If you were to meet Amishah and ask where she is from, she would first say "Australia".

But if she was pressed further, she would probably tell you she is of Malaysian and Finnish descent.

The 16-year-old is proud of that heritage, of being a woman of colour and of the ways it defines her.

But Amishah wants those who ask where she is from, moments after meeting her, to have a think about what they are really asking of her.

"I was born here, so if Australia isn't the right answer, what answer do you want me to give?" she questions.

Amishah on her mum's lap, second from right, with her brother left, cousin, centre, and grandmother, right. ( Supplied: Amishah )

This is what it's like to be asked where you're from

If you are perceived to be "racially different from the white norm" like Amishah is, you are likely to have been asked where you are from at one point or another.

That is according to Dr Jessica Walton, a senior research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

Amishah says it happens to her at least once a week — though it can happen more regularly depending on where she is and who she is around.

She wishes it would stop.

"Often I'm just meeting someone for the first time and their second question after asking my name is 'where are you from?' or like, 'what are you?'

"When I get asked where I'm from, it makes me feel different — and not different in a good way.

"It makes me feel like they just want me to tell them I'm not from here, that I'm not normal," she ruminates.

Despite repeatedly being asked where she is from, Amishah says she does not have a prepared response to the question.

This is because of the inner turmoil she says she experiences every time it is asked.

While Amishah says she often does not want to speak about her identity with people who are near or perfect strangers, she also feels the need to be a "good" person of colour.

Amishah explains: "I feel like I shouldn't have to tell [the person asking] where I'm from, but then I still feel this sense of obligation.

"And so I often just say I'm Malaysian and white, because that ends it," she says, before exhaling in exasperation.

Amishah, with her brother, right, often ends up telling people her ethnicity to end the conversation. ( Supplied: Amishah )

Some people have told Amishah she takes it all too seriously

Amishah says she is sick of people telling her to take the question as a compliment.

"[People have said] you know, 'they're just trying to figure you out', or 'they're just interested', or like, that I should take it as a compliment that they're asking me," she says.

"But they don't actually want to know where I'm from. They want to know why I look the way that I do.

"So if someone's asking you where you're from, it's not necessarily a compliment. It can be quite othering — I don't take being called 'exotic' as a compliment."

This is why Amishah says those who react negatively to people of colour bristling at the question "where are you from?" should stop and think about what they are asking.

'If you're not white, you attract attention'

The 2016 census may have revealed a "fast-changing, culturally diverse nation", according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), but of the top four reported ancestries for Australians, three were countries with traditionally white populations: England, Ireland and Scotland.

The fourth was Australia.

Those four ancestries represented 62.3 per cent of responses.

Dr Jessica Walton says stories like Amishah's, second from left, provide important representation. ( Supplied: Amishah )

Amishah feels this is reflected in how others treat her, saying "whiteness is what's not questioned and if you're not white you attract attention".

La Trobe University associate professor of language in education, Dr Donna Starks, is familiar with Amishah's interpretation of the question "where are you from?", having conducted a 2017 study looking at how 642 Australian young people respond to it.

She says there are a few ways people tended to understand the question, boiling down to location, family ties, appearance or a focus on the past.

"A large number of people [regardless of race or ethnicity] took the question as just a question that requires an answer," she says.

Others said context was important for them to work out how to respond.

Dr Starks says this is because "if you're asked a question, you interpret that question in ways that relate to who you are at a particular moment in time".

"The question, 'where are you from?' is a really difficult question because there are so many different ways you could answer it.

"So if you have someone who has come from another location, or who has an accent, or who looks somewhat distinct … and they are asked the question over and over again, what happens is, it really impacts your identity."

The reason the question impacts identity comes back to history

Dr Walton agrees with this and explains why this can happen in an Australian context specifically.

"Among the first acts of Parliament was the White Australia Policy. The aim with that was to populate the country with people who resembled other white people," she explains.

The White Australia Policy was abolished by 1973. But Dr Walton says by this point, being white had already been positioned as the norm.

And since people from African or Asian backgrounds, for example, will "never be considered white", she says they and other non-white-passing people of colour like them have become "perpetual foreigners" in Australia.

This is why, she says, the question "where are you from?" can have an impact on peoples' sense of identity.

How do we move on from this conversation?

It may be a well-documented gripe for many, but the question persists.

The ABC alone has published more than one article voicing people of colours' perceptions of it.

Dr Walton says this is the reason it is important people of colours' stories continue being told.

But we also need more than just stories if real change is to be driven, she adds.

"Indigenous people have been here for tens of thousands of years. People of colour have been here for many years," Dr Walton says.

Dr Walton explains this change will only come with structural and systemic reform that challenges the notion that whiteness is the norm.

The ABC's Heywire competition is open to all regional Australians aged between 16 and 22.

The annual competition provides a platform for the younger generation, in pockets of Australia that rarely see the spotlight, to "tell it like it is".

This year's winners were selected from close to 700 entries.

If you are aged between 16 and 22 and would like to find out more about the next ABC Heywire Regional Youth Summit, go to the ABC Heywire website.