[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by aigel

Matt -

Sorry if my post rubbed you the wrong way. That said, you have no idea how it feels like being an immigrant. Have you lived in a foreign country? You get excited about people asking about your farm? Multiply that bad feeling by a factor of 100 and you may get close. Every day you do suffer this type of stereotying as an immigrant - multiple times - your wife and your kids do too. It hurts most with the kids IMHO - have them bullied at school for their faith, their lunch looking different, their parent's accent, their family traditions? It is much easier to live in a place where 50+ percent of the people are foreign born. Everyone's lunch suddenly is different, everyone has different beliefs, accents and traditions. Suddenly you may get invited to someone's house even if you don't want to join them for bible study.

I work in high tech and know many immigrants that have had fantastic offers to go to the Midwest, South etc. and declined. That includes myself. I lived in the South for several years. You could double my CA salary, I would not move my family there.

CA has a lot of issues, but brain drain and people moving away isn't one of them.

George

George,

Sorry for the overreaction. Really the only point I was trying to convey was that everything between the coasts is not equal. I can't speak from the standpoint of an immigrant, but I know a diverse culture when I see one. We are fortunate (yes fortunate) to have a number of factors that make Wichita a very diverse city. Wichita State is a major engineering college and also features the National Institute for Aviation Research, a national center for aerospace study. That brings students and faculty from all over the world, many of whom then go to work for one of our multiple local aerospace companies. I graduated from WSU and was dramatically in the minority as a white male, compared both to my graduating class and faculty. The aerospace industry which dominates Wichita is similarly diverse, particularly on the engineering side. Add in a large USAF base and it is far from the white-bread community that many picture.