Graduated in 2014, moved to Detroit to work for a hardware startup. Live and work downtown, and the professional experience has been phenomenal.
However, the issue that's so frequently left out when discussing the palatability of the Midwest is what it's like to be an Asian American here when you've grown up in a major city on the East or West coast.
And the reality is that it's really difficult. Race goes from being one aspect of your identity to an omnipresent difference that you feel constantly. On the vast majority of days that I spend here, I'm the only person of South Asian origin that I run into. This tends to lend itself to a sense of isolation that's difficult to capture in words.
I live in the Midwest, but visited a colleague at another site owned by my employer, in California. She echoed your sentiment. I have to say that if there's any specific reason why I'd hesitate to enthusiastically endorse living in the Midwest, it's the racism.
> I have to say that if there's any specific reason why I'd hesitate to enthusiastically endorse living in the Midwest, it's the racism.
The midwest includes a broad swath of states. While I've encountered some racism throughout the area, I'd be hard-pressed to see how it's vastly different than any other racism that permeates US culture.
True, the midwest as a region is broad and well-defined. But I'm guessing what the poster referred to us the midwest north of the mason-dixon line.
The upper midwest has its own breed of racism. It is quiet but built in to the socio-economic fabric of cities there in a way even worse than the south in many ways.
I'd like to point out that midwestern cities are among the most segragated in the U.S.[1] Minnesota, the place where I grew up, is famous for having one of the best public school systems in the country. What you won't hear Minnesotans talking about, though, it the ugly fact that Minnesota has the highest discrepancy in educational outcomes of any city in the country.
If you're from there, its easy to see why. There are exclusive suburbs with incredible schools for the local upper-class kids. But if you go to the inner city the schools are a joke. The difference is shocking in person.
The worst part is, there is not even a conversation in the upper midwest about race. The dominant narrative is that its a southern problem.
> What you won't hear Minnesotans talking about, though, it the ugly fact that Minnesota has the highest discrepancy in educational outcomes of any city in the country.
That's just simply incorrect (and, also, Minnesota is a state, not a city, you're probably referring to Minneapolis?). That's in the major local paper (Star Trib) weekly, if not more frequently. It is a topic of significant conversation and another proposed effort is being debated in the MN House currently, as well as efforts to decrease the number of suspensions disproportionately received by minority students, and a push to offer "free" preschool for lower class families, which will likely be approved soon.
Also, simply chalking up the cause of these issues to "racism" is lazy thinking. There's far more at play, including a significant immigrant population (large populations of Somali and Hmong, for instance), an inability for the MPLS school district to recruit good leadership, and more.
I happen to live in the (Northern) Midwest and I think you're just not in the right area. My city is ethnically and culturally diverse and I never encounter open racism. There are some of the more rural areas where that might be present. However, without statistics to back up any density of racism that may or may not be present it's hard to say whether race might be more of a factor here than anywhere else in the US.
Graduated in 2014, moved to Detroit to work for a hardware startup. Live and work downtown, and the professional experience has been phenomenal.
However, the issue that's so frequently left out when discussing the palatability of the Midwest is what it's like to be an Asian American here when you've grown up in a major city on the East or West coast.
And the reality is that it's really difficult. Race goes from being one aspect of your identity to an omnipresent difference that you feel constantly. On the vast majority of days that I spend here, I'm the only person of South Asian origin that I run into. This tends to lend itself to a sense of isolation that's difficult to capture in words.