I am 58 years old and this has never happened to me until today.

[iemitsu]

156. It sucks that life is still like that in small town America.

Though I live in a diverse city and neighborhood, the small towns (that have become suburbs) surrounding the urban core still retain much of the old rural flavor.
As a child I imagined that life in such a community would be ideal. But after becoming involved in an inter-racial relationship I came to realize that urban life is more comfortable for those categorized as " the other".
Where I live and work everyone has an ethnically diverse family (not really everyone but it is common). My family (siblings and spouses, their children and their spouses) includes: Euro-Americans, Asians (Japanese), Hispanic-Asians (Filipinos), African-Americans, Caribbean-Islanders - Dominicans (mixed ancestry), Latin-Americans - Ecuadorians (mixed ancestry), and Native-Americans - Pacific Northwest Tribal affiliations.
Last year in class, I had a tall thin student with a Vietnamese last name. He was half Vietnamese and half Black. I thought it somewhat unusual for a Vietnamese man to marry an African-American woman so I asked him about his family. Both of his parents are also half Black and half Vietnamese. Their fathers were American servicemen during the war. As mixed race and illegitimate children they suffered discrimination at many levels and both eventually found their way into relocation programs for the children of American veterans. They met in the US, and their wonderfully, tall and handsome, "Black" son with a Vietnamese last name is the result.
It is nice to live around people, whose experiences are somewhat like yours.
I believe that small towns can and will accept the "other" but only in that role, the other. A defined role that all you accomplish will be filtered through.
Maybe one can't escape that reality anywhere but it is less obvious in the city.