vijayjohn wrote:linguoboy wrote:I'm not sure what the concentration of South Asians is like where you live, but I suspect it's below the critical threshold for where racism turns ugly like that.
Yeah, I'm sure that it is and that this is indeed why racism (against Indians) is much less obvious down here.
I just happened to be thinking about this today, and I'm starting to wonder whether maybe the reason (for the difference in how South Asians are treated here as opposed to New Jersey or something) is something else. Here in Austin, it seems to me as if most kids leave town as soon as they get to go to college, and few adults stay here for a long time unless they intend to retire here. As a result, most people in Austin are not actually people who lived in Austin from childhood to adulthood but rather people who immigrated from other parts of the US or from other countries altogether. Perhaps this means that people in Austin don't feel attachment to Austin or fear the effect of immigration on it in the same way that New Jerseyites (for example) may feel attachment to their home towns or fear how immigration is affecting them.