Please Help Interracial Non LDS Family Moving to Salt Lake City (Sandy: real estate, safe area)

[stacim1982]

Hello everyone. My husband has just accepted a job offer in Draper and I am in desperate need of advice about where my family and I should live in order to have the best quality of life in the Salt Lake City area. My husband is caucasian and I am biracial (caucasian and african american). I have a 3 year old daughter with my husband (she looks primarily caucasian) and a 10 year son (from my previous marriage) who looks predominately African American. We are not members of the LDS.

I am mostly concerned about my son. I want to find a neighborhood and school where he will be most likely to make friends and won't feel like a total outsider. We have never been to Utah and really have no idea what to expect. I have read through countless other threads, but I know that cities change frequently. I'd like to make our decision based on up to date information from people that have first hand knowledge. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by stacim1982

Hello everyone. My husband has just accepted a job offer in Draper and I am in desperate need of advice about where my family and I should live in order to have the best quality of life in the Salt Lake City area. My husband is caucasian and I am biracial (caucasian and african american). I have a 3 year old daughter with my husband (she looks primarily caucasian) and a 10 year son (from my previous marriage) who looks predominately African American. We are not members of the LDS.

I am mostly concerned about my son. I want to find a neighborhood and school where he will be most likely to make friends and won't feel like a total outsider. We have never been to Utah and really have no idea what to expect. I have read through countless other threads, but I know that cities change frequently. I'd like to make our decision based on up to date information from people that have first hand knowledge. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help.

I think your son will be just fine. I would suggest that you not look in Draper but closer in to Salt Lake City itself. Knowing your housing budget would be really helpful to us in making more specific recommendations.

[Wildcat1889]

Telling from personal experience, it is very unlikely that you or your family will run into any major social difficulty.

As far as housing goes, pretty much directly adjacent to Draper is Sandy. You might want to see if it's an option for you: Relatively safe area with good recreational opportunities, proximity to downtown SLC and your hubby's workplace, and higher diversity than Draper (although Draper is as diverse as Utah County gets, for the most part - it's only partially in Utah County anyways). Also a relatively large price range in real estate, from affordable to almost luxurious.

[jeanjeanvaljean]

I love my neighborhood in North Sandy - around 1700 East and 8200 South. We're zoned for Peruvian Park Elementary, which is one of the Canyons District's SALTA (ie, magnet) programs. There is a lot of diversity, at least for Utah, in my area also as evidenced by my gym (the VASA on 1300 East around 8000 South) - there are always a ton of African-Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and Asian-Americans. A good mix of non-religious folk (my family and some immediate friends and neighbors), religious-but-not-LDS people, and awesome LDS folk as well.

[Coffeequeen]

I concur, live north of Draper.

[Montygirl]

I would aim for Sandy or South Jordan. My 2 kids are at school in Sandy and have a very diverse set of kids at school, some LDS, some not, Some LDS who don't practice and some who don't do religion at all.There is also a lot of Asian, Mexican,Hispanic and other races in this area.

We live in South Jordan towards State street and this area seems fine too. We are not LDS, in fact we don't attend any places of worship and kids have lots of friends in our neighbourhood as well as in their school.Both areas are a stones throw from Draper, I know because I work in Draper too !

[Katzpur]

Cottonwood Heights would be a very good choice, too.

[sbartek1974]

It's odd that a lot of people feel that Utah has issues with race relations, but maybe I'm reading in to it all wrong. I've never heard of Utah being one of the states that has this issue. Texas, yes. Alabama, yes, Louisiana, yes. Georgia, yes. Mainly states that have problems with diversity, race relations, interracial relationships, etc, are the states that have higher black American populations. Utah, having what? less than 2%? I'm not sure, but I know it's small, shouldn't really have a problem with multi-racial acceptance. I mean don't get me wrong, I know no matter where you go you'll always have some people who just can't accept the fact that we have a mixture of people here in the USA. But it's weird because I was under the same impression about Utah since it's black American population is so small. I'm white, my wife is black, and we have four children, who a lot of people assume are Hispanic and Hispanics will even try talking to them in Spanish, and we're planning to move to Utah soon. But now I'm constantly hearing and reading how accepting Utah is towards other races besides whites. When I go to other forums on Texas and the other southern states I rarely come across questions like, "I'm in an interracial relationship and want to move to Texas, will we be accepted?" or "I'm black, or I'm white, will I be accepted in Alabama?" I rarely see those. But yet, I, my wife, children, parents, in-laws, my black and friends, have always experienced racism on a very high scale here in Texas. But I'm constantly seeing these questions asked about Utah. But hey, my wife and I are curious how it is in Utah as far as that goes. We'll have to see when we get there.

[Montygirl]

I think you are right and I think that stems from the religious aspects of things which is nothing to do with race. I think that Utah does not have issues with interracial couples, kids etc from what I can see and I work in education and have not seem any issues so far in schools either and I work in a different school to where my kids attend. As you say can get issues anywhere and unfortunately people/children are not born racist it is made. Most of it comes down to sheer ignorance and unfortunately that ignorance goes with everything. I come from the UK and by an large people get along regardless of race, religion etc. You are always going to get a hardcore sections of society and nothing will change that. I grew up in a multi racial area and it gave me an enrinched childhood and outlook on life, where I moved from to come here was a whiter area and the tolerance was less so only because of sheer ignorance. We used to do trips to a hindu temple for RE (religious ed) and only a handful of parents had an issue with this and that was fear of the unknown. The kids loved the trip but we had a couple that were not allowed to go unfortunately and those were the parents that started their note with I'm not racist but....enuff said ! Fortunately that area was becoming more diverse and my kids do not have the intolerance ad would often speak out against it, but that is because as parents we taught them to and that it is wrong and racist on any levels for anyone tojudge based on religion or race. As the above says I think the issues here are more around Texas etc

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by sbartek1974

It's odd that a lot of people feel that Utah has issues with race relations, but maybe I'm reading in to it all wrong. I've never heard of Utah being one of the states that has this issue. Texas, yes. Alabama, yes, Louisiana, yes. Georgia, yes. Mainly states that have problems with diversity, race relations, interracial relationships, etc, are the states that have higher black American populations. Utah, having what? less than 2%? I'm not sure, but I know it's small, shouldn't really have a problem with multi-racial acceptance. I mean don't get me wrong, I know no matter where you go you'll always have some people who just can't accept the fact that we have a mixture of people here in the USA. But it's weird because I was under the same impression about Utah since it's black American population is so small. I'm white, my wife is black, and we have four children, who a lot of people assume are Hispanic and Hispanics will even try talking to them in Spanish, and we're planning to move to Utah soon. But now I'm constantly hearing and reading how accepting Utah is towards other races besides whites. When I go to other forums on Texas and the other southern states I rarely come across questions like, "I'm in an interracial relationship and want to move to Texas, will we be accepted?" or "I'm black, or I'm white, will I be accepted in Alabama?" I rarely see those. But yet, I, my wife, children, parents, in-laws, my black and friends, have always experienced racism on a very high scale here in Texas. But I'm constantly seeing these questions asked about Utah. But hey, my wife and I are curious how it is in Utah as far as that goes. We'll have to see when we get there.

My sister has an adopted bi-racial son (Black/Caucasian). He has run across an occasional idiot during his 21 years, but really had never experienced any really significant problems. He's so good looking that the girls are just throwing themselves at him but so far, he's never been on a date. No, he's not gay; he's exceptionally shy. He told his mom that if he took a girl out, he'd have to talk to her.