Hi Grace,
My husband and I moved here almost four years ago from IL. I am black and he is white. I don’t know if that makes a difference, but thought I’d mention it just in case your husband is black and you are white. I would be sharing my experience from the black female perspective.
I had the same questions about Texas before I moved here and had a couple of friends that I was able to talk to who made me feel more comfortable. And so far, we have had nothing but wonderful hospitality from the Texans we’ve met.
We lived in the McKinney area (with our five children who are now ages 10 down to 2 years old), the first three and a half years we were here. But actually we were not in McKinney proper, we were out in the country, east of McKinney, about 10 miles in a small town of only 1,800 people, so our neighbors were all Texan natives. They were the nicest people I have ever met! I felt like the media has lied so much about Texas. Also, the first week we were here we saw at least 10 mixed couples within a span of 2-3 days. There were so many that we joked that there must be advertisement for interracial couples to move to McKinney! All of these couples were black/white couples.
We also used to attend a Church in the Plano area that had a ton of mixed couples, I am talking black/white, mexican/south-african, nicaraguan/middle easterner, korean/white, chinese/white etc…
I was born in the New Jersey area, just over the water from Manhattan. After College I moved to California. I met my husband and moved to IL. I have to tell you that I only experienced racism in the liberal areas of NJ, CA and IL. I have not experienced anything in Texas.
We just moved three weeks ago because we bought a home in Wylie. So far we are not having any trouble. I wouldn’t call these areas East Texas, but I do recall someone saying that East Texas wasn’t so great. McKinney is about 40 minutes north of Dallas. Wylie is about 35 minutes Northeast of Dallas.
I like the far northern Dallas burbs that used to be all country/farming here many, many years ago. That would be the cities of McKinney, Frisco, Little Elm, Melissa. These areas are growing so much. McKinney has about 144,000 people I think now. Where we live in Wylie, it’s about 44,000.
I think too these areas have a lot of people from all over because of all the businesses moving into TX.
Oh and there is plenty of local organic food via Farmer’s markets and other avenues like food co-ops. Azure Standard delivers in my neighborhood. There’s also stores like Whole Food, Sprouts and Trader Joes. Oh and there is a wonderful organic store called Central Market or something like that. We have allergies so I really loved it when we were closer to Frisco because they have a bakery called, Unrefined Bakery. You can get baked goods that are gluten-free, soy free, dairy free, egg free, yeast free, you name it!
There are plenty of naturopaths too. There are two pediatricians that do both. There is Dr. Bain in Frisco who is a functional med doc. She helped us identify the allergy issues. She will do vaccines (but prefers to go slow) and if you don’t want vaccines she is all for that too. No hassles. She does supplements and talks about probiotics, getting zinc, etc.. she really knows her stuff. And there is Dr. Naidoo who used to be in practice with her and has a similar mindset. He is in Richardson now.
I would say that it does take time to get connected in the community. But there are a ton of homeschooling support groups as well as co-ops. I am kinda having a hard time in that area because I don’t do co-ops and seems like everyone here is in one.
Well, I hope that helped you and that I answered all of your questions.
Oh in TX there is no requirement to report or anything. You just need to have a written curriculum and do basics of reading, writing, math and good citizenship I believe are the only requirements.
God bless and I pray your search goes well.
