit acrid, but I wanted to get my point across to this student. I may have let it go if he had not made that face at me… but that expression he made to stereotype Asian people’s looks, and the fact that both my coworkers and other students who were in the same room (and heard him) but did not say anything to the kid… just pushed me over.
It was his honest answer to my question, but I suspect that it is probably something that he picked up because of his environment than something he came up with by himself. I do hope that my response gave him a bit of perspective, at least that he should be more cautious about the weight of his words and assumptions.