Unfortunately, the same can not be said for some of the surrounding communities. I have friends from Milwaukee and Chicago from college who were always reluctant to stay over at my place as they worried that my parents would give them trouble. However there was nothing of the same. Yet when I go to Milwaukee or Chicago with them, I notice the tension just walking around town.

Certainly there are intolerant people in Madison just like anywhere else, but I think all-in-all we have a very open community, and all your concerns will be found wasted.

Actually, this post is from many months ago, and I found your blog because it was mentioned in the local paper. Have your concerns gone out the door yet? If you’re interested in the Latino Community, there is Centro Hispano. I don’t know much about them, but a friend is involved and speaks highly of it. There is also a charter school, Nuestro Mundo which aims to raise bilingual children; depending on how old your children are, this may be of interest. At the very least, they could make some friends that they may be able to relate to.

Anyhow: Factoring race in does make selecting a place to live a challenge. For example, Madison and Portland seem like great cities to me, but they’re so white that I’m afraid they wouldn’t be good for our kid. Richard Florida’s “using gayness as a proxy for diversity” is a cop-out that, I suspect, only a white person would consider legitimate.

Growing up in Canada, the issues surrounding race seem to be totally different, though — I’m always surprised by the weight and intensity given to issues of race in the U.S. media. Perhaps it’s just naive of me to not think of it as a factor, and having never experienced discrimination myself means I’m somewhat blind to the reality of racism for most people.

On a side note, I think the optional questions about race should be removed from surveys, job applications, and the rest. The number you talked about, less than 5% of the population in Madison is Latino, was probably derived from one of the questionnaires filled out by people of Madison. Yes, asking race questions on surveys helps organizations measure their “diversity”, BUT, the numbers are also used to figure out the differences between races. You always hear about gaps between races: income, knowledge, political, etc. Recognizing differences is important, but sometimes I wonder if making us believe we’re so very different from one another is absolutely necessary. We are only racists if we are biased, and maybe this is how biases are created…