Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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Because we live in these neighborhoods.

California is not like the rest of the US. The racial dynamics are different, and immigrant families from poorer backgrounds are fine paying extremely high premiums or even rent out a garage to live within in order to send their kids to top school districts. "American" families don't do that.

On top of that, utilizing public services is viewed negatively in the American naturalization process, as it can be contested that an applicant is at risk of becoming a "public charge".

Additionally, the moment a neighborhood becomes too "Asian" or "Latino" in the Bay, all the White and Black families who can afford to end up leaving, and those who remain complain about us "changing the character" of our neighborhoods or "being too competitive".

The Western US (Dallas westwards) has an entirely different racial and ethnic dynamic from the rest of the US.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule

Interesting how the racial demographics are much less diverse compared to large East Coast cities. For example, there are far fewer African-Americans (5%) percentage wise in San Francisco versus a city like Atlanta (46%) or Philadelphia (40%). In most of these cities, moving out of the neighborhoods where Asians live would actually place you in the worst school districts. The worst schools tend to be in mostly black and latin neighborhoods.

Racial diversity is orthogonal to ethnic diversity. It shouldn't be code for "Black".

For example, continuing with your Atlanta example, the city of Atlanta is 84% white and black, and those White and Black Americans in ATL are overwhelmingly of southern origin in the US.

Meanwhile, an Asian American from Jiangxi is extremely different from someone from the Mekong Delta who is extremely different from someone from Jeolla in South Korea. The only similarly they have is looking kind of similar.

Same for Latiné communities as well.

East Coast cities have more "White" and "Black" people, but not as many Asians or Latiné.

Also, you have to remember the history of the Western US - much of the US west of Dallas wasn't part of the US until the 1840s, and remained a frontier backwater until WW2, so a number of Asian and Latiné ethnic groups had a longer history here than a lot of ethnic groups that are now pivotal in the US.

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