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I recieved a job offer from Madison, WI. My family and I currently reside in Fort Worth, Tx. We have the following concerns and would like some feed backs:
1) We are of hispanic background and very active in socializing. We are concerned about cultural and racial diversity in Madison, WI.
2) How bad is winter...temp? My wife is from the caribean and concerned about the weather for her and the kids.
3) Would the children have problems of being accepted since they are of hispanic background?
We are raising our children to accept all cultures and would not like them to face such problems where they will be asking us questions "why such things are happening to them."
Culturally speaking, Madison is what it is: a small Midwest city. It is predominantly White, around 80%. Fortunately, the city is pro-diversity, and the few minorities that are here tend to be well educated and from otehr areas, due to the university influence.
The Hispanic population has exploded over the country over the past 10 years, Madison included. Granted, it was so small, even a 200% increase isn't much, but before maybe 2% of Madison was Hispanic, whereas now, 10 years later it is about 5% Hispanic.
You will see Hispanics wherever you go, to stores, on the road, out and about, but they aren't concentrated in any one area of the city, they are spread out...which gives the feeling of a smaller population than there is really.
I can't emphasize enought that people here are thrilled when people that are "different" from the norm move in, people will be falling over themselves to show you how accepting they are, to quote another poster on here. It is true.
The Madison public schools are much more diverse than the city itself, they are about 45% minority and 55% White. I believe they are about 10% Hispanic.
I think you will fit in fine. There area few Hispanic grocery stores here...but due to the lack of Hispanics concentrating in just one area, there isn't a traditional Hispanic business district. Many Hispanics (like Blacks) go to Milwaukee and Chicago, from one and a half to two and a half hours away, for their fix of whatever they can't find locally.
The cold is bitter. In winter there can be days with highs around 0, fortunately, these are not the norm. But teens area, and at night it can be below zero multiple times in one winter. This is north country, but the good thing is, you can dress for the weather and it is such a nice, safe, enjoyable and friendly city that people are out enjoying themselves even in the depth of winter.
It will be subtle. It will come in the form of complete strangers asking "what are you" and trying to engage you in conversation about their life-changing trip to Guatemala or trying out their Spanish on you. It will come in the form of well meaning people going out of their way to let you know that they "accept" everyone and love immigrants (whether or not you actually are an immigrant). It will come in the form of assumptions, of people reaching out to you not neccessarily to get to know you, but to get to know your culture and to satisfy their own sense of "inclusiveness." Half the people you meet will assume you're a professor or an international grad student, the other half will assume you're "the help." Very few will leave the assumptions at the door and get to know you as an individual, not as a representative of a group.
2) How bad is winter...temp? My wife is from the caribean and concerned about the weather for her and the kids.
I will let the others approach the diversity questions, but in regard to the weather, I would be very cautious with this one if I were you.
If your wife is from the Caribbean and your family is not used to the long, cold, gray, snowy Midwestern winter, you'll be in for an amazing shock.
It would be the reverse equivalent of someone whose only lived their life in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and never gotten out of state much, then plopping into Phoenix, AZ for a summer - would be very, very difficult.
Although American, my wife's dad works overseas and thus my wife grew up in a tropical climate in Asia. She came to the Milwaukee area for college and it took her YEARS to adjust to the winters here. While she is somewhat adjusted now, I don't think she still really is adjusted. She really is not a fan of the winter. Heck, being a Milwaukee/WI native, after a 4+ year stint in Albuquerque, NM and now being back for this past winter, I AM NOT a fan of WI winter.
Coldish weather can start in October, it gets consistently rather cold in November and consistently very cold December through much of March. Late March goes back to consistently rather cold, April goes to the coldish weather occasionally, and the only months when GENERALLY you can be assured of rather non-coldish weather is May through September.
The best months climate wise in Madison are May through October, unless you really are a winter / cold weather lover.
One thing that you likely could find difficult about the long cold stretch is the lack of sunshine for many days. Long stretches of gray, dark days can and do regularly occur - some years more than others - and the lack of sunshine gets to some people. They have even started to realize that we upper Midwesterners ideally should add Vitamin D to our diets in these periods due to the lack of natural Vitamin D from the sunshine.
Transversely, when it IS sunny in the coldest months (mid-November through late-March), usually that is when it is the COLDEST here. The northern latitude where we are pits us a decent distance from the sun in the winter.
You will see months (generally DEC through mid-March) where it is fairly infrequent for the temps to get much above the freezing mark for highs with many days of highs in the 20s, teens, and a couple of extremely cold highs mixed in of single digits or worse (zero, negative digits)...the less-than-5 degree highs are pretty infrequent, but they'll happen. Lows with windchills can definitely get to that -20 to -40 mark in the wintertime.
Snow is also quite common of course. Usually in Madison in the winter you'll see between 35 and 55 inches of snow in a winter; this winter the total was more up towards triple digits, although that was the snowiest winter in record-keeping history in Madison.
Ice obviously also very common in the winter.
I am not trying to "scare" you whatsoever, and to those familiar / used to colder winters, Madison's winter can offer beauty for sure. To those that like to cross-country ski, snow mobile, ice skate, ice hockey, etc., things can be nice in winter in Madison.
However, if Fort Worth is the coldest place you guys have lived (and I am not sure if that is true), winter could be a real shock / adjustment.
I think the hardest portions would be:
1. The length - it is lonnnggg
2. The periods of gray / lack of sunshine (and very short days in the NOV / DEC timeframe)
3. The quantity of snow (and driving in it)
4. The "dead" / brown landscape of dormant / dead plant life in the cold months...(leaves fall off trees in late October and they stay bare until very late April; grass goes brown/dormant around the same time and doesn't start greening until late March or early April)
*Having said all of this, Madison's summer and fall temps are quite beautiful and are nicer than Fort Worth's.
Here are average Madison temps (from The Weather Channel - www.weather.com): (broken link)
Wow these posts are really depressing, I hope they didn't scare you off. I mean, they are honest, but this is basically the Bad. The rest is all good news, we just focused on the negatives for you.
All in all, Madison's weather isn't all that different from Chicago for example, and there are plenty of Hispanics there, just like in Milwaukee as well. You can definantly adapt. And you will also see other Hispanics here as well, so please don't freak out by these brutally hoenst posts.
Even I, who gets ticked off by the negative posts by some people with an irrational hatred of Madison can't really argue with the posts above, esp the weather. I'm hoping to move to Austin to get away from the cold, grey/brown darkness. Seems to be alot of movement between TX and WI lately, both ways. We should all just swap houses.
Mind you folks...I don't think I was being "negative" in my post in the least. WI winters are just what they are. If the OP was coming from, say, Duluth, or coming from St. Louis even or Denver, my "warning" on the winter weather wouldn't be so strong.
But if his wife is from the Caribbean and the coldest place they've ever lived is Fort Worth, TX (not sure if that is true but if it is) and she is already worried about the winter weather, it is best they hear the plain, simple truth of it all and decide for themselves before coming up here, hearing the whole (well summer and falls here are wonderful! - which they are by the way) and then being absolute terrified of what they'd gotten themselves into by December.
Chelito -
It is actually funny. I was at a professional conference in November of this past year, and I was telling a fellow conference goer (from Stockton, CA) that while winters in Milwaukee were pretty rough, some people had this false impression of them nationally that they were tormentous h*ll the likes of the North Slope of Alaska. I told him, "actually, the winters are really no different than Chicago's" to which he replied "yeah, but Chicago's winters are miserable." So I guess it is just what you are used to. 10+ million folks live through the Chicago winters and another 1.7 million through Milwaukee's (and 500,000 through Madison's) so surely it can be done by many...but like to the life-long northerner who might struggle mightily with a summer in Phoenix, to a life-long southerner/tropical dweller a winter in Madison might be a long, rough experience.
EnjoyEP, your post wasn't negative, just factual. I just get irritated when people have taken up bashing Madison as a recreational sport. I can vouch for your description of the seasons here. There are only 4 months out of the year that I would consider good, otherwise the weather is crappy.
Apparently I live in the only diverse neighborhood in Madison, so my perspective is skewed I guess. I live in a high density neighborhood where 4 houses share one driveway. On my driveway there is one family comprised of a Latina woman and her white husband, another comprised of a Latino husband and an Iranian wife and the two remaining households are white. Next driveway down two African American families, two white. Across the street one set of houses has an Indian family and three white. Next driveway down has one African American family, one Latino family and two white families. Yes, there are more whites than minorities, but it is a *lot* more diverse than some people would have you believe.
I would agree that white Madisonians are very self conscious about dealing with people of other than N. European decent, but at least they try. They want to be welcoming, but are awkward. Could be way worst in my opinion.
Last edited by Megan1967; 04-17-2008 at 02:54 PM..
Reason: Grammer
EnjoyEP, your post wasn't negative, just factual. I just get irritated when people have taken up bashing Madison as a recreational sport. I can vouch for your description of the seasons here. There are only 4 months out of the year that I would consider good, otherwise the weather is crappy.
Wow, you are even harsher than I am Megan! I would give it maybe even 6 solid months...May through October; if only those other 6 months were a little more forgiving!!
So I guess it is just what you are used to. 10+ million folks live through the Chicago winters and another 1.7 million through Milwaukee's (and 500,000 through Madison's) so surely it can be done by many...but like to the life-long northerner who might struggle mightily with a summer in Phoenix, to a life-long southerner/tropical dweller a winter in Madison might be a long, rough experience.
I thought I was used to it. Even though I grew up in Ohio and spent 10 winters in Madison, now that I've experienced winter in Texas a few times, I can honestly say that I hope I never have to spend another winter in the upper Midwest. I enjoyed my time in Madison, but the older I get, the more I consider the winters to be a deal-killer. Move to Madison while you're young!
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I live in a high density neighborhood where 4 houses share one driveway. On my driveway there is one family comprised of a Latina woman and her white husband, another comprised of a Latino husband and an Iranian wife and the two remaining households are white. Next driveway down two African American families, two white. Across the street one set of houses has an Indian family and three white. Next driveway down has one African American family, one Latino family and two white families. Yes, there are more whites than minorities, but it is a *lot* more diverse than some people would have you believe.
