Cultural Shocks

[cameronm]

Which city from small, medium, and large have surprised you most with other races from the USA.

[ariesjow]

It was a bit of culture shock for me to discover just how segregated Detroit and pretty much all of Michigan is. It's truly sad. Being an African-American from the South, you're sort of get in it your head that race relations are poorer in the South and people outside of the South perpetuate that stereotype to no end. But moving here and more travel has really shown me that it's a national thing.

[hood]

It was a bit of culture shock for me to discover just how segregated Detroit and pretty much all of Michigan is. It's truly sad. Being an African-American from the South, you're sort of get in it your head that race relations are poorer in the South and people outside of the South perpetuate that stereotype to no end. But moving here and more travel has really shown me that it's a national thing.

I understand that Michigan cities are pretty segregated, as are most cities. However, Lansing is almost 40% minority, but there isn't a single neighborhood in the city that is either white or minority dominated, although there are definately varying degrees of diversity.

[Claws]

A lot of people are surprised that Nashville has the highest concentration of Kurds in the world outside of the Middle East.

[urbanguy]

I went through a bit of a culture shock when i first moved to Portland 6yrs ago, it was the "whitest" city i had ever lived in but over the past few years it has changed quite a bit and its very noticeable now. Other places that i have lived in had larger minority populations versus here. I had never seen or lived in basically all white hoods until i moved here but its a lot different now and the change is happening quite rapidly as more and more immigrants move in and minorities from other states move in too. It's the sign of the times as there is a noticeble demographic change/shift going on nearly every where in the United States these days as immigrants are a lot more widespread and people are a lot more mobile in general.

[sleepy]

Moving from New Orleans to a small Minnesota town.

I expected of course a great deal of difference, but experiencing those differences on a daily basis was a "shock". And it wasn't just racial diversity or the lack of it here, because I knew the area is virtually all white, but the southern white culture v. the upper midwest white culture, and some of the difficulties I had relating to people.

[TheBostonian]

London: I expected to see Brits but was surprised by the amazing mix of people.

Something that disappointed me about Vero Beach, FL was the lack of culture shock. There were too many Northeastern goons like me there. And the seemingly endless strip of gated 55-plus communities stank of culturelessness. However there was some culture shock during stops in the deep south on my trip down. There's an exciting self-consciousness I feel when I am surrounded by people with a different accent than mine.

[shane453]

Like when you're driving through Oklahoma City and suddenly all the billboards, stores, and services are labeled in Vietnamese?

[damus]

I think that one unfortunate part of the country's culture is there isn't one single culture. There's the "white" culture that is pretty much open to anyone who wants in, there's the "redneck" culture which is mostly racist whites, you've got different immigrant cultures, and you got the "hip hop" or black culture. People from the "white" culture don't trust and get nervous around the "hip hop" people. They dress and act like thugs. They worship rap stars who were former gangbangers and drug dealers. They have an underlying distrust of "white" people (I know it goes back to when times really were bad, but today they've got it pretty good. A poor black kid has more opportunities today than a poor white kid) and sometimes act hostile or at least unwelcoming when these people are around. Remember what Bill Cosby said? It's true, and only a black man can say it without being labeled a racist. Sure there are other problems in society, but I think the only thing holding black people down now is themselves. If the mainstream society really is racist, how come it has allowed Asians to rise to the #1 ethnic group in terms of per capita wealth?

[monsoon]

I had "reverse culture shock" upon returning from Japan. It was a shock to see so many fat people, sloppy people, rude people, and dirt.

[Recchia]

I had "reverse culture shock" upon returning from Japan. It was a shock to see so many fat people, sloppy people, rude people, and dirt.

[Cotuit]

I had "reverse culture shock" upon returning from Japan. It was a shock to see so many fat people, sloppy people, rude people, and dirt.

I kind of had that when I returned from France. I was overwhelmed by Boston accents upon landing at Logan.

[Newnan]

I imagine anyone who moves to Gwinnett county near Atlanta from somewhere more rural would be surprised at the diversity. Right now the county is 13 percent black, 11 percent hispanic and 7 percent Asian as of 2000. It's probably even more diverse now. I can also imagine a suburban lily white person would have some culture shock if they went to south Atlanta.