<p>Hi, I'm from Europe looking to go to US for further education.</p>
<p>But this isn't about me.</p>
<p>My friend is an Indian here who wants to go to US for university (with me) but is afraid of racism. So is this factor really significant? Significant enough for him to avoid going to US?</p>
<p>What do you all think of Indians? Do they blend in?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I think they blend in fine. It may be a regional thing but I bump into tons and tons of indians everywhere I go, I don’t think anything of it. We have neighborhoods here where so many indian families have moved in that there are only a handful of other nationalities there, nobody minds. I think if he wants to assimilate it will be important to make sure he resists the urge to hang out only with other indians, because that’s something a lot of international students end up doing and I think it can isolate them from everybody else. But I wouldn’t anticipate him having any major problems with racism here, I guess depending on what school he goes to.</p>
<p>Racism against Indians isn’t a big deal here - at least, at the college-educated levels (I wouldn’t say the same for rural, backwards communities). However, self-segregation is a huge issue.</p>
<p>^I second the whole “self-segregation” thing</p>
<p>Tell him to come to Rutgers University in New Jersey! We have a big Indian population here!</p>
<p>Seriously though, I don’t think racism is a big thing with Indians over here (or at least I haven’t heard any incidents). You shouldn’t have a problem.</p>
<p>Indians are welcomed, like anyone else, to any university. I rarely see any racism since all universities are so diverse. By the way, I love Krishna lunches at UF. Delicious!</p>
<p>Well, a lot of Indians that are International students all go to the same schools like almost every other Asian. I must agree with the self-segregation part though since I went to Purdue, which had A LOT of international students. Many of the students would just be in their own little groups and wouldn’t socialize with others. A lot of International students also are “afraid” of going to a fraternity party or a fraternity house during Rush. They also call fraternities as rascists but to be honest, it’s because they never tried to go to a fraternity. My fraternity had a few international and minority students and we are a social fraternity. You just got to spread out and not self-segregate yourself then you won’t have that feeling of the student population being racists unless you actually experienced them.</p>
<p>No, racism by and large is not tolerated. Unless he goes to a very regional, very homogeneous school, I doubt he’ll experience any sort of overt discrimination. In my experience, classism is more pronounced and tolerated than racism. I find my liberal coworkers and peers often making offensive remarks about low-income, uneducated people.</p>
<p>Yeah icanread is pretty spot-on.</p>
<p>The only racism I’ve seen on my campus comes from the very insular Chinese community. By no means are all of them racist, but I’ve noticed that a significant number avoid those of other races, and talk down to them when forced to interact. For the most part though, racism is a non-issue on my campus.</p>
<p>I’ve found that the blog “Stuff White People Do” (my only connection with it is as a reader) offers a really good discussion about contemporary racism in the US, from the perspective of people who take racism seriously as a problem to be confronted.</p>
<p>Your friend might want to read that blog or find other places where people are discussing American racism to try to get a sense of what his experience is likely to be. It’s probably going to be quite different from my experience, so it’s really hard for me to predict what he will want to do. But he should recognize that there are many people in America who do not think that racism is a significant problem, and he will not be likely to encounter many of those people in discussions such as those on Stuff White People Do.</p>
<p>I would hope that he would want to come.</p>
<p>Stuff White People Like (not do) is kinda silly. Like, hardly a good study of race relations in the US silly.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your input!</p>
<p>And yes, he is interested in universities which have 90% white population too.</p>
<p>Should he avoid those universities (as icanread said)?</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>Racism is not a problem if he integrates with the majority population of his school.</p>
<p>Racism against asians and southeast asians is usually only directed at the insular groups that form at large universities. I’m very hesitant to call it racism as it does not stem from race but the exclusive nature of such homogeneous social groups.</p>
<p>The true racism is directed at African Americans, hispanics, and other URMs. It wouldn’t be uncommon to hear hushed admonishment of them taking the spots of other more qualified (white) applicants due to affirmative action.</p>
<p>TLDR; as long as your friend doesn’t hang out exclusively with his own ethnic group things will be gravy.</p>
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<p>This is a very important distinction, and it extends to self-segregating groups of all kinds. Like you said, even if there is ill will, it really isn’t because of race, just because of the “exclusive nature of such homogeneous social groups.”</p>
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<p>Agreed. Just don’t participate with the idiots who think stuff like that.</p>
<p>Federer, it ultimately depends on the school, even if it is 90% white. Think about different factors: is the school close to a diverse, liberal area? do the students all come from the surrounding towns or is it a “national” school? what’s the distribution of minority students like? is there a strong Greek scene (not to say Greeks are racists, but if the campus is heavily Greek, it can make for an insular social scene that can alienate an international kid). Google the school name + racism. If there have been incidents, you’ll definitely find articles online.</p>
<p>I guess it shouldn’t be a problem then.</p>
<p>Thanks all!</p>
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<p>i hang out with other white people all the time and don’t feel discriminated against</p>
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<p>2 different blogs</p>
<p><a href=“http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/[/url]”>http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/</a>
<a href=“http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/[/url]”>http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>If by Indian you mean from India then it be best if he went to a state in the Northwest, Northeast, Upper Midwest and California.</p>
<p>North Carolina and Virginia are good states as well, tell him to keep away from the more conservative states like Kansas, Alabama, and South Carolina. An Indian student at my university tells me about his bad experiences in those states and how he was called a “hairy curry raghead” by some kids on his visit to Alabama.</p>
<p>Thanks Music4ears!</p>
<p>Yep, he is looking at universities in the northwest.</p>
<p>Yes - there are incidents of racism (pretty much everywhere, including at European universities), but the OP’s friend likely will have little exposure to it and find plenty of people where race isn’t that big of an issue (more likely, otoh, to experience people w/ certain biases or beliefs in certain stereotypes).</p>
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<p>Being in a “liberal” area or having a diverse student body doesn’t necessarily mean having no or less racism.</p>
<p>For instance, Jeremy Lin, Harvard BB star, has stated that racial taunts thrown his way are worse at Ivy League games than at OOC games and there have been numerous incidents of dubious articles/stories in Ivy League publications.</p>