Why is it that many of the worst prejudices, if not much of the strongest hatred, against "foreigners" come from areas where few immigrants live?
While not directly related this meta-analysis of diversity in work might shed some light on your question. I'll just paste the conclusion information here. I feel this shows that happiness is gained from diversity, and a lack of diversity might produce people who aren't as happy.
Stahl, G?nter K., et al. "Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural work groups." Journal of International Business Studies 41.4 (2010): 690-709.
doi:10.1057/jibs.2009.85
Diversity of experience with people from other cultures, races or backgrounds tends to, at least on the margins, reduce the tendency of groups being easily painted as foreign others outside the norms of society.
The more time you as an individual spend with a variety of people dissimilar to yourself the more you see the similarities instead of the differences. At least as long as you have a somewhat open mind and you don't happen to spend a lot of time around assholes. Some people are just never going to be convinced that their prejudices against outsiders is wrong because they are too xenophobic.
When you grow up in a homogenous society with little exposure to people different then you it is easier to think of those outsiders as well not really people. Just look at Japan. Even people of Korean heritage living in Japan. Even if you were born there and have Japanese parents or grand parents you will be discriminated against.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/news/01iht-nurse.html?_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_Japan
In local news the Race for the Attorney general post in Virginia might be decided by less then 100 votes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...618dc0-4978-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/...ctions-mark-obenshain-mark-herring-99615.html
There have also been some interesting voting well mishaps.
A couple of thousand absentee ballots went missing in Fairfax county and were only discovered to have been uncounted days after the main count.
In Richmond at least one voting machine was "lost" and that changed the vote count considerably.
Also in Fairfax a rule change
three days after election day might keep people who used provisional ballots from having their votes counted. In the past Fairfax has let outside council, usually lawyers from either party, represent people who voted using a provisional ballot when those ballots were reviewed for final count after the election. The state board of elections ruled that Fairfax cannot do that and the individual must come to the hearing. If you don't got to the meeting considering provisional ballots then your vote isn't counted. In the past a lawyer(s) from either party would come to represent people who voted provisionally so that their vote could be counted if possible. The idea being that many individuals might not be able to make it to a meeting because of timing reasons.
http://www.wtop.com/120/3501230/Provisional-ballot-voters-face-obstacles
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...108ad0-4825-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html
Just to state some obvious facts consider this.
Fairfax county is in Northern Virginia and is proportionally more Democratic then Republican though not overwhelmingly so.
The state board of elections is mostly Republican.
There are about 500 provisional ballots and this race is probably going to come down to less then 100 votes.
If you are interested in this follow Dave Wasserman @redistrict on twitter. He lives in Fairfax and works for the Cook political report in DC. He is one of the people who realized that a couple of thousand absentee ballots had not been counted after looking at how many absentee ballots had been issued but not counted. In Fairfax the percent of counted absentee ballots was much lower then other parts of the state.
keep up the good work!
