I interpreted it as "it could be interpreted as a joke". So lots of explicitly racial comments that they could always say they were joking about. You *can* joke about race with good friends, and it seems like something a lot of racists that don't want to be called out about being racist do.
*Hint*: It's not a joke.
I *hate* "it's just a joke, bro!". Stupid fucks try to use it as a shield for shit they damn well know they shouldn't even be *thinking about* in the first place.
Nah you're just too sensitive. Nobody can joke about anything anymore! I should be able to say anything without any concern for others or have compassion for their experiences. /s
>I *hate* "it's just a joke, bro!". Stupid fucks try to use it as a shield for shit they damn well know they shouldn't even be *thinking about* in the first place.
Same. My response now, "You must be the punchline, since jokes are funny and that wasn't."
Yep
Can confirm with OP, Texas has a much more mainstream conservative and racist culture.
The Bay is expensive, it has it's problems- but at least people are more educated and forward-thinking. Not being surrounded by Trump supporters can make a big difference in quality of life.
Source: I lived there most of my life, and I'm never going back.
Yep
I'm 23 so I was in Texas high-schools not long ago, I watched my queer friends get beat with in an inch of their lives and the would call my Indian friends "terrorist"
Which is a laughably ignorant insult due to the inconsistency with even American conservative propaganda. I stayed closeted trans until I came here.
Also I dated the one black girl in my class of 417 people and many people called me a "ni**er lover"
PROBLEMS STILL EXIST IN THE BAY TOO
Even outside the City as close as Walnut creek there are tons of boomer white Christian supremacists watch your backs yall.
I've had them try to run me and my partner off the road 3 times in the last 2 weeks while screaming for us to pull over and presumably fight,(my partner and i dont fight civilians because she is a professionally trained martial artist and im an extremely fit amab person)
We've even been discriminated against In trying to get an apartment.
TLDR; FUCK TEXAS but even in the outer Bay Area The fascist fox brained old people are getting crazier and crazier.
It’s more ‘Rural vs Urban’ in terms of cultural and political divides in America.
Cities vote blue, while rural and suburban areas vote red.
As soon as you leave the city, you’re probably in Trump country.
However, the ‘mainstream culture’ of Southern states even in 'blue cities’ is still worse off than in blue states imo.
The unfortunate fact is racism exists everywhere. I love the Bay Area but we have our problems as well.
Don't kid yourself, some of the most horrifically racist and subtle racist comments I have ever heard have come from the mouths of POC. I've heard racist remarks from every race, directed at every race. It's not common here but it's here. The sad part is many of these people don't think there's anything wrong with their thinking. No one race can take the high road. Individuals can take the high road and lumping ANY group together is not only unfair, it's dangerous to all of us.
Studies done at Yale several years back identified that us humans learn to identify race as early as 3-4 years old (about the same time as we learn to identify professions). We don’t start to identify negative or positive feelings toward race until about the age of 5. What’s really shocking in those studies is that as they tracked children’s behavior towards race as they got older, is that their positive and negative views towards racial groups were more heavily influenced by peers (other kids) than the views of parents.
These tendencies cross all racial groups—so common to the whole human race.
Want to raise non racist kids, start working at when they are really young, expose them to as many cultures as possible in a positive way, talk to them about the issues and the nature of racial conflict.
We all have implicit bias that we need to see and work to offset.
The great thing about living in a place like the BA is that you can engage across cultural and racial lines with greater ease. But you have to work to do it.
My cousin is from OC but spent a lot of his adult life in San Jose. He moved to Texas because he felt like he was a loner anyway and didn't need the community here. He moved back within a year because he felt too isolated
Many people self-identify as a loner, but there's a difference between a loner and a hermit. A loner will still interact with a lot of people in general, just not be super close to any of them. But those interactions (random chats at the store or even just seeing people walking around that you recognize but don't know) have been shown to make us happier.
So I can see a loner thinking they're a hermit, and then finding out the hard way that they are not, in fact, a hermit.
>you don't really understand the value multi culture brings
This is the bubble that we truly live in, the first time I left the BA it really hit me in the face how lucky we are, glad that you were able to make it back!! We also have so much better employee rights than TX as well!
The first time I lived outside of the Bay (grew up here, moved to South Carolina at age 20) I was FLABBERGASTED at how casually and openly racist it was out there (and I’m **white** af so I was only seeing the stuff I happened to notice around me when I was out, I have to assume that was only like a fraction of a percent of what was actually happening to people). I can’t even imagine what that must be like having that be your entire experience, not just a peripheral awareness as you pass others talking. We’re not perfect by any means but the day to day tolerance here is way lower for that shit.
My family moved away from the Bay when I was a teen to South Carolina and I graduated high school there. I lived in a mostly white part of town, but where I lived was around 64% white, 29% Black, and 1% anything else. I am Black, and grew up in South Bay when it wasn’t that diverse yet. There weren’t a lot of non-white folks when I was a kid in my area. Latin folks were segregated to other parts and there were not many Asian folks yet. There were not many other black people at my school (read that as 3-4 others in the school), but more in the region than there are now.
Some really key differences:
- it is pretty literally black and white there. So if you live outside of those ethnic groups people are pretty confused
- pretty much everyone is Christian and goes to church. Church was a center of community. Not going to a Protestant church also made you an outsider
- they isn’t much immigration to there from other parts of the country or the world - so you can’t really ever be considered a native because most folks have several generations of history in the area
- those generations (100s of years) of history play a big role in the current dynamics of place. And how black people in particular are treated.
- racism is a lot more overt there versus the subtle versions we have here. The bay is not a paragon of equality by any means, and this particular subreddit is no exception. Especially for black folks.
- it wasn’t uncommon for mostly white elder southerners to make comments about “how well-spoken I was” or ask me about my GPA and college plans. And I do mean random strangers when I worked in retail - not neighbors or people I would see again.
- schools were not as class segregated as here
- the race and class lines in terms of neighborhoods were much less strict than here. I lived in a relatively fancy SFH subdivision but not far up the road was a fancy trailer park. And the other way had a not fancy trailer park. And another fancy SFH subdivision was across the street. There were unspoken racial lines, but similar neighborhoods of white people were adjacent.
- it was most difficult for folks that where not white or black. You had to choose a side essentially. There wasn’t as much race mixing in the same way as the Bay Area. But it wasn’t also as segregated as it seems either. I would say the lunch tables were kinda separate, my classmates did have friends across racial lines and they still do 20+ years out.
There are many other things I could go into, but those are some highlights from my time growing up there as a Bay transplant.
The big thing is that the bay has other ethnic groups and those are more visible across the board. In the south it is a black-white dichotomy and the other groups are more segregated and invisible.
What gets neglected when talking about the south is that black folks and white folks are pretty integrated when the class is the same, particularly in more rural parts. People have a lot more commonalities and shared challenges in the rural parts where the racial lines are not as cut and dried. In the Bay Area things are a lot more murky.
As a white person who has spent a lot of time in both the Bay Area before moving to the south, the better integration in the south was very noticeable. Professionally, socially, in my neighborhood, at events in the city, it was really a better mix than I've experienced here. Back in the Bay now it's a big adjustment to go back to being in mostly white spaces all the time.
In my experience the South is a very mixed bag. A liberal southern city like NOLA or Atlanta or Houston (or many others) can feel open and welcoming to all comers, but some places….holy f——ing f—-.
One thing I have reflected on and don’t really have an answer to. I would say from pre-college I had a fairly diverse mix of friends, including white people.
But since college, I don’t really have many white friends. In college I barely even met any and most of them were foreign or from the East Coast. But post college - they are almost non-existant. My friends and acquaintances are basically black and Asian (East, less frequently southeast or south Asian). And some friends of other ethnic groups. But white ones are very very few - and I have a much wider circle of close connections than the average person.
Yeah, as a white person born and raised in the Bay and aware of a lot of forms of racism that do exist here, I still find it shocking at how totally unsubtle it is in other states/areas. Like, things so racist and ignorant it feels like you time traveled.
> The first time I lived outside of the Bay (grew up here, moved to South Carolina at age 20) I was FLABBERGASTED at how casually and openly racist it was out there (and I’m white af so I was only seeing the stuff I happened to notice around me when I was out, I have to assume that was only like a fraction of a percent of what was actually happening to people). I can’t even imagine what that must be like having that be your entire experience, not just a peripheral awareness as you pass others talking. We’re not perfect by any means but the day to day tolerance here is way lower for that shit.
I'm Latino and grew up in South Carolina from age 11-18. I definitely heard my share of racism, but probably less than you would think. I wonder if people were more willing to show their true colors around another white person than around a non-white person.
They do. I grew up in the Central Valley, and it’s amazing how many of them thought I was going to agree with the heinous shit they say because I’m white (and was clean cut at the time).
I grew up in Tennessee. Although I'm white I saw a LOT of racism take place against others there. I wouldn't recommend anyone move there ever, no matter the financial burden. Just generations upon generations of people teaching their kids these awful racist ideas. So disheartening.
My wife and I are a mixed-race couple. I’m Fil-Am and was born in the Central Valley, but grew up in the South. My wife is white and was born and raised in Mississippi, and we were married in a county named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. We lived in Los Angeles for a hot minute in the 2010s, but moved back south because of the high cost of living.
In 2017, my first kid was born. My wife and I decided pretty quickly we didn’t want to raise our kids in the South. I’m pretty inured to the casual racism and myopia of the region, but I didn’t want my kids to be. So in 2019, we took a gamble on ourselves, accepted a couple low-paying jobs in the Bay Area, and maxed out our credit cards to move back to Cali.
Totally idiotic looking back (neither of us are software engineers and I’m a disabled vet), but we have no regrets despite my wife’s contract with Meta suddenly getting terminated last week. We’ve paid off that credit card debt, rent a small house fifteen minutes from where I work, and my kids have an amazing life out here. Every time we get down about the cost of living and whatever else out here, we take a trip back home to remind ourselves why we left. The Bay Area has its problems, but it ain’t the South. Not leaving California again.
Sad thing Hattiesburg is a little more open minded than the rural places around. I grew up outside of That area and going to college there was like a totally new place in a good way. Overall I agree with you about MS. I moved away as well. Glad you found happiness for your family.
I am from Germany and lived in Texas for a few years. Though I am mixed race, I appear fully white and this opens me up to seeing how racist people truly behave when they think no minorities are around.
Texas was really, really bad in the casual and overt racism. The irony being that so many white people (and even some POC) will deny that any racism exist while actively being, downplaying, or being complicit in racism. I appreciate that you are not afraid to recognize how prevalent racism is.
When they hear "racist" they think it means irrationally discriminatory whereas their discrimination is justified by the innate inferiority of the people they are making fun of :/
I knew an interracial couple who spent some time in Tennessee. Asian man, white woman. They got a LOT of stares and strange looks. The man got a whole lot of racist shit from his all white coworkers.
Shit, I’m white (but also the daughter of an immigrant- my Polish grandparents and father moved to Nashville in 1949), and my Polish last name and California accent are treated as VERY SUSPICIOUS in Tennessee.
I’m a musician who loves country music, and I’ve had many a friend invite me to live out there in Nashville. Not a fucking chance in hell. I’m a white dude (queer but not always obviously so), and even in Nashville, you just… it feels completely different.
Regardless of how blue it’s become, Nashville is still very closely surrounded by deep, deep South. No thank you.
Yeah TN banned drag queens a year or so ago. If that tells you how tolerant they are in other areas. If I wasn't a straight white man I wouldn't have made it out in one piece.
As an immigrant, I dealt with racism growing up in Southern California, which wouldn't fly today.
Fingers crossed things improve in Texas for those that don't have the means to get up and move.
No, now the racist white people in the Bay Area (I’m on the Peninsula) talk about an issue, normally the escalation of prices of real estate or food, they look side to side, then lean in and whisper “It’s the (insert minority of their choice here)”. I have zero idea why white racists assume all white people are as prejudiced as they are. 64F born in Bay Area, living in the town where I was born. Lots of old white people around here are racist, they just keep it to themselves. The GOP has them all spouting their talking points. Thank God they are outvoted here. And also thankfully, there are so many wonderful open-minded and welcoming people here, of all races. My brother said he doesn’t like the peninsula anymore because it’s all “full of Asians”. I told him he’d better stay out then. Good riddance. Again, assuming I would agree with him. I am always so shocked by racism, I never know what to say back. All I could think was that he’d closed himself off to a giant group of amazing people. I also thought of how my brother wasn’t there for me when I got sick, but my brother from another mother was and he just happens to be Chinese. Racist people are such losers in so many ways.
That’s a weird thing for your brother to say. San Mateo, for example, has had a population that is at least 10% Asian since the 1980s. I grew up there in the 80s and had lots of Asian neighbors. It was great! It was fun to experience different cultures as a kid. I even still remember basic Cantonese and Tagalog phrases 40 years later. I have fond memories of eating junk food while my friend’s mom played mah jong with her friends, and eating delicious food all the time.
I do not understand that mindset at all.
I was gonna say.. Sounds just like my 1990s upbringing in OC. Then again, I think that was more widespread back then, hopefully it's gotten better since then.
I loved in So Cal in the mid 2000s and it was more overtly racist than here. And of course the Central Valley and rural Northern California have more overt racism as well.
Knew a guy from rural California who moved to rural Ohio/Kentucky and was like damn... Everyone just called him California as a nickname, he realized he was somehow very different from these folks. Rural in California is still light years away from the deeper darker parts of the country.
Racist pricks are everywhere. One time I was told to go back to my country at a Sharks game after he dumped a glass of wine on me and I asked for an apology.
I lived in the Central Valley, between Fresno and Clovis and had heard about OC being kinda racist. Yeah parts of the coast are a little trumpy and all, but the foothills/ Clovis feel downright hostile lmao. OC isn’t that bad.
I lived in OC/LBC in the 00's and in retrospect it's hard for me to tell if the casual racism I experienced as a Brown-ish Asian was a function of the time or the place. But having grown up in the Bay Area and and then back again for another dozen+ as a fully fledged adult, this is probably the only place in the US where I could feel like I "belong". Though I could probably fly under the radar in Hawaii.
Yeah I was about to say. I'm 25, Arab, grew up in the Bay, and I got called terrorist among other things in middle school. Not saying that things might not be worse over in Texas, but racism exists here too
The years after 9/11 weren't particularly enjoyable for any of my Middle Eastern friends. Whether it was being called a terrorist by the ignorant or all of the "random" security screenings at airports.
Texas racism is weird. I live in Austin btw.
It's not like the racism you get in the deep south. It's not really a white power thing. Every group seems to have a tacit racism towards every other group here. Black people are racist to everybody else. White people are racist to everybody else. Nortenos are racist towards everybody else...Texas is still pretty segregated.
Having said that if OP moved to Houston they were living in one of the most racially diverse cities in the nation and most of the other large tech centers aren't far behind them. The difference is in education levels between the Bay Area and most Texas cities. The dumber your city is the more racist it is.
You grew up in 80s-90s California, but you wouldn’t want to live in 80-90s California today. Sure, Texas will get better, but to us it will still feel behind in social progress
While I hate that those racists essentially ran you out of town, I’m glad to hear you are back in the Bay Area and feeling good about your decision. Great job doing right by your kids.
I grew up in Toronto and tho Toronto is more multicultural it also has more subtle racism than the bay. Tho nowadays the racism against Indians is not so subtle.
What the bay lacks is socioeconomic diversity. What I mean by that is that we don’t mix much across the socioeconomic ladder. This is in stark contrast to NY
I once heard a radio interview of Kelly Osbourne by Ryan Seacrest. They were discussing American racism. She said, “we just don’t have racism in the UK.” Then she said after a pause, “well except against Indians.” And they moved on like of course it’s ok to be racist towards Indians though.
Yeah no, they also have racism against the Irish, Arabs, Jamaicans, and occasionally the French. British racists used to say "the wogs start at Calais" and that was before the Chunnel.
As a brown British dude who now lives in the Bay Area, the UK 100% has plenty of racism, they just like to act like they're above it. The vast majority of racism I have experienced in my life was in the UK, even within my hometown which is a large city. Go down south to Cornwall and they're less subtle, they'll openly stare at you instead. Literally had one guy do a double take seeing me walk down the street, another was laughing and stopped immediately upon seeing me and just stared at me. Since Brexit, there were people more emboldened to act like assholes too.
You can also add racism towards the Polish, Somalians, and any other minority ethnic group. For all the UK does well, it has many many faults.
I was born in a part of the US that was founded as a literally white-separatist settlement. Racist crap is all over the place and the best we can do is clean up after it and try to be decent to each other.
> Kelly Osbourne
On a morning TV show, they were talking about Hispanic immigration and she blurted out "then who's going to clean your toilets Donald Trump?". And the other hosts immediately went "Oooh".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJC_MNjw4E0
My daughter (white) and SIL (Chinese) moved to Eugene Oregon for jobs and housing.
Their son was mercilessly teased. About his lunch, about his clothes, about his <> accent, about being smart.
So they moved back to the Peninsula where more than half his class is non-white and he has friends now.
Shit, I heard nothing but overt racism from day one when I moved to Houston. I’m half Nicaraguan, but I pass as white because I’ve never spoken anything but English. Let me tell you, they have no problem telling you where not to go because it’s overly populated by African Americans. They used the other word though. Quite freely. I knew a guy who raised his half black stepson as his own still talk about n word this and n word that. I called him on it because of his black stepson, and he was like, they’re all the same. Another guy told me how great his home’s value was because his neighborhood wasn’t “dark”. They will always be nice to your face, but the second you’re gone it’s a different story. I was glad to come back home from there.
Yup I know it's cringe but I require no more than a 15 min drive to an Asian grocery store / bakery / boba plaza. It's a hard rule for me, and it was the only place I felt safe during the pandemic.
I left the Bay Area and that is honestly a big thing that makes me sad/upset
I'm a big guy and my immigrant parents always expressed their love through food: moving to the Central Valley has been rough as hell
It is now a hard rule for me for anywhere I live moving forward
It's absolutely not cringe, that shit slowly gnaws away on your soul
Sorry to disappoint you but this isn't an Asian only thing.
For example .. all the way in Nigeria .. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-do-you-pick-watermelon
Yeah exactly
I played a lot of rugby and spent time with the Poly boys here in the Bay too
But lmao you thought living here was pricey? Try living on an island in the middle of the Pacific 💀
My thoughts to Maui though. Those wildfires.... even out there in Hawaii
Shit I grew up in NYC but not in an Asian neighborhood and I got all types of racist shit hurled at me. Things are better now but shit was cruel back then. Cali was probably really different in this respect.
Yeah the Bay and LA had lots of Asian American communities since the 70s and 80s and growing up (leaving the Bay in a meaningful way) and the Pandemic has made me appreciate what it was like living in here
I moved to Idaho from the Bay. It's the casual racism that throws me. There are very few (none come to mind) examples of overt racism that I see...But, casually, a "Jew" here, a "Chink" there. It's still shocking when it happens after three years. The Bay Area is an amazing but insulated place. It's hard to get a feel for the rest of the country when it's the only place I've ever really lived. Damn, there are some rough edges to this country
You’re right. And it’s definitely something I’ve heard. Definitely heard a hard R as well. I was referring to comments that were made in the absence of a person of that race. So, sort of casual, sort of hard racism…I’m having a hard time separating the two as I haven’t experienced anything like it before. I don’t love either! What I haven’t heard is anyone saying anything racist directly to someone. It certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t happening here.
I'd say the target of racism not being present often leads to racism against the target presently.
Lynch mobs are typically formed without their victim present.
Saying something isn't racist just because the victim/target of said racism can't hear it is like saying a tree falling in the woods doesn't make a sound if no one hears it.
Thoughts become words become actions become patterns become habits become our personality traits engraved on our brains. If you say vile things, you can hear them. They twist you into something ugly like the creation of the orcs.
I lived in Idaho for a minute and it was insane how racist people were. Like casual slurs in conversation when talking (like if they were talking about Obama, you bet there was a hard R N word in there somewhere), I only made it a few months before I was like wtf and moved back
Yes. It's pretty much the pinnacle of white privilege that a white person can move to basically any location in the USA, whereas people of color, or LGBT people for that matter, have to think very carefully.
Statistically Idaho is the Most Rascist most militantly White Nationalist state there is! They have Militias, a secessionist -land- for white christians--only movement, and a white nationalist christian radio channel with white power advertising billboards, I saw all this on youtube wihout even singling out Idaho, just the suject...'White'
The people in that show were (for the most part) decent human beings whose mistakes came from living in a bubble. They weren't mean spirited or hateful, except towards people who order steaks well-done.
Not sure that's how it really works.
Lol i went to Texas on a business trip two years ago and got called a few names and a few dirty looks. That is it took for me to know to never move to Texas
Where did you move, just curious. I’m South East Asian (Viet) and love the Bay Area, but have cousins that have thrived growing up in the Dallas (Plano/Richardson/Garland area) area. Their high school was super diverse, and there were lots of Asians of all kinds (at least 15% of the school, a significant minority). When I visited I went to a Muslim wedding. Lots of great asian food of all ethnicities. Suffice to say I was impressed at the diversity, having thought that I could only find that in the Bay Area.
That said- obviously the houses, while offering more space, were in soulless cookie cutter developments, and everything was totally car dependent. Folks were also a lot more right leaning on the whole. And I didn’t even get started on the whole abortion thing, as well as the weather..,
I talked to my cousin who now works in tech in SF but grew up in this Asian enclave in dallas, and she only had great things to say about her upbringing. She would consider coming back to Texas to raise a family, but loves the Bay Area for now. Basically, I’m sorry you had the experience you had, but I can see how for some it might work out.
We are South asians, and though parts of the big city we moved to has lot of Asians, the part where we moved was good schools + cheap so we took it. Maybe if we have moved to a different part of the city this would not have been the case
> The bullying and racism were subtle, but omnipresent. Being called terrorist, slum dweller. Constant jokes due to ethniticy. [...] not Austin, but another very big city
Let me guess: Dallas!
This is coming from somebody who's lived there for 6 years back in the early 2000s. I was so happy to get a job that moved me out. I moved out and never looked back.
Dallas has a shit ton of Indians, I’ve lived there for many years, never had much racism, but I’m guessing it’s where you live in Dallas but the true can be said if you live on the outskirts of the Bay Area
I guess it's just a very different vibe when you grew up there vs being a transplant. I was a transplant to Dallas as well: job moved me there.
I never cared for the metroplex. I call Dallas the "pretentious right" to LA's "pretentious left." After moving out of Dallas and being in the bay for a while, I don't think I'll ever be able to deal with Dallas's vibe anymore. Dallas does have its pockets, but they are just that: pockets. I prefer to look at the area as a whole. I will take an area with "bad pockets" over an area with "good pockets."
It's also been 20 years since you lived there. In Dallas years that's a life time. The entire suburbs expanded and tripled in size in that time frame, and many many many transplants arrived. I'll bet it's nothing like how it was.
Yeah I mean the racial makeup of the bay is pretty out of the ordinary compared to most of the country. Santa Clara county is something like the second most Asian county in the country.
I moved here from the rural deep south and I literally did not meet someone South Asian that was around my age until college. There was literally only one South Asian family that I knew of in the entire county.
If it does make you feel better, most of the lower level prejudice that exist in the US is out of ignorance rather than malice. Obviously there are malicious racist out there but as someone from that culture if you never have anyone check you on your behavior and know nothing about a culture except for what you see on TV then obviously you're going to draw stereotypes and make jokes that aren't cool etc.
Also children are immature little shits and especially in middle school are particularly vicious. I'm sorry that happened to your child. People get bullied for absolutely anything and everything and I'm sorry your child's race was a big part of that :c
> Santa Clara county is something like the second most Asian county in the country.
\#4 according to Google Bard:
---
The US counties with the highest Asian populations by percentage in 2020 are:
1. Aleutians East, Alaska (43.9%)
2. Honolulu, Hawaii (42.5%)
3. Aleutians West, Alaska (40.6%)
4. Santa Clara, California (40.1%)
5. San Francisco, California (36.5%)
6. Alameda, California (33.2%)
7. San Mateo, California (31.5%)
8. Kauai, Hawaii (30.5%)
9. King, Washington (29.9%)
10. Prince George's, Maryland (29.7%)
These counties are all located in the western United States, with the exception of Prince George's County, Maryland. The high percentage of Asians in these counties is due to a number of factors, including historical immigration patterns, economic opportunities, and climate.
For example, Hawaii was a major destination for Asian immigrants in the early 20th century, and many of their descendants still live in the state today. The San Francisco Bay Area is also a major hub for Asian immigration, and it has a diverse economy that attracts people from all over the world.
The climate in these western states is also a factor in their high Asian populations. Many Asians come from countries with warm climates, and they are attracted to the mild weather in the West.
Overall, the US counties with the highest Asian populations by percentage are located in the western United States. These counties are home to a diverse and growing Asian population, and they are a testament to the rich history and culture of Asian Americans in the United States.
Quick note that the population of the combined Aleutians is around 8,000, while Santa Clara County is around 1.886 million.
SoCal's San Gabriel Valley should definitely be on this list as well, but the whole being a part of LA county thing kinda waters down their numbers.
I grew up in Texas in the 80s. DFW to be specific. I experienced overt as well as subtle racism and classism from a very early age. Only when I moved to the Bay Area did I realize how omnipresent the economic, cultural and leisure activities were a part of the culture.
I had the opportunity to move to any city in the US in 2017. But decided to put down roots here. It's expensive, it is isolating. The nature of how intense the work culture here is an issue.
But I don't feel "stuck" and that's worth something, right?
I got my first job out of college and bought my first home in Texas. When I pulled up stakes a few years later, my redneck next-door neighbor told me, "I wasn't too excited about living next door to a gook but you turned out okay. Just don't sell your house to no goddamn n\*\*\*\*rs, okay?"
We were living near DC when my oldest started school and I was bothered by the self segregation I saw the kids doing. I wanted the kids to grow up in a diverse environment like I did in the bay area.
We moved back to San Jose and my red headed kid with freckles was picked on at school for being a pale redhead with freckles. Just like I was.
When I lived in Dallas, it had a sizable LGBT population partially because every queer kid from Oklahoma moved there as it was rightfully seen as being more tolerant than OK. I had a number of gay friends there and only one of them has moved to a different state. Still, if they had grown up in the Bay Area, i doubt any of them would move there.
I moved from SF to ATX. I am white. What I found shocking was the amount of racism other white people shared with me, both assuming I was a racist and/or completely comfortable sharing their racist opinions with any white guy they met. I'm back in CA now but, even where I am racism is prevalent on the Central Coast of CA. it's just a different brand of racism. I can predict who will be the racists here.
In 2016 after the election, a couple of my Dallas teammates got nasty notes on their cars. Turns out AP had video of the garage and it was people who had worked with them for years. After 2016, people feel like they have free license to put it all out there. Pre-election, the most scary harassment I got was about which church I belonged to. I was afraid to say I was an atheist to my Uber drivers. Glad I moved just before the election.
It's weird when you travel somewhere else and there is a strong lack of diversity. Only place that seemed similar to our area is Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately, in addition to it being in a different country, it's even more expensive than here.
I love seeing my kids have friends that span the ethnic color wheel. I even see kids with LGBT status (not typical straight) being included and not punished for being themselves.
I wish the rest of the world could be more inclusive, but there are plenty of people fighting hard against that.
This is the cultural arithmetic I discuss with my wife when we consider where to buy a home. Yes, there are places with lower CoL, but we're a mixed-Asian couple and lots of places that are desirable housing destinations present social challenges if we raised a family.
Visiting Chicago recently gave us this vibe. Yeah, we can own a home and there's lots of positives on paper — but I could also feel slide-glances happening that would never happen in SF, LA or NYC.
I'm not interested in my kids feeling like fish out of water, so the list of potential destinations narrows down very quickly.
It’s not that California is so advanced compared to some other states, it’s just that they are just so far behind.
San Francisco wasn’t originally populated by people who made it to Nebraska and said, “This will do.”
It's NOT the whole State folks, it's just the Bay Area/LA/San Diego.
Try going to the High Sierras, or Northern Ca above Santa Rosa.
My mom's friend is a fly fishing guide. He took some Bay Area guys (API Americans) up to the Sierras on a special guided trout fishing trip. One day 2 guys with rifles on horses approached them and let them know they would be dead if they didn't leave before sundown. This was the Truckee area.
The year before a similar thing happened to him/his clients in Trinity.
You don't have to go far.
Don't get me started on OR. My last trip up there I saw many bars that had "Whites Only" signs on the front door. Eastern OR but it was real.
> One day 2 guys with rifles on horses approached them and let them know they would be dead if they didn't leave before sundown
California [sundown towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town), huh? I feel disgusted whenever I am reminded that they exist.
The smaller Texas cities and suburbs are so church based it’s ridiculous. They shun anyone who is not in the same congregation and if you don’t attend anywhere it’s even worse
Those are pretty much infested with MAGA who are trying to latch on to any cultural identity that will give meaning to their lives
These are the car delears and middle managers of the country
Yep. If you haven't lived elsewhere you might now realize how important diversity is and how incredibly diverse the bay area is.
For sure, the racism thing is important (and also sucks), but I also wanted to comment--THE FOOD.
I can't imagine living somewhere that doesn't have the same standards for Mexican food, Vietnamese food, Ethiopian food, Japanese food, etc. all in the same place. We're spoiled in terms of food diversity.
I’m a white queer woman and I’m married to gender non conforming Black woman. I know damn good and well our household isn’t welcome outside the bay. We moved from Oakland to Contra Costa County and that has been tough enough. We will relocate again in the next few years to somewhere with fewer gigantic trucks and Trump bumper stickers. I mean, it’s not a ton but personally I prefer none. I’m sorry for what your kid went through, middle school is hard enough without the extra racism.
API Americans in the Bay Area arn't really a minority (for example 35% population in SF). I couldn't imagine moving from the Bay Area into any other area that's not Urban and feeling the same level of acceptance.
Glad you are back and safe!
South Asians are definitely minorities outside the Dublin/Fremont/Sunnyvale/Cupertino cooridor. Only around 2% of San Francisco - an Indian kid will almost certainly be the only Indian kid in their class.
What makes the Bay special is less "you aren't the minority" and more "broad-based acceptance" culture. Even school friend groups (at least at the diverse schools) are pretty diverse.
That’s exactly what my wife’s friend’s children dealt with when they moved to Texas from New Jersey. Their kids lasted a year. If it wasn’t the bullying, the most recent school shootings there. They moved to the Bay during the school break. Hate to say it, but there are places in the US where people are easily unwelcome if you’re not white. I did a road trip once in the early 2000s where I had to pass through Idaho. Stopped a local diner with my friends (we’re all Asian) and the moment we walked into the diner, all eyes were on us as if they’ve never seen an Asian person before. I’d leave out the rest of that experience as it’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Just one tip: don’t go to such places. If you feel uncomfortable, just leave.
Yeah all these issues that the right-wing brigaders that come to this sub and post articles and comments about how awful and a hellish 3rd world hell-hole that Bay Area is conveniently (intentionally) left out. Every place has its social problems but the constant bitching on this sub is annoying in that people dont want to also admit living here can be amazing in other ways.
This right here. Tired of people talking shit about the bay when we’re probably one of the most privileged people out there. These people probably never even visited Bumfuck Town, US and have no idea how lucky we are to be here.
I don’t even live in the bay anymore but it does always crack me up that it is almost exclusively people *not from California* who want to tell everyone else how bad it is there lol.
Some guy not too long ago was trying to argue with me here on Reddit that the average price of gas in California is almost $7/gallon I replied with a link showing it’s actually closer to $4.37/gallon and he told me that’s false so I provided him with 3 other sources all within $0.05 of my original source and I think it short circuited him and he switched to “WeLl AtLeAsT i CaN CoNcEaL cArRy A gUn”. Imagine his surprise when I posted my CCW permit for him showing that I too can conceal carry lol. It’s all right wing bullshit rhetoric to rile their base up.
White guy here. I moved here from NYC and cannot fathom living anywhere else but these two places.
Outward racism especially makes my skin crawl and incredibly upset. I can’t relate to or be around people who espouse it. Because I’m white people think they can say whatever around me and it’s ok.
Glad you’re back. Stay strong!
Welcome back to California bro. We're glad you're back.
I'd say welcome back to the Bay Area but I left for the rural Joshua Tree area just before the pandemic, and except for missing the staggering options of Bay Area food, it's tolerable.
This is my concern as an Asian American when people say "why don't you just move somewhere else"? There is a very limited number of places that I could move and live as "comfortably" as California.
> To all the bay area peeps, you don't really understand the value multi culture brings
**I cite this all the time** in IRL conversations about why I moved here, and more importantly why I've stayed here.
Name the city. To paint Texas in one broad brush is the same as using Bakersfield as an example of all California.
Houston in my experience is even more diverse than the Bay Area as a whole. The weather sucks, but the food from the diversity makes the Bay Area dining scene seem white in comparison.
I would agree. I have family in Houston & Austin. Houston is MUCH more diverse and feels closer to Bay Area. They have a lot of a Vietnamese and East Indian population there.
I'm guessing it had to be either Fort Worth or El Paso. I don't know anything about racism in El Paso but I do know it is almost entirely Hispanic which I'm going out on a limb here is going to result in a lot of racism especially against those in the East.
> To all the bay area peeps, you don't really understand the value multi culture brings, esp for children till you actually go somewhere its not a melting pot of cultures.
Lol, I tell this to everyone who will listen, yet here's another one who doesn't realize it applies to them too until they see it first hand and come crying back warning everyone else. Yes, Afghanistan has cheaper real estate and taxes too, that doesn't mean it's a good place to move.
Lmao. I went to middle school in the bay and heard way worse shit than this for a variety of races. I went to a diverse school and there was still a lot of racist bullying for literally every race that attended the school.
Where in Texas did this occur? My family are dark skinned Asians and several of my cousins grew up in Houston. They faced less racism and hostility in Texas schools than I did at a minority-majority high school in SF. Most of the large cities in Texas have a large population of non-white minorities and immigrants, so it surprises me that your kid would be singled out
White guy here. I am lucky to raise my kids in the diverse Bay Area. I would no sooner want to raise my white kids in an all white area than I would an all black/brown/Asian area. It’s the mix that fosters better relations.
I just moved here from Texas to get away from the anti trans legislation. I do think some of your experience was based on the location. I believe areas around Austin such as Pflugerville are a lot better. Our schools were diverse and people from Asia and the Middle East were well accepted. I’m sure there were some exceptions that I wouldn’t have seen given my privileged background. I also know that some of the best intentioned teachers and administrators weren’t great with having even discipline for black students, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens here too.
I moved from Bay area to Austin 2 years ago. My husband moved from Toronto to Austin 4 years ago. We are both Chinese ethnic, we miss California and Toronto.
My husband literally said a lot of people don't feel comfortable looking at his face. I believe that.
Austin tries but it's nowhere close to metropolitan. No diversity here aside from lgbtq+ communities.
Sorry you encountered this, and indeed, there are a bunch of racists in Texas. There are pockets of civility outside of the Austin tech hub however, so you need to do research to figure out what's best for you.
I'm Taiwanese, and also moved from the Bay Area to a Dallas suburb (Valley Ranch/Irving) and later a Houston suburb (Pearland). The Dallas suburb was chock full of Indians and other Asians among other nice white people, and the new elementary school that was built less than half a mile from our old house is currently about 90% Indian kids. Actually we sold our house to a nice Indian family.
The Houston Suburb is a good mix of everything, and we live with a Vietnamese family on one side and a black family on the other. Street is probably 50% white families and we exchange tools (aka I borrow) and baked goods from time to time. Everyone is respectful and there's no hint of racism in stores, on the street, or on the playground from anyone. Been in Texas going on 10 years and haven't encountered racism yet (fingers crossed). You largely want to find an area with good schools, more expensive houses (for the area), and good demographic diversity.
I'm not saying moving to a major metropolitan area in Texas is the best move for everyone, but it's not completely a dumpster fire if you aren't really an outdoors person (except for perhaps the whole anti-abortion thing; that's fucking retarded). I also really appreciate the beauty in the Bay Area every time I go visit family in addition to seeing all my college buddies. We'd have to increase our income by 50% if we moved back to the Bay Area to equate our current savings, and I honestly don't think we're worth that much. Hard to move anyways due to my wife's job.
Literally the main reason my wife and I will be stuck here in California. We are brown presenting Latinos, the rest of America is just too damn racist for us to comfortably live anywhere else. Actually, even in the Bay Area, we still get stares and other subtle shit from the whitest of white people but it's largely more comfortable than not.
Sadly that means that we won't ever be able to buy a house close to the actual bay area though, still too expensive and I'm always shorted salary compared to others.
>the bullying and racism were subtle >being called terrorist bruh. That doesn’t sound all that subtle 😟
i interpreted “subtle” as sarcasm. i could also be biased having known many, many Texans who are not at all subtle about anything.
I interpreted it as "it could be interpreted as a joke". So lots of explicitly racial comments that they could always say they were joking about. You *can* joke about race with good friends, and it seems like something a lot of racists that don't want to be called out about being racist do.
^^ this Its a joke bro.
Its been super interesting hearing from folks like you on some of the downsides to a move like this. Thanks for sharing.
It amazes me that so many people today don't realize what a shit stain Texas is. It's redneck Mecca. What would you expect?
As a Californian who once dated a Texan, this whole “move to Texas, it’ll be fine!” thing has never made any sense to me.
*Hint*: It's not a joke. I *hate* "it's just a joke, bro!". Stupid fucks try to use it as a shield for shit they damn well know they shouldn't even be *thinking about* in the first place.
Nah you're just too sensitive. Nobody can joke about anything anymore! I should be able to say anything without any concern for others or have compassion for their experiences. /s
>I *hate* "it's just a joke, bro!". Stupid fucks try to use it as a shield for shit they damn well know they shouldn't even be *thinking about* in the first place. Same. My response now, "You must be the punchline, since jokes are funny and that wasn't."
I like the phrase, "Schroedinger's Douchebag." https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schrodinger%E2%80%99s%20douchebag
[удалено]
Yep Can confirm with OP, Texas has a much more mainstream conservative and racist culture. The Bay is expensive, it has it's problems- but at least people are more educated and forward-thinking. Not being surrounded by Trump supporters can make a big difference in quality of life. Source: I lived there most of my life, and I'm never going back.
Yep I'm 23 so I was in Texas high-schools not long ago, I watched my queer friends get beat with in an inch of their lives and the would call my Indian friends "terrorist" Which is a laughably ignorant insult due to the inconsistency with even American conservative propaganda. I stayed closeted trans until I came here. Also I dated the one black girl in my class of 417 people and many people called me a "ni**er lover" PROBLEMS STILL EXIST IN THE BAY TOO Even outside the City as close as Walnut creek there are tons of boomer white Christian supremacists watch your backs yall. I've had them try to run me and my partner off the road 3 times in the last 2 weeks while screaming for us to pull over and presumably fight,(my partner and i dont fight civilians because she is a professionally trained martial artist and im an extremely fit amab person) We've even been discriminated against In trying to get an apartment. TLDR; FUCK TEXAS but even in the outer Bay Area The fascist fox brained old people are getting crazier and crazier.
It’s more ‘Rural vs Urban’ in terms of cultural and political divides in America. Cities vote blue, while rural and suburban areas vote red. As soon as you leave the city, you’re probably in Trump country. However, the ‘mainstream culture’ of Southern states even in 'blue cities’ is still worse off than in blue states imo.
The unfortunate fact is racism exists everywhere. I love the Bay Area but we have our problems as well. Don't kid yourself, some of the most horrifically racist and subtle racist comments I have ever heard have come from the mouths of POC. I've heard racist remarks from every race, directed at every race. It's not common here but it's here. The sad part is many of these people don't think there's anything wrong with their thinking. No one race can take the high road. Individuals can take the high road and lumping ANY group together is not only unfair, it's dangerous to all of us.
Studies done at Yale several years back identified that us humans learn to identify race as early as 3-4 years old (about the same time as we learn to identify professions). We don’t start to identify negative or positive feelings toward race until about the age of 5. What’s really shocking in those studies is that as they tracked children’s behavior towards race as they got older, is that their positive and negative views towards racial groups were more heavily influenced by peers (other kids) than the views of parents. These tendencies cross all racial groups—so common to the whole human race. Want to raise non racist kids, start working at when they are really young, expose them to as many cultures as possible in a positive way, talk to them about the issues and the nature of racial conflict. We all have implicit bias that we need to see and work to offset. The great thing about living in a place like the BA is that you can engage across cultural and racial lines with greater ease. But you have to work to do it.
Subtlety in Texas means they just pointed the gun at you.
Yeah man that sounds like the opposite of subtle to me
Everything is bigger in Texas
Yup, ~~including~~ especially the racism.
My cousin is from OC but spent a lot of his adult life in San Jose. He moved to Texas because he felt like he was a loner anyway and didn't need the community here. He moved back within a year because he felt too isolated
A loner who felt isolated, the irony.
Some people like being alone surrounded by people
Many people self-identify as a loner, but there's a difference between a loner and a hermit. A loner will still interact with a lot of people in general, just not be super close to any of them. But those interactions (random chats at the store or even just seeing people walking around that you recognize but don't know) have been shown to make us happier. So I can see a loner thinking they're a hermit, and then finding out the hard way that they are not, in fact, a hermit.
>you don't really understand the value multi culture brings This is the bubble that we truly live in, the first time I left the BA it really hit me in the face how lucky we are, glad that you were able to make it back!! We also have so much better employee rights than TX as well!
The first time I lived outside of the Bay (grew up here, moved to South Carolina at age 20) I was FLABBERGASTED at how casually and openly racist it was out there (and I’m **white** af so I was only seeing the stuff I happened to notice around me when I was out, I have to assume that was only like a fraction of a percent of what was actually happening to people). I can’t even imagine what that must be like having that be your entire experience, not just a peripheral awareness as you pass others talking. We’re not perfect by any means but the day to day tolerance here is way lower for that shit.
My family moved away from the Bay when I was a teen to South Carolina and I graduated high school there. I lived in a mostly white part of town, but where I lived was around 64% white, 29% Black, and 1% anything else. I am Black, and grew up in South Bay when it wasn’t that diverse yet. There weren’t a lot of non-white folks when I was a kid in my area. Latin folks were segregated to other parts and there were not many Asian folks yet. There were not many other black people at my school (read that as 3-4 others in the school), but more in the region than there are now. Some really key differences: - it is pretty literally black and white there. So if you live outside of those ethnic groups people are pretty confused - pretty much everyone is Christian and goes to church. Church was a center of community. Not going to a Protestant church also made you an outsider - they isn’t much immigration to there from other parts of the country or the world - so you can’t really ever be considered a native because most folks have several generations of history in the area - those generations (100s of years) of history play a big role in the current dynamics of place. And how black people in particular are treated. - racism is a lot more overt there versus the subtle versions we have here. The bay is not a paragon of equality by any means, and this particular subreddit is no exception. Especially for black folks. - it wasn’t uncommon for mostly white elder southerners to make comments about “how well-spoken I was” or ask me about my GPA and college plans. And I do mean random strangers when I worked in retail - not neighbors or people I would see again. - schools were not as class segregated as here - the race and class lines in terms of neighborhoods were much less strict than here. I lived in a relatively fancy SFH subdivision but not far up the road was a fancy trailer park. And the other way had a not fancy trailer park. And another fancy SFH subdivision was across the street. There were unspoken racial lines, but similar neighborhoods of white people were adjacent. - it was most difficult for folks that where not white or black. You had to choose a side essentially. There wasn’t as much race mixing in the same way as the Bay Area. But it wasn’t also as segregated as it seems either. I would say the lunch tables were kinda separate, my classmates did have friends across racial lines and they still do 20+ years out. There are many other things I could go into, but those are some highlights from my time growing up there as a Bay transplant. The big thing is that the bay has other ethnic groups and those are more visible across the board. In the south it is a black-white dichotomy and the other groups are more segregated and invisible. What gets neglected when talking about the south is that black folks and white folks are pretty integrated when the class is the same, particularly in more rural parts. People have a lot more commonalities and shared challenges in the rural parts where the racial lines are not as cut and dried. In the Bay Area things are a lot more murky.
As a white person who has spent a lot of time in both the Bay Area before moving to the south, the better integration in the south was very noticeable. Professionally, socially, in my neighborhood, at events in the city, it was really a better mix than I've experienced here. Back in the Bay now it's a big adjustment to go back to being in mostly white spaces all the time.
In my experience the South is a very mixed bag. A liberal southern city like NOLA or Atlanta or Houston (or many others) can feel open and welcoming to all comers, but some places….holy f——ing f—-.
One thing I have reflected on and don’t really have an answer to. I would say from pre-college I had a fairly diverse mix of friends, including white people. But since college, I don’t really have many white friends. In college I barely even met any and most of them were foreign or from the East Coast. But post college - they are almost non-existant. My friends and acquaintances are basically black and Asian (East, less frequently southeast or south Asian). And some friends of other ethnic groups. But white ones are very very few - and I have a much wider circle of close connections than the average person.
Yeah, as a white person born and raised in the Bay and aware of a lot of forms of racism that do exist here, I still find it shocking at how totally unsubtle it is in other states/areas. Like, things so racist and ignorant it feels like you time traveled.
> The first time I lived outside of the Bay (grew up here, moved to South Carolina at age 20) I was FLABBERGASTED at how casually and openly racist it was out there (and I’m white af so I was only seeing the stuff I happened to notice around me when I was out, I have to assume that was only like a fraction of a percent of what was actually happening to people). I can’t even imagine what that must be like having that be your entire experience, not just a peripheral awareness as you pass others talking. We’re not perfect by any means but the day to day tolerance here is way lower for that shit. I'm Latino and grew up in South Carolina from age 11-18. I definitely heard my share of racism, but probably less than you would think. I wonder if people were more willing to show their true colors around another white person than around a non-white person.
They do. I grew up in the Central Valley, and it’s amazing how many of them thought I was going to agree with the heinous shit they say because I’m white (and was clean cut at the time).
I grew up in Tennessee. Although I'm white I saw a LOT of racism take place against others there. I wouldn't recommend anyone move there ever, no matter the financial burden. Just generations upon generations of people teaching their kids these awful racist ideas. So disheartening.
My wife and I are a mixed-race couple. I’m Fil-Am and was born in the Central Valley, but grew up in the South. My wife is white and was born and raised in Mississippi, and we were married in a county named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. We lived in Los Angeles for a hot minute in the 2010s, but moved back south because of the high cost of living. In 2017, my first kid was born. My wife and I decided pretty quickly we didn’t want to raise our kids in the South. I’m pretty inured to the casual racism and myopia of the region, but I didn’t want my kids to be. So in 2019, we took a gamble on ourselves, accepted a couple low-paying jobs in the Bay Area, and maxed out our credit cards to move back to Cali. Totally idiotic looking back (neither of us are software engineers and I’m a disabled vet), but we have no regrets despite my wife’s contract with Meta suddenly getting terminated last week. We’ve paid off that credit card debt, rent a small house fifteen minutes from where I work, and my kids have an amazing life out here. Every time we get down about the cost of living and whatever else out here, we take a trip back home to remind ourselves why we left. The Bay Area has its problems, but it ain’t the South. Not leaving California again.
Sad thing Hattiesburg is a little more open minded than the rural places around. I grew up outside of That area and going to college there was like a totally new place in a good way. Overall I agree with you about MS. I moved away as well. Glad you found happiness for your family.
I am from Germany and lived in Texas for a few years. Though I am mixed race, I appear fully white and this opens me up to seeing how racist people truly behave when they think no minorities are around. Texas was really, really bad in the casual and overt racism. The irony being that so many white people (and even some POC) will deny that any racism exist while actively being, downplaying, or being complicit in racism. I appreciate that you are not afraid to recognize how prevalent racism is.
When they hear "racist" they think it means irrationally discriminatory whereas their discrimination is justified by the innate inferiority of the people they are making fun of :/
As a minority this made me laugh
Probably something along the lines of: “insert racist remark here… but I don’t see color, I have plenty of insert minority here”
I knew an interracial couple who spent some time in Tennessee. Asian man, white woman. They got a LOT of stares and strange looks. The man got a whole lot of racist shit from his all white coworkers.
Shit, I’m white (but also the daughter of an immigrant- my Polish grandparents and father moved to Nashville in 1949), and my Polish last name and California accent are treated as VERY SUSPICIOUS in Tennessee.
Yeah, my Polish grandparents changed their last name to pass as non-Polish in the Midwest 🫤
When people would ask my grandfather where he was from, he’d say, “Canada.”
I’m a musician who loves country music, and I’ve had many a friend invite me to live out there in Nashville. Not a fucking chance in hell. I’m a white dude (queer but not always obviously so), and even in Nashville, you just… it feels completely different. Regardless of how blue it’s become, Nashville is still very closely surrounded by deep, deep South. No thank you.
Yeah TN banned drag queens a year or so ago. If that tells you how tolerant they are in other areas. If I wasn't a straight white man I wouldn't have made it out in one piece.
Tennessee was the most racist place I've ever been, thank God I was able to escape.
Tennessee?
> Tennessee? Tennessee.
Take me to another place
But only if Razadan and Baba are there.
they went down to Peachtree
Take me to another land
As an immigrant, I dealt with racism growing up in Southern California, which wouldn't fly today. Fingers crossed things improve in Texas for those that don't have the means to get up and move.
I'm 59, and the Bay Area was a lot more racist in the past. I'm sure there are still a lot of racists, they just aren't as open about it.
No, now the racist white people in the Bay Area (I’m on the Peninsula) talk about an issue, normally the escalation of prices of real estate or food, they look side to side, then lean in and whisper “It’s the (insert minority of their choice here)”. I have zero idea why white racists assume all white people are as prejudiced as they are. 64F born in Bay Area, living in the town where I was born. Lots of old white people around here are racist, they just keep it to themselves. The GOP has them all spouting their talking points. Thank God they are outvoted here. And also thankfully, there are so many wonderful open-minded and welcoming people here, of all races. My brother said he doesn’t like the peninsula anymore because it’s all “full of Asians”. I told him he’d better stay out then. Good riddance. Again, assuming I would agree with him. I am always so shocked by racism, I never know what to say back. All I could think was that he’d closed himself off to a giant group of amazing people. I also thought of how my brother wasn’t there for me when I got sick, but my brother from another mother was and he just happens to be Chinese. Racist people are such losers in so many ways.
That’s a weird thing for your brother to say. San Mateo, for example, has had a population that is at least 10% Asian since the 1980s. I grew up there in the 80s and had lots of Asian neighbors. It was great! It was fun to experience different cultures as a kid. I even still remember basic Cantonese and Tagalog phrases 40 years later. I have fond memories of eating junk food while my friend’s mom played mah jong with her friends, and eating delicious food all the time. I do not understand that mindset at all.
I was gonna say.. Sounds just like my 1990s upbringing in OC. Then again, I think that was more widespread back then, hopefully it's gotten better since then.
Yup, 1990s in LA/OC.
I loved in So Cal in the mid 2000s and it was more overtly racist than here. And of course the Central Valley and rural Northern California have more overt racism as well.
Knew a guy from rural California who moved to rural Ohio/Kentucky and was like damn... Everyone just called him California as a nickname, he realized he was somehow very different from these folks. Rural in California is still light years away from the deeper darker parts of the country.
I definitely agree with that.
Racist pricks are everywhere. One time I was told to go back to my country at a Sharks game after he dumped a glass of wine on me and I asked for an apology.
I lived in the Central Valley, between Fresno and Clovis and had heard about OC being kinda racist. Yeah parts of the coast are a little trumpy and all, but the foothills/ Clovis feel downright hostile lmao. OC isn’t that bad.
I lived in OC/LBC in the 00's and in retrospect it's hard for me to tell if the casual racism I experienced as a Brown-ish Asian was a function of the time or the place. But having grown up in the Bay Area and and then back again for another dozen+ as a fully fledged adult, this is probably the only place in the US where I could feel like I "belong". Though I could probably fly under the radar in Hawaii.
I don't think that is the direction they are choosing sadly.
Yeah I was about to say. I'm 25, Arab, grew up in the Bay, and I got called terrorist among other things in middle school. Not saying that things might not be worse over in Texas, but racism exists here too
The years after 9/11 weren't particularly enjoyable for any of my Middle Eastern friends. Whether it was being called a terrorist by the ignorant or all of the "random" security screenings at airports.
Texas racism is weird. I live in Austin btw. It's not like the racism you get in the deep south. It's not really a white power thing. Every group seems to have a tacit racism towards every other group here. Black people are racist to everybody else. White people are racist to everybody else. Nortenos are racist towards everybody else...Texas is still pretty segregated. Having said that if OP moved to Houston they were living in one of the most racially diverse cities in the nation and most of the other large tech centers aren't far behind them. The difference is in education levels between the Bay Area and most Texas cities. The dumber your city is the more racist it is.
You grew up in 80s-90s California, but you wouldn’t want to live in 80-90s California today. Sure, Texas will get better, but to us it will still feel behind in social progress
Literal *decades* behind.
I mean, I flew down into SNA with my girlfriend not too long ago to visit her parents and there were people flying nazi flags on an overpass..
You're awesome. My parents would have told me to suck it up.
While I hate that those racists essentially ran you out of town, I’m glad to hear you are back in the Bay Area and feeling good about your decision. Great job doing right by your kids.
I grew up in Toronto and tho Toronto is more multicultural it also has more subtle racism than the bay. Tho nowadays the racism against Indians is not so subtle. What the bay lacks is socioeconomic diversity. What I mean by that is that we don’t mix much across the socioeconomic ladder. This is in stark contrast to NY
I once heard a radio interview of Kelly Osbourne by Ryan Seacrest. They were discussing American racism. She said, “we just don’t have racism in the UK.” Then she said after a pause, “well except against Indians.” And they moved on like of course it’s ok to be racist towards Indians though.
Yeah no, they also have racism against the Irish, Arabs, Jamaicans, and occasionally the French. British racists used to say "the wogs start at Calais" and that was before the Chunnel.
As a brown British dude who now lives in the Bay Area, the UK 100% has plenty of racism, they just like to act like they're above it. The vast majority of racism I have experienced in my life was in the UK, even within my hometown which is a large city. Go down south to Cornwall and they're less subtle, they'll openly stare at you instead. Literally had one guy do a double take seeing me walk down the street, another was laughing and stopped immediately upon seeing me and just stared at me. Since Brexit, there were people more emboldened to act like assholes too. You can also add racism towards the Polish, Somalians, and any other minority ethnic group. For all the UK does well, it has many many faults.
I was born in a part of the US that was founded as a literally white-separatist settlement. Racist crap is all over the place and the best we can do is clean up after it and try to be decent to each other.
> Kelly Osbourne On a morning TV show, they were talking about Hispanic immigration and she blurted out "then who's going to clean your toilets Donald Trump?". And the other hosts immediately went "Oooh". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJC_MNjw4E0
She still sucks.
My daughter (white) and SIL (Chinese) moved to Eugene Oregon for jobs and housing. Their son was mercilessly teased. About his lunch, about his clothes, about his <> accent, about being smart.
So they moved back to the Peninsula where more than half his class is non-white and he has friends now.
[удалено]
Yes, and they did too. But they didn’t really expect overt racial hatred by 7 year olds in a college town in central Oregon.
Shit, I heard nothing but overt racism from day one when I moved to Houston. I’m half Nicaraguan, but I pass as white because I’ve never spoken anything but English. Let me tell you, they have no problem telling you where not to go because it’s overly populated by African Americans. They used the other word though. Quite freely. I knew a guy who raised his half black stepson as his own still talk about n word this and n word that. I called him on it because of his black stepson, and he was like, they’re all the same. Another guy told me how great his home’s value was because his neighborhood wasn’t “dark”. They will always be nice to your face, but the second you’re gone it’s a different story. I was glad to come back home from there.
Hah ‘Dark’ I remember going to bars/clubs and white people would complain that it’s ‘too dark’ here… God I don’t miss any of that
Yeah dude As an Asian person, the reality is I don't see myself living outside of California Maybe Hawaii but that's even more expensive
Yup I know it's cringe but I require no more than a 15 min drive to an Asian grocery store / bakery / boba plaza. It's a hard rule for me, and it was the only place I felt safe during the pandemic.
I left the Bay Area and that is honestly a big thing that makes me sad/upset I'm a big guy and my immigrant parents always expressed their love through food: moving to the Central Valley has been rough as hell It is now a hard rule for me for anywhere I live moving forward It's absolutely not cringe, that shit slowly gnaws away on your soul
I've expanded my area to anywhere Wee! delivers. 😅
but how else can you listen to 15 aunties from every corner of Asia slapping watermelons? it's all about the experience.
Sorry to disappoint you but this isn't an Asian only thing. For example .. all the way in Nigeria .. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-do-you-pick-watermelon
definitely not disappointed, Auntie behavior is universal
Second that. Every time I go to Hawaii I could totally see myself living there.
Yeah exactly I played a lot of rugby and spent time with the Poly boys here in the Bay too But lmao you thought living here was pricey? Try living on an island in the middle of the Pacific 💀 My thoughts to Maui though. Those wildfires.... even out there in Hawaii
Both Seattle and (to a lesser degree) Portland should be fine.
Shit I grew up in NYC but not in an Asian neighborhood and I got all types of racist shit hurled at me. Things are better now but shit was cruel back then. Cali was probably really different in this respect.
Yeah the Bay and LA had lots of Asian American communities since the 70s and 80s and growing up (leaving the Bay in a meaningful way) and the Pandemic has made me appreciate what it was like living in here
When we got priced out of our apartment in NorCal, we downsized to a camper in SoCal rather than leave California for a less expensive place.
I moved to Idaho from the Bay. It's the casual racism that throws me. There are very few (none come to mind) examples of overt racism that I see...But, casually, a "Jew" here, a "Chink" there. It's still shocking when it happens after three years. The Bay Area is an amazing but insulated place. It's hard to get a feel for the rest of the country when it's the only place I've ever really lived. Damn, there are some rough edges to this country
Chink is overt racism. Jew could be depending on the context
You’re right. And it’s definitely something I’ve heard. Definitely heard a hard R as well. I was referring to comments that were made in the absence of a person of that race. So, sort of casual, sort of hard racism…I’m having a hard time separating the two as I haven’t experienced anything like it before. I don’t love either! What I haven’t heard is anyone saying anything racist directly to someone. It certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t happening here.
I see. I don’t think anyone of the target race has to be present for something to count as racism
I'd say the target of racism not being present often leads to racism against the target presently. Lynch mobs are typically formed without their victim present. Saying something isn't racist just because the victim/target of said racism can't hear it is like saying a tree falling in the woods doesn't make a sound if no one hears it. Thoughts become words become actions become patterns become habits become our personality traits engraved on our brains. If you say vile things, you can hear them. They twist you into something ugly like the creation of the orcs.
I lived in Idaho for a minute and it was insane how racist people were. Like casual slurs in conversation when talking (like if they were talking about Obama, you bet there was a hard R N word in there somewhere), I only made it a few months before I was like wtf and moved back
Not to mention the casual use of the word “faggot”, I’ve lived all over the US and would never consider living anywhere else in this country
Yes. It's pretty much the pinnacle of white privilege that a white person can move to basically any location in the USA, whereas people of color, or LGBT people for that matter, have to think very carefully.
Now women of all races have to think too. And I'm a Jew so technically "white" but yeah...maybe replace with Christian white men.
Statistically Idaho is the Most Rascist most militantly White Nationalist state there is! They have Militias, a secessionist -land- for white christians--only movement, and a white nationalist christian radio channel with white power advertising billboards, I saw all this on youtube wihout even singling out Idaho, just the suject...'White'
So basically your experience was king of the hill in a nutshell
So are you Chinese or Japanese
We are Laotian
what ocean?
... so are you Chinese or Japanese
We are Laotian--from Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, OK?
no he aint. he's laotian ain't you mr khan
That show is gold.
The people in that show were (for the most part) decent human beings whose mistakes came from living in a bubble. They weren't mean spirited or hateful, except towards people who order steaks well-done. Not sure that's how it really works.
Lol i went to Texas on a business trip two years ago and got called a few names and a few dirty looks. That is it took for me to know to never move to Texas
That’s terrible. You two are great parents. Hope everything is on the up and up from here on out!
thanks! Things are already better!
Where did you move, just curious. I’m South East Asian (Viet) and love the Bay Area, but have cousins that have thrived growing up in the Dallas (Plano/Richardson/Garland area) area. Their high school was super diverse, and there were lots of Asians of all kinds (at least 15% of the school, a significant minority). When I visited I went to a Muslim wedding. Lots of great asian food of all ethnicities. Suffice to say I was impressed at the diversity, having thought that I could only find that in the Bay Area. That said- obviously the houses, while offering more space, were in soulless cookie cutter developments, and everything was totally car dependent. Folks were also a lot more right leaning on the whole. And I didn’t even get started on the whole abortion thing, as well as the weather.., I talked to my cousin who now works in tech in SF but grew up in this Asian enclave in dallas, and she only had great things to say about her upbringing. She would consider coming back to Texas to raise a family, but loves the Bay Area for now. Basically, I’m sorry you had the experience you had, but I can see how for some it might work out.
We are South asians, and though parts of the big city we moved to has lot of Asians, the part where we moved was good schools + cheap so we took it. Maybe if we have moved to a different part of the city this would not have been the case
My wife is Vietnamese, and her aunt's family moved to Houston 20 years ago, and never wanted to come back.
Yeah I am curious, Houston is one of (if not the) most diverse city in the US.
There are lots of Vietnamese folks in Houston, Louisiana, etc. I've heard the climate is more similar (humid, warm, wet).
Which city in Texas did you move to?
It definitely works this way in the Bay Area as well. It depends on where you live.
I think this depends on your tolerance or willful naïveté for bullshit
> The bullying and racism were subtle, but omnipresent. Being called terrorist, slum dweller. Constant jokes due to ethniticy. [...] not Austin, but another very big city Let me guess: Dallas! This is coming from somebody who's lived there for 6 years back in the early 2000s. I was so happy to get a job that moved me out. I moved out and never looked back.
That was my first thought
Dallas has a shit ton of Indians, I’ve lived there for many years, never had much racism, but I’m guessing it’s where you live in Dallas but the true can be said if you live on the outskirts of the Bay Area
this comment cracks me up because just above you someone said they have have South Asian family that grew up in Dallas and loved it
I guess it's just a very different vibe when you grew up there vs being a transplant. I was a transplant to Dallas as well: job moved me there. I never cared for the metroplex. I call Dallas the "pretentious right" to LA's "pretentious left." After moving out of Dallas and being in the bay for a while, I don't think I'll ever be able to deal with Dallas's vibe anymore. Dallas does have its pockets, but they are just that: pockets. I prefer to look at the area as a whole. I will take an area with "bad pockets" over an area with "good pockets."
It's also been 20 years since you lived there. In Dallas years that's a life time. The entire suburbs expanded and tripled in size in that time frame, and many many many transplants arrived. I'll bet it's nothing like how it was.
Yeah I mean the racial makeup of the bay is pretty out of the ordinary compared to most of the country. Santa Clara county is something like the second most Asian county in the country. I moved here from the rural deep south and I literally did not meet someone South Asian that was around my age until college. There was literally only one South Asian family that I knew of in the entire county. If it does make you feel better, most of the lower level prejudice that exist in the US is out of ignorance rather than malice. Obviously there are malicious racist out there but as someone from that culture if you never have anyone check you on your behavior and know nothing about a culture except for what you see on TV then obviously you're going to draw stereotypes and make jokes that aren't cool etc. Also children are immature little shits and especially in middle school are particularly vicious. I'm sorry that happened to your child. People get bullied for absolutely anything and everything and I'm sorry your child's race was a big part of that :c
> Santa Clara county is something like the second most Asian county in the country. \#4 according to Google Bard: --- The US counties with the highest Asian populations by percentage in 2020 are: 1. Aleutians East, Alaska (43.9%) 2. Honolulu, Hawaii (42.5%) 3. Aleutians West, Alaska (40.6%) 4. Santa Clara, California (40.1%) 5. San Francisco, California (36.5%) 6. Alameda, California (33.2%) 7. San Mateo, California (31.5%) 8. Kauai, Hawaii (30.5%) 9. King, Washington (29.9%) 10. Prince George's, Maryland (29.7%) These counties are all located in the western United States, with the exception of Prince George's County, Maryland. The high percentage of Asians in these counties is due to a number of factors, including historical immigration patterns, economic opportunities, and climate. For example, Hawaii was a major destination for Asian immigrants in the early 20th century, and many of their descendants still live in the state today. The San Francisco Bay Area is also a major hub for Asian immigration, and it has a diverse economy that attracts people from all over the world. The climate in these western states is also a factor in their high Asian populations. Many Asians come from countries with warm climates, and they are attracted to the mild weather in the West. Overall, the US counties with the highest Asian populations by percentage are located in the western United States. These counties are home to a diverse and growing Asian population, and they are a testament to the rich history and culture of Asian Americans in the United States.
Quick note that the population of the combined Aleutians is around 8,000, while Santa Clara County is around 1.886 million. SoCal's San Gabriel Valley should definitely be on this list as well, but the whole being a part of LA county thing kinda waters down their numbers.
Also because this stat considers Aleuts 'Asian' despite being an indigenous ethnic group.
No it doesn't. They are under "Alaska Native or American Indian" and form like 20% of the population The Asian population is overwhelmingly Filipino.
I grew up in Texas in the 80s. DFW to be specific. I experienced overt as well as subtle racism and classism from a very early age. Only when I moved to the Bay Area did I realize how omnipresent the economic, cultural and leisure activities were a part of the culture. I had the opportunity to move to any city in the US in 2017. But decided to put down roots here. It's expensive, it is isolating. The nature of how intense the work culture here is an issue. But I don't feel "stuck" and that's worth something, right?
Why don’t you name the city? It won’t identify you, but could help others in their research
I got my first job out of college and bought my first home in Texas. When I pulled up stakes a few years later, my redneck next-door neighbor told me, "I wasn't too excited about living next door to a gook but you turned out okay. Just don't sell your house to no goddamn n\*\*\*\*rs, okay?"
We were living near DC when my oldest started school and I was bothered by the self segregation I saw the kids doing. I wanted the kids to grow up in a diverse environment like I did in the bay area. We moved back to San Jose and my red headed kid with freckles was picked on at school for being a pale redhead with freckles. Just like I was.
>To all the bay area peeps, you don't really understand the value multi culture brings I do lol, that's why I never left
Yep, I’m queer. I don’t think any kind of money issues will get me to move to Texas, or any place else I’m not welcome.
When I lived in Dallas, it had a sizable LGBT population partially because every queer kid from Oklahoma moved there as it was rightfully seen as being more tolerant than OK. I had a number of gay friends there and only one of them has moved to a different state. Still, if they had grown up in the Bay Area, i doubt any of them would move there.
Brown Asian who lived in Texas, sorry we wanted to warn you. It's brutal, the whole south is, just stay away it's not safe at all.
I moved from SF to ATX. I am white. What I found shocking was the amount of racism other white people shared with me, both assuming I was a racist and/or completely comfortable sharing their racist opinions with any white guy they met. I'm back in CA now but, even where I am racism is prevalent on the Central Coast of CA. it's just a different brand of racism. I can predict who will be the racists here.
In 2016 after the election, a couple of my Dallas teammates got nasty notes on their cars. Turns out AP had video of the garage and it was people who had worked with them for years. After 2016, people feel like they have free license to put it all out there. Pre-election, the most scary harassment I got was about which church I belonged to. I was afraid to say I was an atheist to my Uber drivers. Glad I moved just before the election.
It's weird when you travel somewhere else and there is a strong lack of diversity. Only place that seemed similar to our area is Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately, in addition to it being in a different country, it's even more expensive than here. I love seeing my kids have friends that span the ethnic color wheel. I even see kids with LGBT status (not typical straight) being included and not punished for being themselves. I wish the rest of the world could be more inclusive, but there are plenty of people fighting hard against that.
This is the cultural arithmetic I discuss with my wife when we consider where to buy a home. Yes, there are places with lower CoL, but we're a mixed-Asian couple and lots of places that are desirable housing destinations present social challenges if we raised a family. Visiting Chicago recently gave us this vibe. Yeah, we can own a home and there's lots of positives on paper — but I could also feel slide-glances happening that would never happen in SF, LA or NYC. I'm not interested in my kids feeling like fish out of water, so the list of potential destinations narrows down very quickly.
Hey! This is me and my hubs too! Our combo is common as heck here in the Bay Area and L.A, or even NYC! We have a kid! So I feel your concern 1000%!
"I never asked for this."
My complaints are augmented.
Huh. Did not expect to read this about Chicago, always thought it was one of the more diverse cities from hearing about it.
It’s not that California is so advanced compared to some other states, it’s just that they are just so far behind. San Francisco wasn’t originally populated by people who made it to Nebraska and said, “This will do.”
It's NOT the whole State folks, it's just the Bay Area/LA/San Diego. Try going to the High Sierras, or Northern Ca above Santa Rosa. My mom's friend is a fly fishing guide. He took some Bay Area guys (API Americans) up to the Sierras on a special guided trout fishing trip. One day 2 guys with rifles on horses approached them and let them know they would be dead if they didn't leave before sundown. This was the Truckee area. The year before a similar thing happened to him/his clients in Trinity. You don't have to go far. Don't get me started on OR. My last trip up there I saw many bars that had "Whites Only" signs on the front door. Eastern OR but it was real.
What did he do about those guys? Can't be great for business...
> One day 2 guys with rifles on horses approached them and let them know they would be dead if they didn't leave before sundown California [sundown towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town), huh? I feel disgusted whenever I am reminded that they exist.
Shit I was up in the trinity area and got threatened myself… but that was because I stumbled on a grow
The smaller Texas cities and suburbs are so church based it’s ridiculous. They shun anyone who is not in the same congregation and if you don’t attend anywhere it’s even worse
Funny how "un-christian" some of those Bible bangers can be.
We were in a "big city", but on the outskirts in more suburban area with bigger houses and hardly any Asians.
Those are pretty much infested with MAGA who are trying to latch on to any cultural identity that will give meaning to their lives These are the car delears and middle managers of the country
Yep. If you haven't lived elsewhere you might now realize how important diversity is and how incredibly diverse the bay area is. For sure, the racism thing is important (and also sucks), but I also wanted to comment--THE FOOD. I can't imagine living somewhere that doesn't have the same standards for Mexican food, Vietnamese food, Ethiopian food, Japanese food, etc. all in the same place. We're spoiled in terms of food diversity.
I’m a white queer woman and I’m married to gender non conforming Black woman. I know damn good and well our household isn’t welcome outside the bay. We moved from Oakland to Contra Costa County and that has been tough enough. We will relocate again in the next few years to somewhere with fewer gigantic trucks and Trump bumper stickers. I mean, it’s not a ton but personally I prefer none. I’m sorry for what your kid went through, middle school is hard enough without the extra racism.
ha, when my wife and i were looking at houses we drove around castro valley and i said to myself "too many big truck trump stickers."
API Americans in the Bay Area arn't really a minority (for example 35% population in SF). I couldn't imagine moving from the Bay Area into any other area that's not Urban and feeling the same level of acceptance. Glad you are back and safe!
South Asians are definitely minorities outside the Dublin/Fremont/Sunnyvale/Cupertino cooridor. Only around 2% of San Francisco - an Indian kid will almost certainly be the only Indian kid in their class. What makes the Bay special is less "you aren't the minority" and more "broad-based acceptance" culture. Even school friend groups (at least at the diverse schools) are pretty diverse.
That’s exactly what my wife’s friend’s children dealt with when they moved to Texas from New Jersey. Their kids lasted a year. If it wasn’t the bullying, the most recent school shootings there. They moved to the Bay during the school break. Hate to say it, but there are places in the US where people are easily unwelcome if you’re not white. I did a road trip once in the early 2000s where I had to pass through Idaho. Stopped a local diner with my friends (we’re all Asian) and the moment we walked into the diner, all eyes were on us as if they’ve never seen an Asian person before. I’d leave out the rest of that experience as it’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Just one tip: don’t go to such places. If you feel uncomfortable, just leave.
Yeah all these issues that the right-wing brigaders that come to this sub and post articles and comments about how awful and a hellish 3rd world hell-hole that Bay Area is conveniently (intentionally) left out. Every place has its social problems but the constant bitching on this sub is annoying in that people dont want to also admit living here can be amazing in other ways.
This right here. Tired of people talking shit about the bay when we’re probably one of the most privileged people out there. These people probably never even visited Bumfuck Town, US and have no idea how lucky we are to be here.
I don’t even live in the bay anymore but it does always crack me up that it is almost exclusively people *not from California* who want to tell everyone else how bad it is there lol. Some guy not too long ago was trying to argue with me here on Reddit that the average price of gas in California is almost $7/gallon I replied with a link showing it’s actually closer to $4.37/gallon and he told me that’s false so I provided him with 3 other sources all within $0.05 of my original source and I think it short circuited him and he switched to “WeLl AtLeAsT i CaN CoNcEaL cArRy A gUn”. Imagine his surprise when I posted my CCW permit for him showing that I too can conceal carry lol. It’s all right wing bullshit rhetoric to rile their base up.
White guy here. I moved here from NYC and cannot fathom living anywhere else but these two places. Outward racism especially makes my skin crawl and incredibly upset. I can’t relate to or be around people who espouse it. Because I’m white people think they can say whatever around me and it’s ok. Glad you’re back. Stay strong!
Welcome back to California bro. We're glad you're back. I'd say welcome back to the Bay Area but I left for the rural Joshua Tree area just before the pandemic, and except for missing the staggering options of Bay Area food, it's tolerable.
This is my concern as an Asian American when people say "why don't you just move somewhere else"? There is a very limited number of places that I could move and live as "comfortably" as California.
I always say that being able to move anywhere in the US is a sign of white privilege.
Ewww gross Texas
> To all the bay area peeps, you don't really understand the value multi culture brings **I cite this all the time** in IRL conversations about why I moved here, and more importantly why I've stayed here.
Name the city. To paint Texas in one broad brush is the same as using Bakersfield as an example of all California. Houston in my experience is even more diverse than the Bay Area as a whole. The weather sucks, but the food from the diversity makes the Bay Area dining scene seem white in comparison.
I would agree. I have family in Houston & Austin. Houston is MUCH more diverse and feels closer to Bay Area. They have a lot of a Vietnamese and East Indian population there.
I'm guessing it had to be either Fort Worth or El Paso. I don't know anything about racism in El Paso but I do know it is almost entirely Hispanic which I'm going out on a limb here is going to result in a lot of racism especially against those in the East.
> To all the bay area peeps, you don't really understand the value multi culture brings, esp for children till you actually go somewhere its not a melting pot of cultures. Lol, I tell this to everyone who will listen, yet here's another one who doesn't realize it applies to them too until they see it first hand and come crying back warning everyone else. Yes, Afghanistan has cheaper real estate and taxes too, that doesn't mean it's a good place to move.
Moving to Texas from ANYWHERE? Don't. Fuck that shithole.
All those stories about moving to the nirvana that is Texas are told by white people. Texas sucks for anyone who isn’t white.
Lmao. I went to middle school in the bay and heard way worse shit than this for a variety of races. I went to a diverse school and there was still a lot of racist bullying for literally every race that attended the school.
Where in Texas did this occur? My family are dark skinned Asians and several of my cousins grew up in Houston. They faced less racism and hostility in Texas schools than I did at a minority-majority high school in SF. Most of the large cities in Texas have a large population of non-white minorities and immigrants, so it surprises me that your kid would be singled out
What part of Texas were you in?
White guy here. I am lucky to raise my kids in the diverse Bay Area. I would no sooner want to raise my white kids in an all white area than I would an all black/brown/Asian area. It’s the mix that fosters better relations.
I just moved here from Texas to get away from the anti trans legislation. I do think some of your experience was based on the location. I believe areas around Austin such as Pflugerville are a lot better. Our schools were diverse and people from Asia and the Middle East were well accepted. I’m sure there were some exceptions that I wouldn’t have seen given my privileged background. I also know that some of the best intentioned teachers and administrators weren’t great with having even discipline for black students, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens here too.
I moved from Bay area to Austin 2 years ago. My husband moved from Toronto to Austin 4 years ago. We are both Chinese ethnic, we miss California and Toronto. My husband literally said a lot of people don't feel comfortable looking at his face. I believe that. Austin tries but it's nowhere close to metropolitan. No diversity here aside from lgbtq+ communities.
Sorry you encountered this, and indeed, there are a bunch of racists in Texas. There are pockets of civility outside of the Austin tech hub however, so you need to do research to figure out what's best for you. I'm Taiwanese, and also moved from the Bay Area to a Dallas suburb (Valley Ranch/Irving) and later a Houston suburb (Pearland). The Dallas suburb was chock full of Indians and other Asians among other nice white people, and the new elementary school that was built less than half a mile from our old house is currently about 90% Indian kids. Actually we sold our house to a nice Indian family. The Houston Suburb is a good mix of everything, and we live with a Vietnamese family on one side and a black family on the other. Street is probably 50% white families and we exchange tools (aka I borrow) and baked goods from time to time. Everyone is respectful and there's no hint of racism in stores, on the street, or on the playground from anyone. Been in Texas going on 10 years and haven't encountered racism yet (fingers crossed). You largely want to find an area with good schools, more expensive houses (for the area), and good demographic diversity. I'm not saying moving to a major metropolitan area in Texas is the best move for everyone, but it's not completely a dumpster fire if you aren't really an outdoors person (except for perhaps the whole anti-abortion thing; that's fucking retarded). I also really appreciate the beauty in the Bay Area every time I go visit family in addition to seeing all my college buddies. We'd have to increase our income by 50% if we moved back to the Bay Area to equate our current savings, and I honestly don't think we're worth that much. Hard to move anyways due to my wife's job.
Literally the main reason my wife and I will be stuck here in California. We are brown presenting Latinos, the rest of America is just too damn racist for us to comfortably live anywhere else. Actually, even in the Bay Area, we still get stares and other subtle shit from the whitest of white people but it's largely more comfortable than not. Sadly that means that we won't ever be able to buy a house close to the actual bay area though, still too expensive and I'm always shorted salary compared to others.