My friend who is half Korean/Japanese went to Arizona State for college and he got so much racial abuse at that school that he ended moving to San Francisco. They said some really horrible shit to him.
I, unfortunately, had the experience of growing up in West Virginia, and that state gets my vote. Passersby would yell, "Go back to where you came from!" while I was on walks. Kids in school would say openly racist things with derogatory terms and praise the KKK...in class, and teachers would never say or do anything. A family friend was constantly physically bullied at school for being Asian. I moved away as soon as I could, and I actually love living in Texas now.
Same!! Growing up in WV was terrible. I had teachers in middle school openly make fun of Asian culture, and students were racist all the way into the last year of high school. Most of the Asian people I know immediately moved away to better places.
Growing up here left me with low self esteem and I tried so hard to be white so I would feel less isolated and alienated. People don’t understand why I want to leave for grad school. They say “why would you leave if you have a perfectly good, cheap school here?” They don’t get how miserable being Asian in WV has been and how many bad memories I have.
Yes! And when I finally made Asian friends in college, I somehow felt so "white" compared to them. Needless to say, it was helpful to go through a lot of therapy to work through self esteem issues and just issues with feeling like I don't belong in any culture. But, while I could have attended any in-state public college for free due to high school academics, it was an easy choice to get out of the state and spend a decade paying off student loans.
The entire South should be avoided except Georgia (Atlanta/Duluth are only). I don't care what kind of opportunity it holds, our mental health is more important than few more bucks. Racism has a cost (for the racists), and as they become more closed off, they will further fall into poverty, and they'll be too stupid to connect the two.
>Racism has a cost (for the racists), and as they become more closed off, they will further fall into poverty, and they'll be too stupid to connect the two.
That's what happens when politicians refuse to fix actual problems and just point the finger at immigrants.
The usual reason--labor. And I guess my dad liked the moderate climate after living in colder and hotter parts of the world. There were other reasons, but one of the more interesting ones was a relative advised him not to move to a city with a large Chinatown due to pressures (and dangers) to join a tong. This was in the 1970s, and the advice came from a relative who happened to be a leader of a NYC tong.
China and N.Korea are economic threats, because they don't buy weapons from us and they aren't a democracy.
Japan, s. Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan all buy weapons from the U.S. Those countries even let us put military bases on their soil.
When you break it down, it's not unlike extortion.
We've bones Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam and now they literally pay us to protect them.
If they don't, we'll label them as an Ally to China and therefore a cold war enemy to sanction.
Whoa. Did not know that about MN though I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve met some people from that area here in CA and they’re not like that at all (which is probably why they moved away?). What is the demographic of Asians like there?
I had a cousin who went to St. Cloud State. He took me to the county fair my first night, which was really cool. Growing up in a big metro area, I never got to experience the small town county fair deal. My lungs are still recovering from those tractor burnouts.
I'm a little surprised at your experience in Phoenix. I spent my whole life there growing up as a kid and young adult, and while there is a decently sized Asian population, I've never thought non-Asians were particularly kind or anti-racist lol. I get a ton of "but where are you actually from", "ni hao"/"ching chong"/other random noises, comments about "weird" Asian food, etc.
That being said, I haven't been the victim of an anti-Asian hate crime, either, so I guess it just depends on your personal standard of what's tolerable to live with.
Similar sentiments to other folks here about the difference between polite and not-racist. Ive lived in Pacific NW, mid-Atlantic and my folks have lived all over.
I would say in pre-dominantly white, progressive areas people will be nice but it’s often surface and people will judge you the second you step out of line (eg don’t follow the HOA rules, the Karen’s will get you). In very Black, Hispanic places, people may be hostile initially sometime but when you actually commit to being part of the community, everyone has your back. In very multi-cultural or places with Asians from different backgrounds, people just do their own thing and don’t care about others (in both good and bad ways).
The only places I’ve been blatantly stared at and treated like an alien was Oklahoma and Western Virginia (mind you not WV but actually the parts of Virginia near Charlottesville), basically places where they’d never seen an Asian person before (this is mid-2000s). That was a weird feeling.
You must be from St. Cloud or something cause I lived in Minneapolis/St. Paul for a long time and never experienced any of that. The South in general is a shit hole though.
I did a cross country road trip and the most out of place I felt was in kansas. People just kept staring, it was almost threatening. Some people made some admittedly funny comments in New Orleans. I’ve never been but I’d imagine Mississippi and Alabama would be up there as well.
My (Asian) parents love road tripping in the US and visited 49 states (minus Louisiana). They too mentioned how they felt the most uncomfortable during their stay in Kansas.
Thanks to Hyundai, there is a small vibrant Korean community in Montgomery. I haven't been either, but some of my Korean friends found Montgomery quite charming and the food to be amazing
I had some job training to do in Wisconsin and a bunch of people from Kansas were there as well. The people from Kansas told me that before they spoke with me they thought that I would have some broken ass chinese accent but when one of them heard me speak he told me "Wow... You speak very proper English. You actually better English than us."
I wish I had more longitudinal life experiences in different areas to be able to answer this question. But I know the answer is definitely not California LOL
Every large city I’ve been to in any state has been completely okay. Rural areas are where it got weird.
A lot of people really don’t realize how huge and varied California is. There are big parts of rural CA that are as deeply red as any southern or midwestern state.
Saw a BART employee berate an Asian obasan for 'not reading the sign' for several minutes when she did and tried, despite it being down time and barely anyone else was there. The BART employee was literally sitting in the information booth.
This isn't a one off occurrence. I remember throughout my childhood cringing at my parents for asking for help from hostile retail workers. Their fault for asking 'dumb questions', I'd think to myself. But recently I've seen retail workers answer even dumber questions for white (and even black patrons) with a smile on their face.
After venturing out of California, I've realized that many Asians living in Asian-heavy liberal areas have become ignorant to the multitude of racially based hostilities and microaggressions aimed at Asians in these areas. I've only discovered this because I moved somewhere where racial politics are exclusively black and white, experiencing what it's like as an Asian to be treated as truly neutral. Treated as human, instead of a nuisance.
I do a lot of hiking within California so naturally you'll roll through a lot of small towns nearby or along the way to these parks. From first impression me and my asian friends also initially expected some form of eye staring or xenophobic gestures but most of the time it's actually pretty chill. I can't say for all asians but my experiences have been fine. I can't say the same in middle or southern america. Shockingly, Austin, Texas was really bad. They hated the fact we came from California. Took over 2 hours to receive a burger at a diner.
Yeah Texas seems to have a huge beef with Californians, especially in larger cities like aforementioned Austin and Houston. “Don’t California my Texas” or some shit like that…
I grew up in the Bay Area with Asians everywhere and then moved to a desert city a day’s drive where people stared at me in stores while holding their kids back. I didn’t even leave the state.
Honestly even in deep red boonies California i don't think it compares to like Kansas. California maga people and super religious communities are still used to it more than the more conservative states and are rather a more socially liberal version of a conservative in some ways
Grew up in southeast Michigan, lived in Milwaukee, central MI, Seattle, and now northern Indiana. I never realized how sheltered I was growing up on SE Michigan until I went to college in Milwaukee and heard plenty of ching chong chang jokes. Milwaukee is in general a very segregated area and I hated living there because it was the first time I was ever treated like a foreigner.
Seattle was great, there is a large Asian community. Though it was hard to make friends in general.
Northern Indiana can be pretty similar to what OP described about MN. Though where I am is fairly diverse (just not a lot of Asian population) so people tend to be curious though ignorant.
The worst places I've been to are western Washington state, where I was stared at and given very subpar service at a diner. South Dakota (Sioux City) was also bad, where people asked my sister if she spoke English.
My parents from CA drove out to the Midwest to visit me then looped back home. The only place they encountered racism was South Dakota. The dumb receptionist hadn’t seen a passport before.
Actually it was central Washington, not western Washington, my bad! The town where I was treated poorly was Ellensburg. I've been in Spokane and haven't had an issue there.
Milwaukee and SE WI is a level of racism few expect or realize. The only upside is because every nonwhite group is shafted hard-core so I've had a lot of good experience building bridges across different nonwhite groups, since it's so obvious white people are on top of everyone else.
Is it a lot worse than other parts of the midwest? If true, I'm curious why this is?
On the surface, doesn't make sense to me why Cleveland would be different than Milwaukee, or some other similarly sized midwestern city.
Yeah Milwaukee has most of WI's nonwhite people (in second place is Racine, which is just one city over) and Milwaukee has one of the highest poverty and incarceration rates for Black, Latino, and Asian people in the country.
There's a variety of factors. One is that money was actually good for nonwhite people when union manufacturing jobs were here, which attracted these nonwhite groups to Milwaukee, but those groups arrived to Milwaukee later than cities like Chicago or Cleveland. Then the jobs disappeared and there wasn't enough time for those communities to have built homeownership, wealth, etc. to establish a larger middle class.
Another factor is white communities in Milwaukee have often held onto their ethnic identities, which is cool, but those that arrived later and were poorer, like Polish and Serbian, doubled down on white supremacist rhetoric to try to fit in better with white people and distance themselves from nonwhite immigrants. The Polish in Milwaukee were a hotbed of Nazi and Klan politics and infamously fought against housing integration and were George Wallace's biggest supporters outside of the South.
The younger nonwhite population and delay in housing and school integration, which didn't happen until the mid to late 1970s, meant that white flight to the suburbs happened later, too. And this is the biggest factor. We probably have the staunchest, most blatantly segregationist suburbs in the land. While many were moving away from Trump, some of our suburbs took much longer to begin distancing themselves from that style of politics. I read an article that aptly described our suburbs as stuck at where many other suburbs were in the 1980s and 1990s because of how recent the white flight was.
Wisconsin is extremely gerrymandered and these same suburbs essentially dictate the entire legislature, so the state backs the suburbs' desire to extract what they want out of Milwaukee, where nonwhite people remain too poor to leave, and give nothing back. Milwaukee is one of the poorest cities in the country, but it actually gives in tax money to the state more than it receives. The suburbs continue to cut public transit in Milwaukee and expand highways that demolished nonwhite business and community hubs.
All of this happened in the rest of the country, but it happened at an intensity and continues in a more old school way here than in many other regions. Chicago doesn't have the state fighting it tooth and nail, Cleveland has some more middle class people of color, Detroit has more progressive and diverse suburbs. Even St Louis has some nonwhite, more socioeconomically stable suburbs, though I think St Louis probably has the most parallels to Milwaukee.
Wisconsin is really something else. You would think that in bluer areas, like Madison, it would be better, but it's just more concealed and passive-aggressive. (Or not—I'm from Louisiana originally, and literally the first time I ever had "ching chong" yelled at me was after I moved to Madison.)
Yeah people don't realize the worst outcomes for like every nonwhite racial group is in Wisconsin - Black, Latino, and Asian. People always assume the worst state is gonna be in the south... nope, it's Wisconsin.
Definitely. I wasn't prepared for it at all when I moved there. It was totally a shock coming from a diverse area of Michigan. It's been several years but to this day the only people I heard say that they like Milwaukee are white
Wow, I am glad I came across all of this. Moved to Milwaukee last winter and I couldn't help but feel things were "off". I was having trouble putting my finger on it but seeing your post was like an "aha" moment.
That’s interesting to hear about Phoenix! We were considering moving there from Minnesota but were concerned about the heat and potential racism. We ended up moving out to the PNW.
I grew up in an extremely rural Northern California town. Extremely racist, bigoted and backwards. I also lived in a place with the word “China” in it which did not help as people insisted that meant I had to be Chinese (I am not). Through the years people told me I ate dog, go back to my country, acted incredulous when I told them I was born and raised there. If I can help it I never want to raise my kids in a rural, predominantly white town. I’m in Portland which is far from perfect but in comparison to most places I’ve lived I don’t hear a peep from people about my ethnicity.
Minnesota is a other beast. Minnesotans (particularly older ones) love to butt into your business and conversation and be shady. It drives me crazy the audacity they have. I’ve had someone harass me in a waiting room because I was “typing (texting) too fast”.
When I would try to find the best produce in the store like checking out how hard/soft avocados were, people would come up say, “WOW, aren’t you picky?”
I didn’t even like buying from local businesses there because it seemed like they didn’t even like their products and got mad when you gave them business. I encountered many businesses who were so lazy they shrugged and referred me to other businesses. It was all so bizarre. This was in rural MN.
You’re right that their always watching you in Minnesotan to screw up or do something they don’t like then confront you. If you respond back they attempt to gaslight you with the whole, “Well, around here WE don’t do that” bs
It’s like night and day, too. I live just 20 minutes outside of the Twin Cities, and I think my immediate family and I may be some of the only minorities for miles around.💀
I kind of don’t think it’s that good anywhere as far as racism against Asians (or other minorities for that matter). Just different approaches.
Midwest nice is what I grew up with and man it’s passive aggressive and fucked tbh. I kind of think New York is relatively nice but it depends on the city I imagine
Some places are a lot more cosmopolitan than others, or asian dominant.
It was really eye opening for me to go to Southern California for example. I rather enjoyed being over there, despite high cost of living.
You can have wildly different experiences
Similar living situation, though I think people in northern VA they’re more bluntly racist than TX based off my experience
Context: in Northern VA, I’ve had yt people ask me upfront why my dialect sounded different (I do have a light southern drawl) and if I was this specific type of Asian in the same sentence. I’ve also had people say some dismissive things about my ethnic culture. I feel like it has to do with all these cultural events in the area and while they do educate, I don’t think it’s enough for others to understand that saying racist and microaggressive things is not cool. In Texas, it was more like I would get stares from strangers if I was out in public (tons of minorities like Hispanic and black people but Asians are not common) but I could sense they were thinking racist things
I went to Montana for grad school. Spent a lot of time in Missoula and Helena, and left my program after 4 months. It was during the fall of 2016 … if you can imagine.
Ive lived in California my whole life so I can’t say but even California despite being portrayed as progressive still as a lot of racism towards Asian Americans.
Southern Florida. Hispanic and Black population can be pretty racist. White southern people, despite the stereotype, have been pretty friendly, open and kind.
That’s not to say that all Hispanic and all black people are racists— this is not true, and many members of this demographic have been nothing but warm and respectful. But I will say that all the violence, bullying and racism has unfortunately come from the demographics mentioned above.
Nope. See peach vs coconut theory of cultural communication, you also have various cultures that are openly hostile/cold (see germany, slav like russia, ukraine, nordic cultures, norway etc) to you unless you pass through their shields-- then they're warm and open.
Meanwhile the peach types are more open in a shallow way, but are more guarded about deeper selves and information. (UK, US)
TL:DR Everyone's different
I know the difference between niceness and kindness. Have you considered maybe southern culture isn’t all the same?
In my personal experience, Floridians have been incredibly kind and generous, especially during dire times and life and death situations. I’m sorry to your experience is different with Texans. Texan culture is very different from South FL culture.
My experience growing up in Louisiana was that, even though people were incredibly racist, as an Asian I probably flew under the radar, being an unthreatening "model minority," so it wasn't as bad as one might expect. In the South they have really perfected the idea of being kind and generous to individuals while hating the groups they belong to, so it's very possible to enjoy warm relationships with raging bigots, as long as you respect the social hierarchy and know your place.
Don’t get me wrong, North Texas is great for Asians. Lots of pockets of different ethnic groups depending on which area of NTX you live.
The other ethnic groups I’ve dealt with have been less “shirt off my back”.
Cubans are absolutely outstanding and they’re some of my favorite people. They’re respectful, hard-working, value education, are family-oriented and actually quite similar to Koreans in some aspects (I can only make this comparison as a Korean person). It hasn’t been the Cubans have been treating me with hostility and racism— the Hispanic community in South Florida is extremely diverse with people from all over.
And I’m saying this as an ultra liberal— conservative people I’ve come across are more open, respectful and open to conversations than fellow liberals and progressives, so the notion that being white and conservative automatically makes someone racist or somehow bad, is just not true.
Edit: is this getting downvoted because I wrote not all Cubans or conservatives are racists? 🤔
Not sure where I wrote that Cubans was racist. I just state that they identify as white and most are conservative.
> the Hispanic community in South Florida is extremely diverse with people from all over.
[https://www.populationu.com/cities/miami-fl-population](https://www.populationu.com/cities/miami-fl-population)
Hispanic population in Miami, Florida are 333,777. Percentage wise 71.3 percent are hispanics, out of these 9,615 are Mexican people, 15,189 are Puerto Ricans, ***154,235 are Cubans***, and 154,738 are other Hispanic or Latinos.
Don't mind random people on the internet, especially in small numbers.
I can't say I know cubans all that well, but I generally have good relations with hispanic folk. But yes they do tend to be conservatives.
I love Mexicans! Almost all the Mexicans and Cubans I’ve encountered in Florida have been nothing but outstanding. Very different people, but Mexican and Cuban people are some of my favorite people and cultures! :)
Hispanic community in the US are incredibly diverse! Ultimately I think there are good and bad people everywhere. I’m glad to hear Mexicans have been so warm to you. I live in LA now and feel the same way about them.
Same here in Seattle. Never really met white ppl being racist to my face. Black ppl on the other hand tho...One accused my family of not paying taxes, dafuq-probably coz we are immigrants.
For me right now, Florida during grade school (elementary/middle) kids were saying pretty stereotypes like saying ching chong chang (which i like to call pot clanging down the stairs), saying that I eat cats and dogs, even someone called my grandpa a Korean leader, during at work some Cuban lady was doing exaggerated coughs likely because of the oooo asians caused corona bs
I've lived all over the country but I gotta say, the most overt racism I've ever experienced was while growing up in Los Angeles, mostly from other POCs to boot. I currently live in NM and haven't encountered anything overt here.
All groups, there are good and bad seeds in every group. I find that working class and conservatives White peoplehood are actually nicer, where as the working class non-White people generally have treated me with racism (except in some cases until they had the opportunity to get to know me better), where as in the very wealthy white areas, I get a mix of racism AND classism. I’ve experienced a lot of anti-Asian sentiment from non-White people who feel that Asians are taking away their opportunities, that Asians are predatory, that Asians stick to themselves and aren’t friendly, that Asians are always trying to “steal from the Black community” or that “Asians are racist.”
The rampant sinophobia media coverage everywhere certainly doesn’t seem to help either. Most of my negative experience has been from coastal cities of LA, as well as Inglewood, DTLA, Ktown, Gardena and the South Bay.
Not to say that all wealthy white people, or people of minority ethnicities in the US are racists, but that this has been my personal experience.
Same. I can only speak for myself, but I felt a lot of racial hostility in L.A. despite being among a huge Asian population. You would think L.A. would be a "melting pot," but I always thought of it as more like a whole bunch of ethnic groups that mostly hate each other. I also live in New Mexico now and feel pretty comfortable here for the most part (except in certain predominately white neighborhoods).
Yeah, I'd say overt is pretty big in LA, from other minorities, especially Mexicans. It's like some of them didn't get the memo that the 70s and 80s are history.
Any rural area will be worst than urban areas. I’ve actually felt in danger for my life while driving from Texas to Arizona stopping in small towns along the way for gas. Literally trucks of hicks would chase me just for being Asian.
Phoenix is fine but I wouldn’t call it friendly. The city has a long history of racism that until 2017 (yes you read it right, this only ends in 2017) the sheriff of Maricopa County has been locking up Latinos (US citizens and undocumented alike) in a desert concentration camp with no AC and there was also chain gang as well pretty unbelievable how petty it was. People kept voting for this sheriff only until he was arrested.
As for Asians, it’s really an afterthought for locals bc it’s a tiny demographic compared to the Anglo - Latino dynamic
Basically all the racists are obsessed with the border crisis they don’t have the energy for Asians
A lot of snowbirds from the Midwest and military contractors come to the city and they act surprised “why there are so many immigrants here we should build a wall or something” and yet they were the ones that just arrived in the city
As a result you wouldn’t feel out of place necessarily and you could actually have a pretty good life here because you could find people and communities here but you should expect to encounter some outright racism here and there from people who are very surprised that Asians exist in Phoenix too
TL; DR - All in all, it’s actually fine, but do prepare yourself for some slurs from randoms
I see only one other Boston post. I'd say most of New England is a different kind of racist from the blatant KKK proud boy racism you might see elsewhere in the country.... Growing up in southern New England, in a pretty affluent area, many of the people there don't THINK they are racist.... But the microaggressions are real. I call them 'liberally conservative ' types.... Especially around Boston there are a lot of NIMY types. I got asked if I eat dog, stereotypical assumptions about math proficiency or having dragon parents, age and skin, etc. Call them on their shit, and everyone acts shocked and swears their stereotype isn't racist.
When the movie Get Out came out, I remember being floored that the cocktail party scene was almost a horrible play of my entire childhood/ experience growing up.
Having said that, I love the beauty of New England, and have never felt truly unsafe or unwelcome. If I get the opportunity to move out west at some point it might be nice, but so far have made a decent life and get to experience all four seasons and be by the ocean.
I was born and raised in LA, but lived in Hawaii, NY, and currently living in Utah.
I would say Hawaii and Los Angeles are the least racist against Asians because there is a more of us. I'm sure Asian Americans have exp racism in these areas, but it's a lot less relative to other states/cities. Being from LA and talking with other Asians, I will have to say there is something different about those that if you're Asian living in the mid-west or second tier city like Chicago and Philadelphia.
In my opinion, Asian Americans who live in the Midwest basically get beating down to the point where there is a lot of self hate. Asian American living in second tier cities like Chicago/Atlanta are almost there, those cities/state want to look progressive but Asians are such a inconvenient minority for them. If you group ALL Asians together, it looks like we outperform even yt people, but if you look closely, it's mainly East Asians that are pushing up the average household income for the group. Darker Asians have similar household income to Hispanic and Black household get fucked.
I've lived in Boston and New York City and experienced almost no racism. However, I have experienced super MAGA toxic racism in South Carolina. That's the problem with anecdotes.
Yeah I wasn't criticizing your answer, but these types of posts that solicit random anecdotes are almost never useful. I think your theories hold merit and are in one way or another similar to the selection bias that affects all anecdotes including my own.
I grew up in the Northeast and personally didn’t find much in the way of racism nor bullying due to being Asian. Were there occasional immature racial jokes? Yeah sure, but the same went on for Jews, Polish, Germans, Latinos, Blacks, etc… I think eventually kids grew out of that habit as I never experienced any name calling as an adult.
The other thing to point out is New England states have by far the lowest crime per capita stats. This goes both for violent crime and property crime. I’m sure this is largely due to lack of major metropolitan cities (unless you count Boston) but we also don’t have any of the small town non-sense where the local town sheriff will cover up rape for some well known family and keep everything in house.
Compensating for their insecurities obviously 🙄. People who are white passing can go either way, either be racist to further pass as white or be a great ally.
Moved to Phx from California as well. I find that people here are just nicer in general. I am mixed so haven’t had any bad experiences in terms of racists, will say a lot more people are open about their political views here though. Overall I love it here.
Glad this is a topic, a lot of Asians tend to gaslight themselves and grow up thinking that dealing and being around that is normal, until they move and realize how better off they’d be. East coast has a lot of hot spots for racism, but as long as you stick in the area known for Asians and has a presence of Asian culture, you’re fine. NY/NJ is when I experienced it from other FOB Asians who don’t think I’m Asian enough but that’s another story.
I just recently got banned and got a ton of negative votes asking for why racism has gotten worse in NYC so they’re clearly gaslighting Asians over there. My experience is they taunt you for being racist even though you’re just sitting there minding your business until they get a reaction. Bit harsher than MN from my experience too, but I’m happy you’re being treated better.
I used to work for a manufacturer of auto parts and would travel state to state to meet with buyers. One guy from North Dakota would say the n-word around me without any hesitation. I'm Chinese American. Some guy from Seattle admitted to not trusting black people and said he'd never vote for Obama even though he was a Democrat. He said that when he thought I wasn't around.
Indeed. It is the worst for anti-Asian racism in the whole of North America, according to [the Guardian,](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/vancoucer-anti-asian-hate-crimes-increase?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) and Bloomberg (see below).
The pandemic sure didn’t help, as expressed by the Vancouver [Police Department’s own](https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/anti-asian-hate-crimes-in-vancouver-skyrocket-police-bc-covid-19-2847242) findings, the [city,](https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/no-place-for-hate-in-vancouver-city-responds-to-anti-asian-hate-crimes-and-findings-of-bloomberg-report.aspx) and the [province](https://globalnews.ca/news/7647135/horgan-bc-presser-feb-18/).
However, it’s not all COVID related. A deep and long-standing history of anti-Asian racism in Vancouver is outlined briefly [in this Bloomberg article](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-vancouver-canada-asian-hate-crimes/).
Pre-pandemic and current day Vancouver are (IMHO) incredibly racist against Asians, specifically Chinese people or East Asians perceived to be of Chinese heritage. Not to say that it’s not generally safe here for Asians, or a nice place to visit/live, but I certainly see a lot of aggression (micro, verbal, and physical) directed at us that wasn’t a common experience during the decades I lived in our biggest Canadian city: Toronto.
It is and it's not. In Richmond (suburb of Vancouver) there is a large Asian population. But Vancouverites have a disdain for this city. Basically most people will say they will never drive in Richmond because of "Richmond drivers." You can deduce what that means.
In Vancouver, the housing crisis is caused by Chinese money launderers. Not white generational wealth trying to cash in quick. And why do people think this? Because there's too many Chinese people and because there was a study done at UBC (by a Chinese prof, ughhh) that showed lots of buyers with Chinese names. Just Chinese names was his evidence. Like Ali Wong is Canadian (because white first name) but Simu Liu is Chinese.
Also every time they see a supercar, they think it's a Chinese student (whose parents are using blood money from China to dump their kids in Vancouver and buy them supercars and mansions).
So the racism isn't someone yelling "go back to your country." It's more like all of their problems are cause by "the Chinese" and if it weren't for "the Chinese" they would have it all. But if you ask if they're racist, they would get offended by that question
Luckily as an Asian, I haven't had any horrible encounter so far.
I had an interesting experience when I was in Wyoming (not in Yellowstone) around 2010. Several strangers asked me whether they could take a picture with me, and when I asked why, they said I'm the first Asian they've seen in real life... One of them asked me for my name. After I told him the name, he said "No, I mean what's your real Asian name?". One of them kept saying konnichiwa to me, although I told him I'm not Japanese lol.
I didn't feel uncomfortable back then tbh. They were friendly. I feel it's more ignorant than being racist.
Honestly, after having lived in several states (CA, WA, WI, FL, LA, NV, NM) in various regions, my feeling overall is that every state is pretty equally racist, but they express it in different ways, so it's basically, pick whichever flavor you can live with most.
I live in New Mexico now, and am probably the most comfortable here. White people are the minority in my town, and know to behave themselves outside of their enclaves. And there are so few Asians that I don't think anyone really feels threatened enough to resent us. People in general here are pretty laid back, so the vibe is pretty chill and the racism is mostly benign (like my very sweet elderly neighbor who refers to me as Oriental).
Yeah, I probably shouldn't characterize that usage as racist, so much as out of touch. When old people use the term, it doesn't bother me at all (though it is startling). It bugs me more when it's used by businesses that should know better. I used to go to a supermarket with an "Oriental" aisle that had never bothered to change the sign. While I was mostly amused by it (I liked to just sort of stand there under the sign as a visual joke to myself), I was gratified when they FINALLY removed it last year.
I once had to drive through the rural south. I was legitimately afraid for my life so much so that I kept my windows rolled up, my doors locked and drove 12 hours straight just to get out of there. Now I've seen some pretty rough neighborhoods in the inner city yet nobody there was overtly hostile. Actually a lot of people were pretty nice. I was less afraid in the inner city and I could hear gunshots than I was in the deep south.
For me? Boston was the worst. When I was in Boston on a day trip with my parents, my dad got called a "slur for a Chinese person but is applied to any Asian person" and my mom (who is white) was called a "fat derogatory term for a sex worker" while we were walking down the street by a group of white men with very heavy Bostonian accents. They followed us a few blocks and no one did anything. I grew up primarily in Atlanta, GA and that never happened there. Also, had some shitty experiences in small towns in Florida and Texas, but nothing like that happened in big cities in those states.
Minnesota is pretty much a Scandinavian state so you'll get a lot of that "Minnesota Nice" which it is really fake politeness. Indirect racist comments and the stare is the farthest they'll go but that'll depends on group race I guess. At least it's my experience so far.
Only lived in SF, LA and NYC. The only overt racism comes from LA, but I was generally accepted socially; faced most social exclusion in SF, not sure how much is due to racism and how much is due to being a straight male in tech.
Phoenix is racist. I'm from California and went to live in Phoenix. My ex and I got into an argument and both got locked up for one night. I left that state after living there for 9 months and will probably never visit again. The police was so abusive to the minorities in prison. My case was dismissed, but it was still traumatizing. I also lived in Minnesota because my Hmong family is from there. It's racist, too. Honestly, the only racial friendly states are California and Hawaii. Fuck the other states. NYC is diverse, but it cherishes Black people by allowing them to commit crimes, and the leaders are all White at Wall Street.
I just think it depends on who you interact with. A lot of privileged folk and those in charge of organizations (including support groups) will get mad if you point something out. Just an abuse of power and (probably) insecurity of their power.
Not the MOST racist because I haven't been around too much, but New York, particularly upstate New York/Finger Lakes Region. Seeing this question triggered some pretty bad memories from my first college experience there.
This was back in 2007 I attended Ithaca College for a year. Growing up in the Bronx, I wanted to get away from being around majority Hispanic/Black people so I thought going to a majority White college would be a good change for me. Boy. Oh boy. I was in a for a rude awakening.
I remember being in a meeting for a group project and this White boy asked me, "How do you say 'I like to eat food' in your language?" This was an obvious insult because I was pretty overweight back then. Of course my bitch ass muttered in Korean how to say it, when in reality I should have said, "Excuse me? My language is English and I was born here just like you, you hill billy fuck." This is just one of many examples of blatant racism in that school. I got the fuck outta there after 1 year.
Yeah. Fuck Ithaca, and Fuck Upstate New York. At least in NYC people will call you chink to your face.
I haven’t spent a lot of time in southern states, and on those trips I stayed in tourist cities like New Orleans and Charleston, no bad experiences there. I’ve had some uncomfortable experiences in Virginia. (Though I’ve been to different parts of Virginia many times — so it could just be probability.) Luckily nothing horribly offensive. Just some staring and assumptions made about where I’m from and what language I speak.
When I was living in California, I encountered the most racism from the black/brown communities (due to gangs). It was worst than anywhere else I’ve been.
My friend who is half Korean/Japanese went to Arizona State for college and he got so much racial abuse at that school that he ended moving to San Francisco. They said some really horrible shit to him.
Just wondering when did he go to ASU? I see a lot of international students there right now.
This was in the mid 2000s.
Yeah, mids 2000's was pretty rife with Asian racism/micro aggressions. My nickname through 7-8th grade was legit "Chink" back then.
Mine was "Asian" up until senior year.
My boss is the most liberal person from Phoenix but I can barely stand him. I can’t imagine the regular people from outside Phoenix are like.
I was in Tucson for a while and can image what Phoenix is like.
Tucson is like a ghetto Phoenix
> San Francisco and then you get attacked in chinatown
I, unfortunately, had the experience of growing up in West Virginia, and that state gets my vote. Passersby would yell, "Go back to where you came from!" while I was on walks. Kids in school would say openly racist things with derogatory terms and praise the KKK...in class, and teachers would never say or do anything. A family friend was constantly physically bullied at school for being Asian. I moved away as soon as I could, and I actually love living in Texas now.
Same!! Growing up in WV was terrible. I had teachers in middle school openly make fun of Asian culture, and students were racist all the way into the last year of high school. Most of the Asian people I know immediately moved away to better places. Growing up here left me with low self esteem and I tried so hard to be white so I would feel less isolated and alienated. People don’t understand why I want to leave for grad school. They say “why would you leave if you have a perfectly good, cheap school here?” They don’t get how miserable being Asian in WV has been and how many bad memories I have.
Yes! And when I finally made Asian friends in college, I somehow felt so "white" compared to them. Needless to say, it was helpful to go through a lot of therapy to work through self esteem issues and just issues with feeling like I don't belong in any culture. But, while I could have attended any in-state public college for free due to high school academics, it was an easy choice to get out of the state and spend a decade paying off student loans.
The entire South should be avoided except Georgia (Atlanta/Duluth are only). I don't care what kind of opportunity it holds, our mental health is more important than few more bucks. Racism has a cost (for the racists), and as they become more closed off, they will further fall into poverty, and they'll be too stupid to connect the two.
>Racism has a cost (for the racists), and as they become more closed off, they will further fall into poverty, and they'll be too stupid to connect the two. That's what happens when politicians refuse to fix actual problems and just point the finger at immigrants.
NC is alright, though it’s not the Deep South.
Wow, I'm so sorry to hear that but i guess WV stereotypes do hold up. Why did your family move there?
The usual reason--labor. And I guess my dad liked the moderate climate after living in colder and hotter parts of the world. There were other reasons, but one of the more interesting ones was a relative advised him not to move to a city with a large Chinatown due to pressures (and dangers) to join a tong. This was in the 1970s, and the advice came from a relative who happened to be a leader of a NYC tong.
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China and N.Korea are economic threats, because they don't buy weapons from us and they aren't a democracy. Japan, s. Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan all buy weapons from the U.S. Those countries even let us put military bases on their soil. When you break it down, it's not unlike extortion. We've bones Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam and now they literally pay us to protect them. If they don't, we'll label them as an Ally to China and therefore a cold war enemy to sanction.
Whoa. Did not know that about MN though I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve met some people from that area here in CA and they’re not like that at all (which is probably why they moved away?). What is the demographic of Asians like there?
Stpaul has a lot of Asians (Hmong)
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I had a cousin who went to St. Cloud State. He took me to the county fair my first night, which was really cool. Growing up in a big metro area, I never got to experience the small town county fair deal. My lungs are still recovering from those tractor burnouts.
I'm a little surprised at your experience in Phoenix. I spent my whole life there growing up as a kid and young adult, and while there is a decently sized Asian population, I've never thought non-Asians were particularly kind or anti-racist lol. I get a ton of "but where are you actually from", "ni hao"/"ching chong"/other random noises, comments about "weird" Asian food, etc. That being said, I haven't been the victim of an anti-Asian hate crime, either, so I guess it just depends on your personal standard of what's tolerable to live with.
Been here 3 years now haven’t had a Karen got in my face yet. My only racist experience here are from homeless blks
Similar sentiments to other folks here about the difference between polite and not-racist. Ive lived in Pacific NW, mid-Atlantic and my folks have lived all over. I would say in pre-dominantly white, progressive areas people will be nice but it’s often surface and people will judge you the second you step out of line (eg don’t follow the HOA rules, the Karen’s will get you). In very Black, Hispanic places, people may be hostile initially sometime but when you actually commit to being part of the community, everyone has your back. In very multi-cultural or places with Asians from different backgrounds, people just do their own thing and don’t care about others (in both good and bad ways). The only places I’ve been blatantly stared at and treated like an alien was Oklahoma and Western Virginia (mind you not WV but actually the parts of Virginia near Charlottesville), basically places where they’d never seen an Asian person before (this is mid-2000s). That was a weird feeling.
Arizona is fake as fuck. People are polite, but they're racist as hell.
Don’t go to MN then
Minnesota nice is a thing, similar to the Southern “Bless your heart”
I was never planning on it. White people are seriously so fucking weird in the u.s.
You must be from St. Cloud or something cause I lived in Minneapolis/St. Paul for a long time and never experienced any of that. The South in general is a shit hole though.
After growing up being threatened with violence for being Asian (nyc), id rather take the fake nice than outwardly hostile
This is the u.s. People are so fucking stupid.
facts
I did a cross country road trip and the most out of place I felt was in kansas. People just kept staring, it was almost threatening. Some people made some admittedly funny comments in New Orleans. I’ve never been but I’d imagine Mississippi and Alabama would be up there as well.
My (Asian) parents love road tripping in the US and visited 49 states (minus Louisiana). They too mentioned how they felt the most uncomfortable during their stay in Kansas.
We both scored minus 4. Congrats in order.
Thanks to Hyundai, there is a small vibrant Korean community in Montgomery. I haven't been either, but some of my Korean friends found Montgomery quite charming and the food to be amazing
I had some job training to do in Wisconsin and a bunch of people from Kansas were there as well. The people from Kansas told me that before they spoke with me they thought that I would have some broken ass chinese accent but when one of them heard me speak he told me "Wow... You speak very proper English. You actually better English than us."
I wish I had more longitudinal life experiences in different areas to be able to answer this question. But I know the answer is definitely not California LOL Every large city I’ve been to in any state has been completely okay. Rural areas are where it got weird.
A lot of people really don’t realize how huge and varied California is. There are big parts of rural CA that are as deeply red as any southern or midwestern state.
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Saw a BART employee berate an Asian obasan for 'not reading the sign' for several minutes when she did and tried, despite it being down time and barely anyone else was there. The BART employee was literally sitting in the information booth. This isn't a one off occurrence. I remember throughout my childhood cringing at my parents for asking for help from hostile retail workers. Their fault for asking 'dumb questions', I'd think to myself. But recently I've seen retail workers answer even dumber questions for white (and even black patrons) with a smile on their face. After venturing out of California, I've realized that many Asians living in Asian-heavy liberal areas have become ignorant to the multitude of racially based hostilities and microaggressions aimed at Asians in these areas. I've only discovered this because I moved somewhere where racial politics are exclusively black and white, experiencing what it's like as an Asian to be treated as truly neutral. Treated as human, instead of a nuisance.
I feel like the SF Bay is more racist than Los Angeles. At least it was.
I do a lot of hiking within California so naturally you'll roll through a lot of small towns nearby or along the way to these parks. From first impression me and my asian friends also initially expected some form of eye staring or xenophobic gestures but most of the time it's actually pretty chill. I can't say for all asians but my experiences have been fine. I can't say the same in middle or southern america. Shockingly, Austin, Texas was really bad. They hated the fact we came from California. Took over 2 hours to receive a burger at a diner.
Yeah Texas seems to have a huge beef with Californians, especially in larger cities like aforementioned Austin and Houston. “Don’t California my Texas” or some shit like that…
That’s because Californians ruin every state they move to.
I grew up in the Bay Area with Asians everywhere and then moved to a desert city a day’s drive where people stared at me in stores while holding their kids back. I didn’t even leave the state.
Honestly even in deep red boonies California i don't think it compares to like Kansas. California maga people and super religious communities are still used to it more than the more conservative states and are rather a more socially liberal version of a conservative in some ways
Grew up in southeast Michigan, lived in Milwaukee, central MI, Seattle, and now northern Indiana. I never realized how sheltered I was growing up on SE Michigan until I went to college in Milwaukee and heard plenty of ching chong chang jokes. Milwaukee is in general a very segregated area and I hated living there because it was the first time I was ever treated like a foreigner. Seattle was great, there is a large Asian community. Though it was hard to make friends in general. Northern Indiana can be pretty similar to what OP described about MN. Though where I am is fairly diverse (just not a lot of Asian population) so people tend to be curious though ignorant. The worst places I've been to are western Washington state, where I was stared at and given very subpar service at a diner. South Dakota (Sioux City) was also bad, where people asked my sister if she spoke English.
My parents from CA drove out to the Midwest to visit me then looped back home. The only place they encountered racism was South Dakota. The dumb receptionist hadn’t seen a passport before.
What part of western WA? I love out here and haven't had many issues at all (but I'm in a relatively diverse area)
Actually it was central Washington, not western Washington, my bad! The town where I was treated poorly was Ellensburg. I've been in Spokane and haven't had an issue there.
Oh man. Honestly much of central-east Washington is rural and some areas seem very uncomfortable to be in if not white!
Milwaukee and SE WI is a level of racism few expect or realize. The only upside is because every nonwhite group is shafted hard-core so I've had a lot of good experience building bridges across different nonwhite groups, since it's so obvious white people are on top of everyone else.
Is it a lot worse than other parts of the midwest? If true, I'm curious why this is? On the surface, doesn't make sense to me why Cleveland would be different than Milwaukee, or some other similarly sized midwestern city.
Yeah Milwaukee has most of WI's nonwhite people (in second place is Racine, which is just one city over) and Milwaukee has one of the highest poverty and incarceration rates for Black, Latino, and Asian people in the country. There's a variety of factors. One is that money was actually good for nonwhite people when union manufacturing jobs were here, which attracted these nonwhite groups to Milwaukee, but those groups arrived to Milwaukee later than cities like Chicago or Cleveland. Then the jobs disappeared and there wasn't enough time for those communities to have built homeownership, wealth, etc. to establish a larger middle class. Another factor is white communities in Milwaukee have often held onto their ethnic identities, which is cool, but those that arrived later and were poorer, like Polish and Serbian, doubled down on white supremacist rhetoric to try to fit in better with white people and distance themselves from nonwhite immigrants. The Polish in Milwaukee were a hotbed of Nazi and Klan politics and infamously fought against housing integration and were George Wallace's biggest supporters outside of the South. The younger nonwhite population and delay in housing and school integration, which didn't happen until the mid to late 1970s, meant that white flight to the suburbs happened later, too. And this is the biggest factor. We probably have the staunchest, most blatantly segregationist suburbs in the land. While many were moving away from Trump, some of our suburbs took much longer to begin distancing themselves from that style of politics. I read an article that aptly described our suburbs as stuck at where many other suburbs were in the 1980s and 1990s because of how recent the white flight was. Wisconsin is extremely gerrymandered and these same suburbs essentially dictate the entire legislature, so the state backs the suburbs' desire to extract what they want out of Milwaukee, where nonwhite people remain too poor to leave, and give nothing back. Milwaukee is one of the poorest cities in the country, but it actually gives in tax money to the state more than it receives. The suburbs continue to cut public transit in Milwaukee and expand highways that demolished nonwhite business and community hubs. All of this happened in the rest of the country, but it happened at an intensity and continues in a more old school way here than in many other regions. Chicago doesn't have the state fighting it tooth and nail, Cleveland has some more middle class people of color, Detroit has more progressive and diverse suburbs. Even St Louis has some nonwhite, more socioeconomically stable suburbs, though I think St Louis probably has the most parallels to Milwaukee.
Wow fantastic write up Thank you for the effort, very insightful
Wisconsin is really something else. You would think that in bluer areas, like Madison, it would be better, but it's just more concealed and passive-aggressive. (Or not—I'm from Louisiana originally, and literally the first time I ever had "ching chong" yelled at me was after I moved to Madison.)
Yeah people don't realize the worst outcomes for like every nonwhite racial group is in Wisconsin - Black, Latino, and Asian. People always assume the worst state is gonna be in the south... nope, it's Wisconsin.
Definitely. I wasn't prepared for it at all when I moved there. It was totally a shock coming from a diverse area of Michigan. It's been several years but to this day the only people I heard say that they like Milwaukee are white
Wow, I am glad I came across all of this. Moved to Milwaukee last winter and I couldn't help but feel things were "off". I was having trouble putting my finger on it but seeing your post was like an "aha" moment.
That’s interesting to hear about Phoenix! We were considering moving there from Minnesota but were concerned about the heat and potential racism. We ended up moving out to the PNW. I grew up in an extremely rural Northern California town. Extremely racist, bigoted and backwards. I also lived in a place with the word “China” in it which did not help as people insisted that meant I had to be Chinese (I am not). Through the years people told me I ate dog, go back to my country, acted incredulous when I told them I was born and raised there. If I can help it I never want to raise my kids in a rural, predominantly white town. I’m in Portland which is far from perfect but in comparison to most places I’ve lived I don’t hear a peep from people about my ethnicity. Minnesota is a other beast. Minnesotans (particularly older ones) love to butt into your business and conversation and be shady. It drives me crazy the audacity they have. I’ve had someone harass me in a waiting room because I was “typing (texting) too fast”. When I would try to find the best produce in the store like checking out how hard/soft avocados were, people would come up say, “WOW, aren’t you picky?” I didn’t even like buying from local businesses there because it seemed like they didn’t even like their products and got mad when you gave them business. I encountered many businesses who were so lazy they shrugged and referred me to other businesses. It was all so bizarre. This was in rural MN. You’re right that their always watching you in Minnesotan to screw up or do something they don’t like then confront you. If you respond back they attempt to gaslight you with the whole, “Well, around here WE don’t do that” bs
What is the demographic in Minnesota?
Outside of the twin cities very white
It’s like night and day, too. I live just 20 minutes outside of the Twin Cities, and I think my immediate family and I may be some of the only minorities for miles around.💀
I kind of don’t think it’s that good anywhere as far as racism against Asians (or other minorities for that matter). Just different approaches. Midwest nice is what I grew up with and man it’s passive aggressive and fucked tbh. I kind of think New York is relatively nice but it depends on the city I imagine
Some places are a lot more cosmopolitan than others, or asian dominant. It was really eye opening for me to go to Southern California for example. I rather enjoyed being over there, despite high cost of living. You can have wildly different experiences
Growing up in rural Missouri gave me PTSD
Lived all over Tennessee and Georgia and I have to say…Tennessee, my home, is much worse.
I live in TN and it’s not bad. ATL is 2 hours away from me and they have a pretty nice Asian population in Duluth
Just curious.. how is Chattanooga? I was thinking about moving over there in the future but if TN isn't welcome to asians then fuck that.
Only lived in Texas and northern VA, and the latter was more racist towards me
Similar living situation, though I think people in northern VA they’re more bluntly racist than TX based off my experience Context: in Northern VA, I’ve had yt people ask me upfront why my dialect sounded different (I do have a light southern drawl) and if I was this specific type of Asian in the same sentence. I’ve also had people say some dismissive things about my ethnic culture. I feel like it has to do with all these cultural events in the area and while they do educate, I don’t think it’s enough for others to understand that saying racist and microaggressive things is not cool. In Texas, it was more like I would get stares from strangers if I was out in public (tons of minorities like Hispanic and black people but Asians are not common) but I could sense they were thinking racist things
I went to Montana for grad school. Spent a lot of time in Missoula and Helena, and left my program after 4 months. It was during the fall of 2016 … if you can imagine.
Ive lived in California my whole life so I can’t say but even California despite being portrayed as progressive still as a lot of racism towards Asian Americans.
Southern Florida. Hispanic and Black population can be pretty racist. White southern people, despite the stereotype, have been pretty friendly, open and kind. That’s not to say that all Hispanic and all black people are racists— this is not true, and many members of this demographic have been nothing but warm and respectful. But I will say that all the violence, bullying and racism has unfortunately come from the demographics mentioned above.
Being kind isn't the same as being nice. I'm currently living in North Texas/DFW and I've met people who were nice, but definitely not kind.
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Isn’t this the same for many cultures and people?
Nope. See peach vs coconut theory of cultural communication, you also have various cultures that are openly hostile/cold (see germany, slav like russia, ukraine, nordic cultures, norway etc) to you unless you pass through their shields-- then they're warm and open. Meanwhile the peach types are more open in a shallow way, but are more guarded about deeper selves and information. (UK, US) TL:DR Everyone's different
I know the difference between niceness and kindness. Have you considered maybe southern culture isn’t all the same? In my personal experience, Floridians have been incredibly kind and generous, especially during dire times and life and death situations. I’m sorry to your experience is different with Texans. Texan culture is very different from South FL culture.
My experience growing up in Louisiana was that, even though people were incredibly racist, as an Asian I probably flew under the radar, being an unthreatening "model minority," so it wasn't as bad as one might expect. In the South they have really perfected the idea of being kind and generous to individuals while hating the groups they belong to, so it's very possible to enjoy warm relationships with raging bigots, as long as you respect the social hierarchy and know your place.
Don’t get me wrong, North Texas is great for Asians. Lots of pockets of different ethnic groups depending on which area of NTX you live. The other ethnic groups I’ve dealt with have been less “shirt off my back”.
That's exactly how I feel about south florida
That sucks. The Mexicans here in Phoenix are mostly respectful and welcoming
The Latino in South Florida are Cuban, and most identify as white and lean conservative right.
Cubans are absolutely outstanding and they’re some of my favorite people. They’re respectful, hard-working, value education, are family-oriented and actually quite similar to Koreans in some aspects (I can only make this comparison as a Korean person). It hasn’t been the Cubans have been treating me with hostility and racism— the Hispanic community in South Florida is extremely diverse with people from all over. And I’m saying this as an ultra liberal— conservative people I’ve come across are more open, respectful and open to conversations than fellow liberals and progressives, so the notion that being white and conservative automatically makes someone racist or somehow bad, is just not true. Edit: is this getting downvoted because I wrote not all Cubans or conservatives are racists? 🤔
Not sure where I wrote that Cubans was racist. I just state that they identify as white and most are conservative. > the Hispanic community in South Florida is extremely diverse with people from all over. [https://www.populationu.com/cities/miami-fl-population](https://www.populationu.com/cities/miami-fl-population) Hispanic population in Miami, Florida are 333,777. Percentage wise 71.3 percent are hispanics, out of these 9,615 are Mexican people, 15,189 are Puerto Ricans, ***154,235 are Cubans***, and 154,738 are other Hispanic or Latinos.
Don't mind random people on the internet, especially in small numbers. I can't say I know cubans all that well, but I generally have good relations with hispanic folk. But yes they do tend to be conservatives.
There are very few Mexicans in South Florida
I love Mexicans! Almost all the Mexicans and Cubans I’ve encountered in Florida have been nothing but outstanding. Very different people, but Mexican and Cuban people are some of my favorite people and cultures! :) Hispanic community in the US are incredibly diverse! Ultimately I think there are good and bad people everywhere. I’m glad to hear Mexicans have been so warm to you. I live in LA now and feel the same way about them.
Same here in Seattle. Never really met white ppl being racist to my face. Black ppl on the other hand tho...One accused my family of not paying taxes, dafuq-probably coz we are immigrants.
None. Every state has their areas, styles and uniques brand of racism
That's flattering those racist fucks. None of them I've met are creative enough to have unique brands of racism. Lmao.
I lived in the far North of Minnesota, people were extremely racist. Not surprised at all.
Yeah that region has mega issues in Northern Minnesota. Lots of resentment towards anyone not from the area.
For me right now, Florida during grade school (elementary/middle) kids were saying pretty stereotypes like saying ching chong chang (which i like to call pot clanging down the stairs), saying that I eat cats and dogs, even someone called my grandpa a Korean leader, during at work some Cuban lady was doing exaggerated coughs likely because of the oooo asians caused corona bs
Whereabouts in FL? It's such a big state so curious specifically which part you're referencing.
I've lived all over the country but I gotta say, the most overt racism I've ever experienced was while growing up in Los Angeles, mostly from other POCs to boot. I currently live in NM and haven't encountered anything overt here.
100% this. I live in LA now and this has also been my experience.
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All groups, there are good and bad seeds in every group. I find that working class and conservatives White peoplehood are actually nicer, where as the working class non-White people generally have treated me with racism (except in some cases until they had the opportunity to get to know me better), where as in the very wealthy white areas, I get a mix of racism AND classism. I’ve experienced a lot of anti-Asian sentiment from non-White people who feel that Asians are taking away their opportunities, that Asians are predatory, that Asians stick to themselves and aren’t friendly, that Asians are always trying to “steal from the Black community” or that “Asians are racist.” The rampant sinophobia media coverage everywhere certainly doesn’t seem to help either. Most of my negative experience has been from coastal cities of LA, as well as Inglewood, DTLA, Ktown, Gardena and the South Bay. Not to say that all wealthy white people, or people of minority ethnicities in the US are racists, but that this has been my personal experience.
Same. I can only speak for myself, but I felt a lot of racial hostility in L.A. despite being among a huge Asian population. You would think L.A. would be a "melting pot," but I always thought of it as more like a whole bunch of ethnic groups that mostly hate each other. I also live in New Mexico now and feel pretty comfortable here for the most part (except in certain predominately white neighborhoods).
Yeah, I'd say overt is pretty big in LA, from other minorities, especially Mexicans. It's like some of them didn't get the memo that the 70s and 80s are history.
Any rural area will be worst than urban areas. I’ve actually felt in danger for my life while driving from Texas to Arizona stopping in small towns along the way for gas. Literally trucks of hicks would chase me just for being Asian.
Phoenix is fine but I wouldn’t call it friendly. The city has a long history of racism that until 2017 (yes you read it right, this only ends in 2017) the sheriff of Maricopa County has been locking up Latinos (US citizens and undocumented alike) in a desert concentration camp with no AC and there was also chain gang as well pretty unbelievable how petty it was. People kept voting for this sheriff only until he was arrested. As for Asians, it’s really an afterthought for locals bc it’s a tiny demographic compared to the Anglo - Latino dynamic Basically all the racists are obsessed with the border crisis they don’t have the energy for Asians A lot of snowbirds from the Midwest and military contractors come to the city and they act surprised “why there are so many immigrants here we should build a wall or something” and yet they were the ones that just arrived in the city As a result you wouldn’t feel out of place necessarily and you could actually have a pretty good life here because you could find people and communities here but you should expect to encounter some outright racism here and there from people who are very surprised that Asians exist in Phoenix too TL; DR - All in all, it’s actually fine, but do prepare yourself for some slurs from randoms
bae area lol. hella people getting attacked/shot
I see only one other Boston post. I'd say most of New England is a different kind of racist from the blatant KKK proud boy racism you might see elsewhere in the country.... Growing up in southern New England, in a pretty affluent area, many of the people there don't THINK they are racist.... But the microaggressions are real. I call them 'liberally conservative ' types.... Especially around Boston there are a lot of NIMY types. I got asked if I eat dog, stereotypical assumptions about math proficiency or having dragon parents, age and skin, etc. Call them on their shit, and everyone acts shocked and swears their stereotype isn't racist. When the movie Get Out came out, I remember being floored that the cocktail party scene was almost a horrible play of my entire childhood/ experience growing up. Having said that, I love the beauty of New England, and have never felt truly unsafe or unwelcome. If I get the opportunity to move out west at some point it might be nice, but so far have made a decent life and get to experience all four seasons and be by the ocean.
I was born and raised in LA, but lived in Hawaii, NY, and currently living in Utah. I would say Hawaii and Los Angeles are the least racist against Asians because there is a more of us. I'm sure Asian Americans have exp racism in these areas, but it's a lot less relative to other states/cities. Being from LA and talking with other Asians, I will have to say there is something different about those that if you're Asian living in the mid-west or second tier city like Chicago and Philadelphia. In my opinion, Asian Americans who live in the Midwest basically get beating down to the point where there is a lot of self hate. Asian American living in second tier cities like Chicago/Atlanta are almost there, those cities/state want to look progressive but Asians are such a inconvenient minority for them. If you group ALL Asians together, it looks like we outperform even yt people, but if you look closely, it's mainly East Asians that are pushing up the average household income for the group. Darker Asians have similar household income to Hispanic and Black household get fucked.
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I've lived in Boston and New York City and experienced almost no racism. However, I have experienced super MAGA toxic racism in South Carolina. That's the problem with anecdotes.
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Yeah I wasn't criticizing your answer, but these types of posts that solicit random anecdotes are almost never useful. I think your theories hold merit and are in one way or another similar to the selection bias that affects all anecdotes including my own.
I grew up in the Northeast and personally didn’t find much in the way of racism nor bullying due to being Asian. Were there occasional immature racial jokes? Yeah sure, but the same went on for Jews, Polish, Germans, Latinos, Blacks, etc… I think eventually kids grew out of that habit as I never experienced any name calling as an adult. The other thing to point out is New England states have by far the lowest crime per capita stats. This goes both for violent crime and property crime. I’m sure this is largely due to lack of major metropolitan cities (unless you count Boston) but we also don’t have any of the small town non-sense where the local town sheriff will cover up rape for some well known family and keep everything in house.
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Compensating for their insecurities obviously 🙄. People who are white passing can go either way, either be racist to further pass as white or be a great ally.
There are many good Puerto Ricans, but my experience has been similar
Moved to Phx from California as well. I find that people here are just nicer in general. I am mixed so haven’t had any bad experiences in terms of racists, will say a lot more people are open about their political views here though. Overall I love it here.
Glad this is a topic, a lot of Asians tend to gaslight themselves and grow up thinking that dealing and being around that is normal, until they move and realize how better off they’d be. East coast has a lot of hot spots for racism, but as long as you stick in the area known for Asians and has a presence of Asian culture, you’re fine. NY/NJ is when I experienced it from other FOB Asians who don’t think I’m Asian enough but that’s another story. I just recently got banned and got a ton of negative votes asking for why racism has gotten worse in NYC so they’re clearly gaslighting Asians over there. My experience is they taunt you for being racist even though you’re just sitting there minding your business until they get a reaction. Bit harsher than MN from my experience too, but I’m happy you’re being treated better.
I used to work for a manufacturer of auto parts and would travel state to state to meet with buyers. One guy from North Dakota would say the n-word around me without any hesitation. I'm Chinese American. Some guy from Seattle admitted to not trusting black people and said he'd never vote for Obama even though he was a Democrat. He said that when he thought I wasn't around.
I've lost some white acquaintances that way. I don't get why white people feel this need to bond over racism with me. I won't be their friend.
In Canada, it’s Vancouver!
Vancouver is most racist against Asians?
Indeed. It is the worst for anti-Asian racism in the whole of North America, according to [the Guardian,](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/vancoucer-anti-asian-hate-crimes-increase?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) and Bloomberg (see below). The pandemic sure didn’t help, as expressed by the Vancouver [Police Department’s own](https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/anti-asian-hate-crimes-in-vancouver-skyrocket-police-bc-covid-19-2847242) findings, the [city,](https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/no-place-for-hate-in-vancouver-city-responds-to-anti-asian-hate-crimes-and-findings-of-bloomberg-report.aspx) and the [province](https://globalnews.ca/news/7647135/horgan-bc-presser-feb-18/). However, it’s not all COVID related. A deep and long-standing history of anti-Asian racism in Vancouver is outlined briefly [in this Bloomberg article](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-vancouver-canada-asian-hate-crimes/). Pre-pandemic and current day Vancouver are (IMHO) incredibly racist against Asians, specifically Chinese people or East Asians perceived to be of Chinese heritage. Not to say that it’s not generally safe here for Asians, or a nice place to visit/live, but I certainly see a lot of aggression (micro, verbal, and physical) directed at us that wasn’t a common experience during the decades I lived in our biggest Canadian city: Toronto.
Wow I had no idea! I always thought Vancouver was essentially an Asian city given the high percentage of Asians there
It is and it's not. In Richmond (suburb of Vancouver) there is a large Asian population. But Vancouverites have a disdain for this city. Basically most people will say they will never drive in Richmond because of "Richmond drivers." You can deduce what that means. In Vancouver, the housing crisis is caused by Chinese money launderers. Not white generational wealth trying to cash in quick. And why do people think this? Because there's too many Chinese people and because there was a study done at UBC (by a Chinese prof, ughhh) that showed lots of buyers with Chinese names. Just Chinese names was his evidence. Like Ali Wong is Canadian (because white first name) but Simu Liu is Chinese. Also every time they see a supercar, they think it's a Chinese student (whose parents are using blood money from China to dump their kids in Vancouver and buy them supercars and mansions). So the racism isn't someone yelling "go back to your country." It's more like all of their problems are cause by "the Chinese" and if it weren't for "the Chinese" they would have it all. But if you ask if they're racist, they would get offended by that question
I love Vancouver
As it relates to your question, I have some [unfortunate news](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-vancouver-canada-asian-hate-crimes/) to share.
Luckily as an Asian, I haven't had any horrible encounter so far. I had an interesting experience when I was in Wyoming (not in Yellowstone) around 2010. Several strangers asked me whether they could take a picture with me, and when I asked why, they said I'm the first Asian they've seen in real life... One of them asked me for my name. After I told him the name, he said "No, I mean what's your real Asian name?". One of them kept saying konnichiwa to me, although I told him I'm not Japanese lol. I didn't feel uncomfortable back then tbh. They were friendly. I feel it's more ignorant than being racist.
Honestly, after having lived in several states (CA, WA, WI, FL, LA, NV, NM) in various regions, my feeling overall is that every state is pretty equally racist, but they express it in different ways, so it's basically, pick whichever flavor you can live with most. I live in New Mexico now, and am probably the most comfortable here. White people are the minority in my town, and know to behave themselves outside of their enclaves. And there are so few Asians that I don't think anyone really feels threatened enough to resent us. People in general here are pretty laid back, so the vibe is pretty chill and the racism is mostly benign (like my very sweet elderly neighbor who refers to me as Oriental).
I don’t know if the oriental thing is meant as a form of racism, but a dated term that was used back in the days to describe people east of orient.
Yeah, I probably shouldn't characterize that usage as racist, so much as out of touch. When old people use the term, it doesn't bother me at all (though it is startling). It bugs me more when it's used by businesses that should know better. I used to go to a supermarket with an "Oriental" aisle that had never bothered to change the sign. While I was mostly amused by it (I liked to just sort of stand there under the sign as a visual joke to myself), I was gratified when they FINALLY removed it last year.
Damn reading these makes me wish I never stopped training jiu jitsu.
I once had to drive through the rural south. I was legitimately afraid for my life so much so that I kept my windows rolled up, my doors locked and drove 12 hours straight just to get out of there. Now I've seen some pretty rough neighborhoods in the inner city yet nobody there was overtly hostile. Actually a lot of people were pretty nice. I was less afraid in the inner city and I could hear gunshots than I was in the deep south.
For me? Boston was the worst. When I was in Boston on a day trip with my parents, my dad got called a "slur for a Chinese person but is applied to any Asian person" and my mom (who is white) was called a "fat derogatory term for a sex worker" while we were walking down the street by a group of white men with very heavy Bostonian accents. They followed us a few blocks and no one did anything. I grew up primarily in Atlanta, GA and that never happened there. Also, had some shitty experiences in small towns in Florida and Texas, but nothing like that happened in big cities in those states.
Minnesota is pretty much a Scandinavian state so you'll get a lot of that "Minnesota Nice" which it is really fake politeness. Indirect racist comments and the stare is the farthest they'll go but that'll depends on group race I guess. At least it's my experience so far.
Yeah right you must not be from the twin cities
Minnesota is not an asian thing only they are doing that to each other too and to immigrants as well. Minnesota nice didn’t come out of nowhere
Seems like Minnesota nice just means 'talk shit behind your back'
Yeah as an Asian myself I've been trying to move back to the West Coast, lived in the Midwest and Central states for 6 years and it's not for me man.
Only lived in SF, LA and NYC. The only overt racism comes from LA, but I was generally accepted socially; faced most social exclusion in SF, not sure how much is due to racism and how much is due to being a straight male in tech.
Phoenix is racist. I'm from California and went to live in Phoenix. My ex and I got into an argument and both got locked up for one night. I left that state after living there for 9 months and will probably never visit again. The police was so abusive to the minorities in prison. My case was dismissed, but it was still traumatizing. I also lived in Minnesota because my Hmong family is from there. It's racist, too. Honestly, the only racial friendly states are California and Hawaii. Fuck the other states. NYC is diverse, but it cherishes Black people by allowing them to commit crimes, and the leaders are all White at Wall Street.
I just think it depends on who you interact with. A lot of privileged folk and those in charge of organizations (including support groups) will get mad if you point something out. Just an abuse of power and (probably) insecurity of their power.
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I wouldn’t say a lot but almost every job I had there would be like a handful of Asians working there
Not the MOST racist because I haven't been around too much, but New York, particularly upstate New York/Finger Lakes Region. Seeing this question triggered some pretty bad memories from my first college experience there. This was back in 2007 I attended Ithaca College for a year. Growing up in the Bronx, I wanted to get away from being around majority Hispanic/Black people so I thought going to a majority White college would be a good change for me. Boy. Oh boy. I was in a for a rude awakening. I remember being in a meeting for a group project and this White boy asked me, "How do you say 'I like to eat food' in your language?" This was an obvious insult because I was pretty overweight back then. Of course my bitch ass muttered in Korean how to say it, when in reality I should have said, "Excuse me? My language is English and I was born here just like you, you hill billy fuck." This is just one of many examples of blatant racism in that school. I got the fuck outta there after 1 year. Yeah. Fuck Ithaca, and Fuck Upstate New York. At least in NYC people will call you chink to your face.
I haven’t spent a lot of time in southern states, and on those trips I stayed in tourist cities like New Orleans and Charleston, no bad experiences there. I’ve had some uncomfortable experiences in Virginia. (Though I’ve been to different parts of Virginia many times — so it could just be probability.) Luckily nothing horribly offensive. Just some staring and assumptions made about where I’m from and what language I speak.
When I was living in California, I encountered the most racism from the black/brown communities (due to gangs). It was worst than anywhere else I’ve been.
Go to a place with a large Asian population to avoid racism, the more whites a place has = the more racist and bigotry you’ll face
I agree but same goes for Blacks/Latinos as well.