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Old 02-23-2015, 08:23 PM
 
4 posts, read 3,154 times
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I'm white and was born in the US and my wife is from Mexico. We are not happy where we are currently planning on relocating within a few years. Are plans are to move to either New England, the Northwest (Oregon & Washington), or Colorado. Right now we do not have any children but my wife is very sensitive to racism (intentional or otherwise) and is very concerned about where we will be raising our children.

I'm somewhat familiar with New England and Colorado but would like some opinions on the differences between the three regions with repsect to their cultural sensitivities and treatment of latins?
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Old 02-23-2015, 11:09 PM
 
Location: Lubbock, TX
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I don't have much experience with the area you mention. I do have a quick comment on Colorado. The southern portions of Colorado (or at least some cities and towns there) are culturally on a continuum with New Mexico. Pueblo, CO has a large Hispanic population and, for instance, has a chile festival, of the sort one might expect to find in New Mexico, but even a small town like Alamosa has a significant Hispanic population. (Alamosa seems like a pretty sweet place for someone who likes small, somewhat isolated towns, at high elevations. And it does have a university to mitigate the small town disconnect somewhat.) This is not exactly what you asked, but my assumption is that acceptance would be less of an issue with a larger Hispanic population already in place.

Excuse me if this is all obvious, but I didn't know about any of this before I moved to New Mexico several years back. Possibly my only association with Pueblo, CO was that it was the place I wrote away to for free government publications (I think they were government publications) when I was a kid, mostly nature related ones. They used to run ads on TV in the 70s and maybe early 80s about sending for your free catalog of free publications. I don't know if those are still running, since I'm out of touch with TV.

Additionally, I have heard negative anecdotal things from a Puerto Rican I knew who had lived in Denver and Colorado Springs for a while, but it was not a very happy time in her life to begin with. (I think her husband, with whom she had been married not long before, was fighting in Iraq for a lot of that time, for one thing.) I think she felt like an outsider and found the culture cold there. But again, there were other factors making her unhappy. I wouldn't put too much weight on one anecdotal datum of that sort.

Sorry I can't provide more comparative feedback.
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Old 02-24-2015, 12:50 AM
 
Location: El Sereno, Los Angeles, CA
733 posts, read 936,179 times
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New England don't got many Mexicans, it has Puerto Ricans but not really Mexicans. Anecdotal and second hand but I had a friend that took a road trip and ended up right there and she's Mexican and at least one of her kids also has some Apache/Yaqui in there, and she says she was treated coldly like people were avoiding her, like they've never seen brown people before she said, though this was back in the 80s or 90s and was probably in an isolated area.

But I'd suggest somewhere with an established Mexican American population, both for the acceptance and the tasty food, Denver is very possibly better than New England where people may be more ignorant of Mexican culture by lack of exposure. And maybe avoid Arizona though, aforementioned friend lives there and don't have much issues in everyday life but the government hasn't been known to be too Mexican friendly out there.

Denver's probably good if you're looking at it, and look at places with a lot of Mexicans.
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Old 02-24-2015, 12:54 AM
 
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The more "sensitive" your wife is the more she is going to see and experience what she fears simply because she is looking for something to be sensitive about.

Is your wife Mexican or Latino?

The best thing to do is make a few trips to the areas you are interested in and see how you like it just from visiting.
No one else will be able to tell you exactly how things will be for you and your wife simply because all humans are different and like/dislike different areas, foods, shopping, etc.
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Old 02-24-2015, 01:05 AM
 
Location: 78745
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Any of the Southwestern States are accepting"of Hispanics, as they are a high percentage of the residents in the American Southwest, including Texas. Hispanic culture is just as prevalent as the white culture in the Southwest.

In most parts of the Midwest and South, the Hispanics/Mexicans/Central Americans are still such a small percentage of the population that it's not unusual to find somebody from the Midwest or South who has never been around any Mexicans / Hispanics / Central Americans and all they know is what they seen on tv.
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Old 02-24-2015, 09:07 AM
 
Location: Calera, AL
1,485 posts, read 2,238,338 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock View Post
Any of the Southwestern States are accepting"of Hispanics, as they are a high percentage of the residents in the American Southwest, including Texas. Hispanic culture is just as prevalent as the white culture in the Southwest.

In most parts of the Midwest and South, the Hispanics/Mexicans/Central Americans are still such a small percentage of the population that it's not unusual to find somebody from the Midwest or South who has never been around any Mexicans / Hispanics / Central Americans and all they know is what they seen on tv.
That's changing, especially in the Midwest. States that are traditionally Northern European (Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, etc) are receiving massive amounts of Latinos (particularly Mexicans, but Central Americans to a lesser extent). All three states could easily be 20-25% Hispanic/Latino in the next 30 years.
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Old 02-24-2015, 10:28 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fezzador View Post
That's changing, especially in the Midwest. States that are traditionally Northern European (Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, etc) are receiving massive amounts of Latinos (particularly Mexicans, but Central Americans to a lesser extent). All three states could easily be 20-25% Hispanic/Latino in the next 30 years.
That's ridiculous. Latino population growth was damn high in a lot of states from 2000 to 2010. That said, the high growth was focused on the South, not the Midwest.



Regardless, these states tended to be growing from a very low population. For example, South Dakota saw its Latino population rise by 102.9%. But in real numbers, this was a rise from 10,900 to 22,100 - or from 1.4% to 2.7% of the population. It would be more reasonable to presume that South Dakota would add an additional 10,000 Latinos by 2020 than it would to presume the number would double again.

Most importantly, the number of Latino immigrants in the U.S. has actually began falling around 2007 when the housing market burst. The job market is actually somewhat better in Mexico, and many Mexicans moved back home. More immigrants are now entering the U.S. from Asia than Latin America. The Latino population will continue to grow due to higher birth rates, but not at the astonishing rate it did in the 1990s and 2000s.
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Old 02-24-2015, 10:55 AM
 
Location: Calera, AL
1,485 posts, read 2,238,338 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
That's ridiculous. Latino population growth was damn high in a lot of states from 2000 to 2010. That said, the high growth was focused on the South, not the Midwest.



Regardless, these states tended to be growing from a very low population. For example, South Dakota saw its Latino population rise by 102.9%. But in real numbers, this was a rise from 10,900 to 22,100 - or from 1.4% to 2.7% of the population. It would be more reasonable to presume that South Dakota would add an additional 10,000 Latinos by 2020 than it would to presume the number would double again.

Most importantly, the number of Latino immigrants in the U.S. has actually began falling around 2007 when the housing market burst. The job market is actually somewhat better in Mexico, and many Mexicans moved back home. More immigrants are now entering the U.S. from Asia than Latin America. The Latino population will continue to grow due to higher birth rates, but not at the astonishing rate it did in the 1990s and 2000s.
The difference is, most of the Southern Hispanics flocked to urban areas, but in the Midwest, they have been gathering in - and even dominating - small towns the past couple of decades. There's a lot of jobs in the meat packing and ethanol industries, and as long as there's demand, there's going to be a ton of Hispanic workers. I don't see the Hispanic/Latino population growth subsiding by too much in the Midwest for the foreseeable future.

And there's better examples than South Dakota. Iowa and Nebraska have gone from two percent and five percent (~80K and 90K), respectively, to five percent and nine percent Hispanic/Latino (~150K and ~160K). And that's from 2000-2010 alone. Several of those Southern states have had an even smaller presence of Hispanics/Latinos... as of 2010 Mississippi and Alabama are still right around 3%, even after doubling in population the past decade.

http://www.unomaha.edu/ollas/pdf/IWF...inal050812.pdf

Last edited by fezzador; 02-24-2015 at 11:09 AM..
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Old 02-24-2015, 02:54 PM
 
Location: Arvada, CO
13,826 posts, read 29,843,342 times
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OP, just take her somewhere she would like.

As a descendant of real Mexicans, in my experience, you can cut and chop it any way you want in your head.

In Southern CA, the culture is predominately Mexican. But, in certain situations, you might be left out if you're not a paisa. Or you're left out because you're not from one of the states surrounding D.F. Or you're left out because you're Chicano. Or you're left out because you're a pocho. Or because you don't speak Spanish. Or because you do. Or because you're too guero. It's a freaking joke, really.

Denver and Colorado have this native/non-native thing going on, badly, even among Mexicans and Hispanics, which in Colorado are two vastly different things. Don't ever mistake a "Hispanic" or a "Spanish" for a Mexican. Just. Don't. Do. It. You have to be all about the Broncos and speak West Denver Spanglish to fit in around here.

I felt most free where there weren't any of "us" around. Makes things easier IMO.
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Old 02-25-2015, 07:58 AM
 
Location: The Springs
1,778 posts, read 2,871,728 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Aguilar View Post
OP, just take her somewhere she would like.

As a descendant of real Mexicans, in my experience, you can cut and chop it any way you want in your head.

In Southern CA, the culture is predominately Mexican. But, in certain situations, you might be left out if you're not a paisa. Or you're left out because you're not from one of the states surrounding D.F. Or you're left out because you're Chicano. Or you're left out because you're a pocho. Or because you don't speak Spanish. Or because you do. Or because you're too guero. It's a freaking joke, really.

Denver and Colorado have this native/non-native thing going on, badly, even among Mexicans and Hispanics, which in Colorado are two vastly different things. Don't ever mistake a "Hispanic" or a "Spanish" for a Mexican. Just. Don't. Do. It. You have to be all about the Broncos and speak West Denver Spanglish to fit in around here.

I felt most free where there weren't any of "us" around. Makes things easier IMO.

And much different in Denver than say, Pueblo or the San Luis Valley (where I went to college). The Latinos in the Valley could care less weather you were a gringo or one of them. I had more Latino friends than whites. There seemed to be a completely different feel down there compared with the Chicano attitude in West Denver where I grew up. I don't know, less "militant".
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