What would be Asian tolerant/accepting city in mainland United States? (credit, college)

[JJH2011]

Honolulu doesn't count, as it is not in the mainland US, and for large # of mainland Asians, moving there is not realistic unless you have the money and/or some personal connection in Hawaii.....

From what I hear, it sounds like Seattle is accepting to Asians, one of the reason being its close proximity to Vancouver (which seems to be an Asian stronghold due to Chinese being the largest ethnic minority if they're not the majority) across the border on the north.

What would you say is the accepting city in your opinion and based on your experiences/observations and why?

(On a side note, I will add that if an Asian/Oriental person speaks North American English on a native speaker level with no Asian accent then that makes it much more easier to be accepted and make friends, but for Asians who do not speak on a native speaker level and have accent, it's more challenging, and there are tendencies to be slighted if you do not speak on a native speaker level because people judge you on how you speak.
Accents can be considered charming, but not necessarily if it's Asian accent, as most Americans consider British or European accent to be superior to something like Chinese accent while not really giving credits to the Chinese for learning English while the Brits don't even have to learn English.)
)

[Metro Matt]

Northwest: Seattle

West Coast: San Francisco & LA

South: Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, & even New Orleans (mostly Viets & Chinese though)

Midwest: Chicago, Detroit & Minneapolis (Hmong people)

East Coast: New York, Philly, Boston, DC

[diablo234]

I honestly can't think of a city that is not tolerant/accepting of Asians on some level, especially considering the fact that many are highly educated, hard working, and are very entrepreneurial.

However I guess if you had to narrow the list down further down it would look something like this.

West Coast: Any city in California, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle

Midwest: Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit

South: Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Orlando

East Coast: New York City, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia

[Thomas R.]

The following metros look to have fairly low White-Asian dissimilarity/segregation indices while also looking to be 5% or more Asian.

Orange County, California - Garden Grove, Irvine, and Westminster look fairly highly Asian.
Salinas, California
San Jose, California
Ventura, California
Yolo, California
Yuba City, California
Washington, DC
Bergen-Passaic, New Jersey
Seattle, Washington
Tacoma, Washington

Also Anchorage, Alaska could fit, but I didn't list it as it might not count as "mainland." I have no experience of these metros though so this list might not mean much and some of them might be too small for you.

In my personal experiences I haven't been to any city that struck me as particularly Anti-Asian and I've never heard much about it in regards to my brother's Chinese-Jamaican American wife or their kids. What I've heard most from Asians is more that they're stereotyped rather than hated. The main I've heard in life is that Asian/White couples should have the women be Asian and the man be white. A gal in one of my college classes was engaged to a Thai and I guess she received criticism for it. Asian men, until fairly recently, were kind of portrayed as dorks or monks or asexual. The other stereotype is expectations of Asian wealth or industriousness so maybe some ignoring of how many Cambodian, etc people who are poor or do have problems. That Asians can have learning disabilities or develop addictions or depression or whatever just like everyone else.

[JJH2011]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

The main I've heard in life is that Asian/White couples should have the women be Asian and the man be white. A gal in one of my college classes was engaged to a Thai and I guess she received criticism for it.

Well, Thomas, without caring for political correctness in this life on earth, I will have to say that you hit it right on the nail, and such a factual stereotypes create some tension and problems within Asian community as this is a very divisive issue which makes it impossible to have sensible and civic debate about, and funny thing is Asian men can't even complain because that is seen as immature, ridiculous, racist, sexist while Black women can publicly complain about their Black men leaving them for White or non-Black women such as in
Black and single: Is marriage really for white people? - CNN

I guess it is easier for women to complain about their lack of dating than for men, and that probably crosses racial lines.

Even though I have strayed off from my question a bit, I think this kind of issue should deserve some attention, as this is definitely a social phenomena that exists in this country but no one really talk about and is not much of interest to those who aren't affected by it.

[415_s2k]

Originally Posted by JJH2011

Honolulu doesn't count, as it is not in the mainland US, and for large # of mainland Asians, moving there is not realistic unless you have the money and/or some personal connection in Hawaii.....

From what I hear, it sounds like Seattle is accepting to Asians, one of the reason being its close proximity to Vancouver (which seems to be an Asian stronghold due to Chinese being the largest ethnic minority if they're not the majority) across the border on the north.

FWIW, Seattle's acceptance towards Asians has basically nothing to do with the large Asian presence in BC: WA has had an Asian presence nearly as long as it's had a white presence. Before WW2, large swaths of the state were farmed by Japanese-Americans, who were thrown in concentration camps and largely relocated to the LA and SF areas after the war. Pike Place Market, for example, notes that before WW2, a large percentage of its stalls were run by Japanese-Americans; after the internment, few came back.

Also worth noting: BC has also had a very long-standing Asian presence; after the Coolie Riots in Seattle, many relocated to Vancouver and Victoria from Washington State. When I went to Vic to visit my *ahem* Chinese-Canadian hapa girlfriend, I was quite surprised at the number of Chinese-descended people there, and its small-but-vibrant Chinatown. This said, the area had a major increase in Asian population after the UK gave Hong Kong back to China in '96. Many Hong Kong natives decided that they'd rather stay in a Crown country than live in China, even if HK is an autonomous region, and relocated to Canada or Australia. Because of this, the large Chinese influence is much more recent.

I remember going to Vancouver, Whistler, etc. as a kid and coming away feeling as though it was whiter than Seattle, in the early 90's. Felt totally different going there as an adult a couple years ago.

What would you say is the accepting city in your opinion and based on your experiences/observations and why?

San Francisco has an extremely large, deep and lengthy Asian influence, and while many people prefer to integrate into their ethnic/national communities once they move to SF, if they choose to integrate with the greater population, they're generally more than welcome (there's an Ughyr Chinese guy in my social circle up there who has a really thick accent as he moved here about five years ago, but otherwise is basically a beer-loving, boob-ogling, cigarette-smoking American-style "dude" who listens to hip hop and punk).

Los Angeles, too, has a huge Asian-American and immigrant community that gets along just fine and also has roots going back over a hundred years in the area. The nightlife in Koreatown and Little Tokyo attract large numbers of nonasians (I was in a karaoke bar in Little Tokyo with some friends just this evening), and the nightlife in the rest of LA attracts a large number of Asians, conversely. No one really minds here.

Seattle is also a city where Asians are welcomed. Hell, if you're from a foreign country, you'll probably be more warmly-welcomed by curious folk than you would be if you were a fellow American from another part of the US.

(On a side note, I will add that if an Asian/Oriental person speaks North American English on a native speaker level with no Asian accent then that makes it much more easier to be accepted and make friends, but for Asians who do not speak on a native speaker level and have accent, it's more challenging, and there are tendencies to be slighted if you do not speak on a native speaker level because people judge you on how you speak.

Not in California.

Accents can be considered charming, but not necessarily if it's Asian accent, as most Americans consider British or European accent to be superior to something like Chinese accent while not really giving credits to the Chinese for learning English while the Brits don't even have to learn English.)
)

I don't think it's really a matter of "giving credit;" more than anything else, I think that the average American is more familiar with social mores from England, Ireland, France, Australia, etc. than they are with people from China, Japan, or Korea. I'm mostly ethnically Scandanavian, and had a long conversation with a Dutch guy at a burrito joint in Berkeley about how people thought that he was "weird" due to the tendency towards dry humor from that region, and had a similar conversation with a friend's Finnish roommate.

[daydreamin71]

I agree with the cities posted above, but if you are looking for a small city, rather than a large one, Ithaca, NY may be what you are looking for. Ithaca has a large Asian population from many different backgrounds. For a small city, it is very diverse. Walking around the city, you can hear many different languages being spoken, as well as English at various levels of proficiency.

[skrizzle]

I don't think i've seen a city in the US... big or small, that is not tolerant of asians. everyone loves asians!

[Thomas R.]

Not sure on that, there was certainly a time not that long ago that some did not like Asians. In 1982 Vincent Chin was beaten to death in Detroit by some Chrysler workers and the killers got fairly light sentences.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

Not sure on that, there was certainly a time not that long ago that some did not like Asians. In 1982 Vincent Chin was beaten to death in Detroit by some Chrysler workers and the killers got fairly light sentences.

Some still don't like Asians today...