See Those Stats?

Happy Tuesday Folks,

I hope everyone had a great and productive first day of the week!  I come to share an epiphany with everyone!  A good friend and I went went for a hike up near Bogus Basin Recreation Resort yesterday.  We were talking about life and future endeavors.  Considering how close I am to embark on this internship, of course we discussed my traveling to D.C. We discussed culture differences on the east coast vs. west coast.  Something else we discussed was my growing up in a practically all-white community.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Idaho has an estimated population of 1,716,943. 93.3% of the population identifies as "White alone".  The Hispanic or Latino percentage is 12.3% and the African American percentage is a whopping 0.8%.

Less than one percent.

Let's put this into perspective.  Washington D.C.'s Stats in a quick nutshell:
Washington D.C. Population: 693,972
"White alone": 44.6%
"Black or African American alone": 47.7%
"Hispanic or Latino": 10.9%


I am used to being the only person of color in a room.  There were 4 African Americans in my graduating class (myself included).  Now, I'm about to go to a completely different region of the United States where I am around people like myself.  Curious to see how I immerse myself in culture, it got me thinking of a list of things that I want to bring to light so that I can answer these questions at the conclusion of my internship:

-How are people in the Eastern part of the United States?  Attitudes?  Friendliness?
-What were my feelings being around people who share the same ethnicity(ies) as myself?  Did I notice any bias or pre-existing judgement from my upbringing in such a Caucasian state?
-What was my favorite thing to experience within D.C. and/or east coast culture?
-How did I adjust?  Was it easier or harder than expected?
-What is my "expectation" of a typical day for a D.C. resident?  Did it stack up?

I will more than likely be updating these questions by adding more, but I wanted to share with y'all so you know my thoughts as I sit here in the Salt Lake City, Utah airport preparing for my 4 hour flight!

Have a wonderful rest of your day!  I should post at least once more this week, maybe more.

(used U.S. Census Bureau for statistics of Idaho and D.C. Population https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/)