Three Bay Area cities considered most diverse in the U.S.

Cultural identity has long been at the heart of the melting pot that is America. Yet immigration continues to be a hot-button issue even as the country gets more ethnically diverse. The nature of race, culture and community seems more controversial now than ever.

That’s one of the reasons WalletHub, a personal finance site, took a snapshot of the nation, comparing more than 500 of the largest U.S. cities to see which are the most diverse. The company analyzed each city based on ethnicity, race, language and birthplace. Most of the data used to create this ranking was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It should come as no surprise that the Bay Area excels by this measure. Long a region that has treasured diversity of all kinds and championed tolerance in the face of bigotry, the area has scored three cities in the top 11 in the nation. Indeed, some would say the area’s rich cultural fusion, from the languages spoken to the cuisines celebrated, is precisely what makes living here worthwhile despite its housing crisis, steep cost of living and soul-crushing traffic. This is a microcosm of the multicultural movement.

Congratulations go to Oakland, which came in at seventh place. The largest city in the East Bay, with a population of 429,082, according to the census, received a score of 68.91.

“The city ranked first in terms of ethno-racial diversity,” says WalletHub analyst, Jill Gonzalez. “This is because the majority of its population is almost evenly distributed between white, Hispanic or Latino, and black or African-American. Additionally, Asians make up for almost 16 percent of Oakland’s population.”

San Jose, which ranked at number eight, got a total score of 68.5. San Jose has a population of 1,030,119, according to the census.

“It stands out particularly in terms of linguistic diversity,” says Gonzalez. “As the second most language-diverse city, San Jose has about a quarter of its residents who speak Asian and Pacific Islander languages, and another 23 percent who speak Spanish.”

For the record, San Francisco also fared very well in this ranking. The famously progressive City by the Bay came in at 11th place.

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