When I asked my father where he was born, I never got a straight answer. Wuhan, he’d say. In other moments, he’d claim Wuchang.

I didn’t understand why he couldn’t state a simple fact. My assumption reflected my privilege, that of a girl who’d known only the peace and stability of the suburbs east of San Francisco. Much later, I would realize that his birthplace had been absorbed into Wuhan, a provincial capital formed from the sprawl of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang.

My father is gone now, but I’ve wondered what he would make of the coronavirus. He surely would have worried about his family more than himself.

It would have pained him that relations have cratered between his ancestral and adopted homelands, causing a backlash against Asian-Americans. “Go back to where you came from!” we’re told.

But where did we come from, and why does it matter? Among other Chinese, the question is a conversation starter in which we can situate ourselves and our people, in every far-flung corner of the diaspora. Your ancestral province might stamp itself upon your character, in your traits — determining your height, your ambitions and your looks.

Born in China, my parents fled to the island of Taiwan at the close of World War II. Later on, they came to the United States for graduate school in science and engineering.

I used to think my parents were cagey about their past because they wanted to focus on the future. Perhaps, growing up in the shadow of Communism, or in making a life for themselves in this country, they’d also learned not to disclose too much, for who knew how it might get turned against them?