It’s a natural inclination to gravitate towards what is familiar, I’ll give you that. However, most of the time it is only because what we don’t understand can sometimes seem like an unbridgeable gap. So when you talk to people, they might have questions that they are thinking that they don’t know how to ask you. I’ve lived in foreign countries before so I know the weird type of questions that come your way. If people are talking to each other and say, “You’re from Indiana?! My grandma lives there!”, it gives people a common bond. When they meet you, they might not think they have anything in common with you. Which is stupid. Because we’re all humans. We all share the experience that I call the “human experience.” We all have family, we all grew up, we all had friends, we’ve all had pain and joy. When you hear someone talk about something, family, youth, school, relate to them. “Oh, you were teased in middle school? So was I! I went to school in Delhi and there was this one little rich girl Gita….” Basically you are showing them that though they think your background is so different from theirs, it’s very similar. It will then allow them to feel more comfortable to ask you more questions about where you are from and who you are