I hope this is not too stupid of a question, if it is I already apologize in advance.
Basically my girlfriend and I who are from Germany are planning to travel to the USA. We were hearing stuff that some Americans socially divide people by their ethnicity. I just wanted to ask online whether this is true and if there could be any concerns because my skin is very bright and my girlfriends skin is very dark.
Normally we never really cared or talked about this since at least in our community (where we are from) no one makes a thing out of it and we both just identify as German. But I heard that in some procedures in America you have to say what your ethnicity is? We even heard things like that in some places they divide people by “skin color” and base different cultures on that (we noticed that people from America even speak and behave differently based on whether they identify as “black” or “white”) and even have schools for primarily people with dark skin or so. And this concept is very new to us since our skin was never any topic for us and we are somewhat insecure that someone could say something since we look so different and are a couple and we don’t know if this could be “weird” for some Americans?
I assume that’s probably not the case and I’m somewhat misinformed, which is why we just want to make sure there isn’t anything that we have to know or potentially have to be concerned about.
We were looking into hiking and exploring national parks, maybe around Great Smoky Mountains and visiting Nashville (Tennessee) cause we’re country music lovers.
I live near there and honestly nobody’s likely to care enough to give you trouble
If you’re visiting mostly tourist areas and big cities, you’ll be fine. You might notice some people doing a double take, but it should be pretty harmless. Now if you go to rural, bumfuck nowhere places, your experience might be different.
The Smokies are beautiful, I’m sure you’ll both have a good time. Chattanooga is worth visiting if you have the time, it’s a good mix of college town and rural Appalachian beauty.
Just be aware of your surroundings and whether or not anyone is giving you the stink eye or staring you down, and assume any dude giving you shit has a gun (ie, don’t escalate and just leave). I don’t say that to scare you, carrying guns is just very normal in large swathes of the south, so tailor your threat response accordingly. The majority of people are not gonna be a problem, especially in urban areas. But anyone telling you it never happens is living in denial.
You have nothing to worry about. There’s a handful of areas across the country with people who are outwardly racist, these places are nowhere anybody would ever have a reason to visit on vacation. It’s not the norm. If you have a weird accent most people will immediately be welcoming.
I live in Nashville (and my sister lives in Germany). You should be fine. It’s a great place to visit.
Any place in the world has the small chance of a drunken idiot making a fool of themselves by revealing themselves to be racist. We’re no different. But you’re not going to be harassed by police officers or anything like that (unless you’re doing something worthy of their attention anyway).
The only places where I’d be the slightest bit concerned would be in the small town rural areas between Nashville and the national park. Even then you should be fine, but the odds of running into a racist idiot will go up from like 1% to 3%. And even if you do, it’s not like you’ll be in danger. They’ll just do their best to make you uncomfortable by saying something nasty. They won’t refuse you service or anything crazy like that.
Honestly, even in those areas you’re likely to be looked at suspiciously because of your foreign accent more than the color of your skin.
if you visit Minneapolis or St Paul (“the twin cities”… in Minnesota) let me know. I can give you some good recommendations on places to go. (if you want to be outside, dress accordingly. I like camping at the Zumbro Bottoms, there’s also Itasca State park, which is the headwaters for the Mississippi.) (the cherry on a spoon is a must see, though maybe not in winter.)