Leaving America? VOL. House Hunters International Got Me Ready To Bounce.

SFC415 said:
Eastern Europe is on a whole different level. I would never step foot into Russia. Spaniards and Italians can be equal opportunity racists. The racists there hate all the different groups within their own countries as well (for example, Catalans and Basques vs Castillians in Spain, Northern vs Southern Italians, etc.). Even then it's nowhere like here where racists will find excuses to kill you for the color of your skin.
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been to italy...for the most part is was alright but there's def a weird feeling out there if you aren't in tourist areas for a poc.
at least from MY experience. germany was alright. austria was alright.

i too have heard that spain is pretty harsh for black ppl, especially black women. obviously there are black ppl living in spain but from a black american pov i wonder how it is.
 
wow this might be the most sensible thread on NT. 

I'm brown and I've spent a ton of time in europe and japan. Ironically I was in europe this summer when the US government issued a travel warning to people saying not to travel to france or europe because of terrorism. I get back to Los Angeles and we have the UCLA shooting, Orlando and all this madness last week. I've never been more ashamed of this nation. We're a coin flip away from electing Trump. I'm 37 and married, otherwise, I would be thinking about getting the FO of here too like you youngsters 
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NorthOaklandFC said:
Lived in Spain for about a year, recently moved back. Invaluable experience.

If you can find a way to work for an American company remotely that's the way to go. Bay Area market wages paired with your typical American cost of living cut in half is unbeatable.

Planning on going back to live in Spain for 3-5 years by 2018. Gonna do a 4 week Spanish language immersion progtam in Oaxaca, Mexico and probably something else similar in South or Central America right before heading back to Europe.

I think I'll raise my future kids in California, two many benefits and would he doing them a disservice not too, but planning on spending a lot of time residing out the country before thats even a thought.
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Info on the Spanish language immersion program? :nerd: I need my speaking skills to be A1 ASAP
 
millenial said:
 
[thread="651166"]
You didn't have any issues in Spain?  Always heard southern europe was most racist region in europe
[/thread]
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None at all. Not even once.

Like I said though it's different and complicated.  One thing that has to be understood is the fundamental difference between how an African American is viewed vs. an African immigrant. In my experience there's a disconnect in the way they perceive our African heritage, as in, it's almost like it doesn't exist to them. 

If you're an African American man, to them you're American that's it. Period. End of discussion. No qualifiers, no minority label, none of that.  I damn near felt more American in Spain than I do in my own country and being American in Europe is already a pretty cool thing if you're not the typical **** head. 

The do have a distinct image in their mind of black American culture though. They're going to associate you with the images that they know which are Usher, Kobe, Barack Obama, Motown, Will Smith, the civil rights movement, etc.

In America the image of the black man that's force fed to every member of society since birth is different. It's, uneducated, criminal, thug, ******, etc. 

One could argue that a stereotype is a stereotype, but when one set significantly ups your social value, and the other set could very well get you slaughtered in cold blood, I'm really not sure about that. 


Sadly our African brothers hailing directly from the continent aren't treated with the same respect, largely stemming from immigration. African immigrants generally come with literally nothing, don't speak the language, and are marginalized. They're associated with poverty and an extreme sense of otherness. 

You also have to take historical context in account. There's massive historical back drop concerning Christian/Spanish vs. Muslim/African relations. 

Southern Spain specifically has been the country's front lines on both the immigration and Holy War fronts for well over a millennium. 

Remember the entire Iberian peninsula was conquered by North Africans in in the 7th century and held for hundreds of years. Southern Spain was ruled by Africans for much longer, and wasn't won back by the Spanish until the 17th century. That's only a handful of generations back.

Back to modern day racism, I didn't personally notice any racism towards Africans while in Spain but I had a lot of conversations and from the experiences that were shared with me, it's obviously a problem. 


I did noticed a serious lack of respect for people of Asian descent. Massive Asian population in Barcelona and Spain's other major cities. I was a little bit disturbed by what I perceived to be racism towards Asians. 

Honestly there's so much more to talk about. @SFC415
 brings up a great point that I could go on another tangent on. Spanish people don't even like each other. Massive ethnic and cultural divides among
certain regions in the country. 

The big thing to take away is just how different things are. I still don't think racism in Spain comes anywhere close to racism in America. 
 
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Ronaldo Nazario said:
 
NorthOaklandFC said:
Lived in Spain for about a year, recently moved back. Invaluable experience.

If you can find a way to work for an American company remotely that's the way to go. Bay Area market wages paired with your typical American cost of living cut in half is unbeatable.

Planning on going back to live in Spain for 3-5 years by 2018. Gonna do a 4 week Spanish language immersion progtam in Oaxaca, Mexico and probably something else similar in South or Central America right before heading back to Europe.

I think I'll raise my future kids in California, two many benefits and would he doing them a disservice not too, but planning on spending a lot of time residing out the country before thats even a thought.
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Info on the Spanish language immersion program?
nerd.gif
I need my speaking skills to be A1 ASAP
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Friend of mine did this one and I'm planning on doing the same. Cheap, flexible, and basically 1:1 to 4:1 instruction.

http://www.oaxacainternational.com/en/index.html
 
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NorthOaklandFC said:
None at all. Not even once.

Like I said though it's different and complicated.  One thing that has to be understood is the fundamental difference between how an African American is viewed vs. an African immigrant. In my experience there's a disconnect in the way they perceive our African heritage, as in, it's almost like it doesn't exist to them. 

If you're an African American man, to them you're American that's it. Period. End of discussion. No qualifiers, no minority label, none of that.  I damn near felt more American in Spain than I do in my own country and being American in Europe is already a pretty cool thing if you're not the typical **** head. 

The do have a distinct image in their mind of black American culture though. They're going to associate you with the images that they know which are Usher, Kobe, Barack Obama, Motown, Will Smith, the civil rights movement, etc.

In America the image of the black man that's force fed to every member of society since birth is different. It's, uneducated, criminal, thug, ******, etc. 

One could argue that a stereotype is a stereotype, but when one set significantly ups your social value, and the other set could very well get you slaughtered in cold blood, I'm really not sure about that. 


Sadly our African brothers hailing directly from the continent aren't treated with the same respect, largely stemming from immigration. African immigrants generally come with literally nothing, don't speak the language, and are marginalized. They're associated with poverty and an extreme sense of otherness. 

You also have to take historical context in account. There's massive historical back drop concerning Christian/Spanish vs. Muslim/African relations. 

Southern Spain specifically has been the country's front lines on both the immigration and Holy War fronts for well over a millennium. 

Remember the entire Iberian peninsula was conquered by North Africans in in the 7th century and held for hundreds of years. Southern Spain was ruled by Africans for much longer, and wasn't won back by the Spanish until the 17th century. That's only a handful of generations back.

Back to modern day racism, I didn't personally notice any racism towards Africans while in Spain but I had a lot of conversations and from the experiences that were shared with me, it's obviously a problem. 


I did noticed a serious lack of respect for people of Asian descent. Massive Asian population in Barcelona and Spain's other major cities. I was a little bit disturbed by what I perceived to be racism towards Asians. 

Honestly there's so much more to talk about. @SFC415
 brings up a great point that I could go on another tangent on. Spanish people don't even like each other. Massive ethnic and cultural divides among
certain regions in the country. 

The big thing to take away is just how different things are. I still don't think racism in Spain comes anywhere close to racism in America. 
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NorthOaklandFC said:
If you're an African American man, to them you're American that's it. Period. End of discussion. No qualifiers, no minority label, none of that.  I damn near felt more American in Spain than I do in my own country and being American in Europe is already a pretty cool thing if you're not the typical **** head. 

The do have a distinct image in their mind of black American culture though. They're going to associate you with the images that they know which are Usher, Kobe, Barack Obama, Motown, Will Smith, the civil rights movement, etc.

In America the image of the black man that's force fed to every member of society since birth is different. It's, uneducated, criminal, thug, ******, etc. 

One could argue that a stereotype is a stereotype, but when one set significantly ups your social value, and the other set could very well get you slaughtered in cold blood, I'm really not sure about that.
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This is definitely true and why I encourage everyone to travel. I went overseas and was treated like a 5 star recruit. Random kids trying to give me dap, people wanting pictures, etc. You are observed with a look of fascination (in some countries) because you are 1) an America 2) Black. Compare that to the look of hate or mistrust you receive in America.

As stated, and still somewhat surprising, people like Akon, Timbaland, Pharrell, and Usher represent black males overseas. It's funny because we don't necessarily picture them as top-tier stars in America, but they are megastars overseas.
 
I would consider looking into Spain, Sweden, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Canada.

If PR and DR weren't in shambles, I'd move there too.

Unfortunately, only keeping me here is the US is debt :stoneface: :smh:
 
Kinda surprised at all the Spain mentions. Unemployment for the youth is staggeringly high in Spain.

Very beautiful country though, if you can secure a job you'll be alright and have a great experience but that's the tricky part.

It's one of the most popular Erasmus (studying abroad) destinations here and highly recommended for that purpose but most wouldn't recommend living there permanently because of the unemployment problems.
 
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^^^^great point about the devastating unemployment in Spain. I'm also surprised non of you guys have considered Holland. Amsterdam specifically is an absolutely wonderful place. Beautiful, not too big/not too small, fantastic lifestyle, don't need a car, biking, freedom, good looking women, English and weed lol. Their economy is strong as well.
 
Good topic. Honestly, the ideal country would have these factors:

1) Decent long-term economics (both gov't and private)

2) Low chances of civil unrest/war/terrorism

3) Not too reliant on other countries with those problems^

4) Decent weather

So potentials are -- Hong Kong/China, Uruguay, Argentina (despite its BS gov't), and Chile (on the upswing).
 
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Acebrigade said:
^^^^great point about the devastating unemployment in Spain. I'm also surprised non of you guys have considered Holland. Amsterdam specifically is an absolutely wonderful place. Beautiful, not too big/not too small, fantastic lifestyle, don't need a car, biking, freedom, good looking women, English and weed lol. Their economy is strong as well.
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I totally forgot about Holland and I had no idea about Spain's unemployment.

Belgium Belgium How's life in Belgium?
 
SonOfTony said:
I totally forgot about Holland and I had no idea about Spain's unemployment.

@Colombia How's life in Belgium?
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I enjoy it here and wouldn't move but I wouldn't place it at the top of EU countries. We have a very complicated political system and the country is essentially divided in 2. The north speaks Dutch, the south speaks French. The problem is that we on the northern side all learn French in school but the southerners aren't taught Dutch in most places. It results in a lot of communication problems as not all of us can be fluent in French. Half of our federal government has to use translators because they can't understand eachother properly without them. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

Our economy is doing relatively well, we had a growth of roughly 1,5% the past year and employment is good.

We also have low cost education and healthcare but many other EU countries offer those.

As for racism, I definitely wouldn't recommend Belgium to middle eastern immigrants but other minorities seem to be less affected by racism. There's not really that many different ethnicities here though that aren't middle eastern. We do have a good police system with little police brutality. If it does happen, officers are held accountable. And the police leadership actively trains its officers to deal with racism and different ethnicities.

Crime varies depending on where you go but overall we're doing pretty well on that front. Larger cities have more crime whereas rural areas tend to have very little.

I'd say we're definitely not a bad country to live in but we're clearly outclassed by countries like Sweden and Germany.

Cost of living is good in my eyes but I'm not sure how we compare to other countries. You'll make considerably less than in the US but pay much less in rent, houses, ...

€2500 a month after tax is considered a medium-high wage here for example.

The Netherlands are a bit like us but more liberal. There's also a large problem with racism towards middle eastern people there (look up politician Geert Wilders) there but I believe they have a more multicultural society than us. There's not that many negatives I can think of. Good economy, employment, social security, ... Arguably one of the better EU countries to live in.
 
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As far as the local economy and unemployment goes in Spain, if you're a native English speaker planning on relocating to a major urban center in the country (which is probably 90% of expats) and you're somewhat competent in Spanish, you're really on an entirely different playing field compared to the native Spaniard located in a more rural area, or with limited education. Kind of unfair but I think most internationals do just find in terms of employment in the country.
 
My girlfriend and I have been talking about moving to Spain for the past year. Even recently, we've discussed New Zealand and Costa Rica. Definitely interested in any information here in this thread.
 
DCAllAmerican said:
JJs07 said:
Europe might not be the best place to go if you're looking to avoid racism :lol:
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Stop using common sense.

Europe and America = Shredder and Kwang
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DCAllAmerican said:
GetBack said:
Colombia always comes to mind. They say it's one of the happiest places on Earth.
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Hahahahahahah
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Care share where the common sense was in that post, as well as expand on the analogy for those of us who aren't familiar with Ninja Turtles? Also what do you find so funny about the second?

I'd love to hear what forms your opinion on this topic DC. :lol:
 
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Does anyone here have knowledge, tips, experience in obtaining jobs in another country when you're still residing in the US, how does that work?
 
NorthOaklandFC said:
As far as the local economy and unemployment goes in Spain, if you're a native English speaker planning on relocating to a major urban center in the country (which is probably 90% of expats) and you're somewhat competent in Spanish, you're really on an entirely different playing field compared to the native Spaniard located in a more rural area, or with limited education. Kind of unfair but I think most internationals do just find in terms of employment in the country.
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