I lived in a Republican southern state for 20 years, and recently moved to Bay Area for a new job. I am an immigrant and I was hoping Californians to be more open-minded towards immigrants than any other place. As a matter of fact I have never felt racism in USA until I moved to CA. I don't want to generalize it to whole CA though. I only saw Silicon Valley so far. Here in the valley, the white Americans make me feel like a foreigner, although I am a citizen. They, when talking about themselves, start their sentences "we americans blah blah...". The word 'americans' is always emphasized. Or keep asking "where are you 'originally' from?" Or " you as an international blah blah blah". Those are only a few examples I know, but I cannot describe their condescending tone in general. I have never felt that way in any other place and I am almost 50 yo. I also witnessed some mild racism against other nations. In the apartment complex I live, there is a white middle aged woman who keeps cherry picking and bashing brown kids and she is always kind to whites, unless they are immigrants of course. Actually, I have seen several other examples of immigrants being treated differently by locals here in Silicon Valley. What the heck is going on? Am I getting too sensitive or the racism is really that prevalent in Bay Area? Update: based on responses, I think my point is totally missed here. I am talking about the way these questions are asked. There is a ton of different ways of asking a question. Of course you can ask a person where she is from. Please don't cherry pick that single question. It is not the particular questions you get but the way you are treated. An outsider! Also, I know that if you go anywhere else in the world, probably you will get more dangerous versions of racism. USA is still one of the best place for immigrants. At least, you can call yourself American and most people will be OK with that.
Yes. White women are the worst in California
I like to ask people who look like they have a different heritage or sound like they have a different heritage where they are from because I'm genuinely curious about the rest of the world. Should I stop doing that and find other things to talk about?
Well, it is totally fine to ask "where are you from?" to anybody. But the offensive part, to me, is after I give an answer, to get a follow-up question like "No I mean where are you originally from?". Well, if I wanna talk about where I was born, by a cosmic accident, I would have said "I am from Russia or Tanzania" in the first place rather than Arizona or Louisiana, where I spent half my life. Having an accent does not make me less american.
Actually, let's say you ask a transsexual person " what is your name?" And she says "Jessica" and you say "No what is your original name?". I do not mean offense to anybody in this example. This is just to give a simple example to explain how it feels sometimes.
It’s a scam. The leftists are the real racists. Lol Welcome to the bay.
Racism is worse in the Bay Area than in Texas. I went there for graduate school and everyone was nice to me. In Bay Area I’ve heard “go back to your country” more than a few times from cowards in their cars driving away.
Texans are really nice people.
Texas is a huge state. Depends on where in Texas, like Dallas, you'll get the remark "go back to where you came from". Go anywhere north and/or west of San Antonio or east of Houston and you'll experience hardcore racism. Austin tries to be progressive, but once you step into the outer parts (even round Rock), you'll hear some nasty remarks there too. Racism in the bay is universal. I've heard Asian and Indian kids making fun of white kids for being dumb, black and Latino accusing and pestering Indians of being Arab terrorists, Asians talking smack about other types of Asians. If any time I see or have heard of white people being racist in the bay, it's the old bitter ones or the transplants
Southern hospitality is a real thing
Went to SC. Can attest this
Subtle racism is very common and it is deep rooted and that's how people are brought up here. My day isn't complete without a daily dose of racism here in Seattle. It's also called "I'll smile a little less at you because you are of a different color than I am". But I am an Indian and I joke that I take 5x salary for the same work I would do in India just to tolerate the racism.
Racism is real in the Silicon Valley. Not only do you suffer racism in the streets, but we are also getting it directly from our leadership. There are a lot of white nationalist managers who are doing everything in their power to cleanse the workforce of immigrants, females and people of color. It’s a shame that you have to put up with disparaging comments and retaliation from your boss and the company turns a blind eye!
White nationalists in tech as managers here in the bay?! That doesn't sound right at all. Anywhere else, maybe... I've had more Indian and Asian managers across a number of companies here than any other race
And what about Indian managers? The average racism of Indians is way greater than the average racism of all white people by 100 times or so!
May be the Americans who are treating you like this is originally not from California. These are the folks giving California a bad name.
I hope that's true my friend.
It's usually the people who actually grow up in the place where there are a lot of immigrants. As their stereotypes will get validated more often than those not. Therefore these people are more racist, especially when they take liberal cover
Yes - lived in southern US state before Bay Area. There aren’t any stupid/hillbilly racists here but a lot of the smart/well-educated kind of racists (which are worse...)
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Where are you from?
USA
But where are you ‘originally’ from?