Diversity in Omaha

Even after a single week, I can confidently say that Omaha is as diverse – if not more so – than California.

This observation is contrary to my own expectations and the assumptions of many of our friends in California. This week, we have been out in public quite a bit and at the swimming pool, the supermarket, the hardware store, and at the farmer’s market both Sarah and I have taken notice that there are a broad range of people here. We’ve heard a lot of Spanish, seen people from East and West Africa, noticed plenty of Asian restaurants, and interacted with far more African-Americans than we did in California. We have seen same-sex couples holding hands in public and just as many inter-racial couples as we did in California – just not as many Asian women with white men

One reality that I failed to appreciate – and I think many people on the coasts overlook – is that immigration patterns are changing dramatically. Between 1990 and 2000 Nebraska alone had a 164% jump in foreign born population (wikipedia entry on immigration in the US – I just double checked this from the Census Bureau)

Furthermore, Omaha provides a far more diverse group of all people along socio-economic lines (class), political views, religious observance, and educational levels than we experienced in the Bay Area. Sarah and I recognized that our network in California was made up of people with roots around the world, but whose points-of-view were quite similar. I can think of only one family that we knew that went to religious services regularly, I cannot think of a single person that openly supported conservative causes, and I cannot think of a single person that I interacted with that did not have a college degree.

I am beginning to think that medium-sized cities in the midwest provide more diversity along more scales than anywhere I have been on the coasts. When I think about diversity as more than country of origin and include class, education level, political and religious views for starters there might be surprisingly less diversity in the coastal areas than we think.