Hispanic female Caucasion Male looking to relocate (Seattle, Spokane: find a job, construction)

[Liliarose]

My husband and I would like to leave Southern Calif and relocate to either Washington or Idaho. We have been researching Spokane, Coeur D'Alene areas. He works in construction and I currently work as a Casemanager/Caseworker in the mental Health field. I need one more year of college for my BA and I am concerned with not being able to find a job as everything I see online required a degree for the field of social services. One advantage I have in Calif is that I am bilingual which probably isn't very usefull in other places where I see the hispanic rate is low. Also concerned about racism in these areas. Can anybody shed some light on this?

[gallo]

The Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area is nice for its natural beauty, especially Coeur d'Alene. Neither economy of either place is booming per say, but they don’t seem to be severely struggling either. I don’t know about racism in the area. I can say this -- while the western part of Washington is liberal, the eastern part of Washington is conservative. Idaho, in general, is known as a very conservative state.

The demographics from the 2000 census report for both cities are as follows:

Spokane: 82.59% White, 3.24% Multiracial, 4.50% Hispanic, 2.56% Asian, 3.02% African American, 2.18% Native American, 1.00% from other races 0.90% Pacific Islander.

Coeur d'Alene: 95.80% White, 0.22% African American, 0.77% Native American, 0.61% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 0.63% from other races, and 1.88% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race was 2.70% of the population.

Gonzaga University is in Spokane if you are looking for an option to finish your degree. The school is very well respected throughout the region.

I have been to both places, and the people seem pretty friendly. Perhaps, if possible, take a visit up there and check it out for yourself?

I can’t speak for eastern Washington/Idaho, but in the Seattle region it often takes a masters degree in social work, in addition to a bachelors, to break into the social services field. This is becoming commonplace in a lot of areas of the country -- having a masters in social work.

[mamacourt]

LilaRose...we're from California too (fresno area) and are the opposite...caucasian female, hispanic male. I'm looking into Vancouver/Portland as well as this area.

[mustang34]

Consider the Tri-Cities!
Bilingual would be very useful here.
We are about 3 hr. away from Spokane.
Construction is in very high demand currently.
Washington State University branch in Richland.
Very diverse area.
Lots of choice for housing too.