You dont have an accent

I have been working at this hospital for over three years. My co workers know me pretty well. I still get the question from nurses, doctors, patients. With patients, usually starts like this: Hello, I am Dr Gill or Nav Gill, the attending doctor...Pt: Did you say Gill? Yes, Gill. Now, what kind of name is that? My standard answer "Irish" with a serious look on my face. Usually, some uncomfortable silence follows. It makes them uncomfortable that an obviously non-Irish lookin dude, with no accent, has this name. Uncomfortable laughter-you dont really mean that? Me: I just know that I inherited this name through my father and it has a lineage of several hundred may be thousand years. Pt: so where are you really from. Me "california". More uncomfortable silence. Some people will take that next step " but where are you really from". Sigh. "India".OH! OK! Now, how come you dont have an accent? Sometimes, if I am in a hurry " I was born here....." Pt: OH I see. If I am feeling chatty " I came over when I was a teenager, have lived here twenty years, just kinda lost the indian accent, I dont know how/why. I never really tried to, it just kinda went away. When I return after a visit to India, it is more noticeable". Why is it so hard to believe that someone could pick up the accent of the country they now call 'home'. Would the patient be more comfortable if I put on a thick Indian accent. And the bigger question in my mind, why does everyone assume that I could not have been born and raised here in the good ole US of A?
I am not bitter about this really. I have come a complete circle in my feelings on this issue. I used to get angry/defensive. Now I have accepted that for most people, my skin color and looks, will never mean 'American'. So why fight it. Most of them are not asking me these questions in a mean spirit, just an ignorant one. I cant blame them. I might be the only Indian person they know(although, with 10% of US doctors claiming Indian heritage, you are bound to run into one eventually). Hell, most of my family in India has never seen a white person before. If a white person went to my ancestral village in Punjab, they might follow him/her around just to stare and point ! They are well meaning people. I just get some humor out of it.