Nowhere in my comment am I implying that Atlanta, Boston or Chicago or any other big metro areas are racist homophobic hellholes. I'm trying to lay the argument for why a place with a big immigrant population might be easier for other immigrants to feel as they belong. And the vignette about the Ice Cream shop was meant to show that even in blue, blue California, in liberal San Francisco, in trendy Hayes Valley, you can still be made to feel you're somehow "bad" through no fault of your own.

Edit: I realize now that I didn't specify when I said "outside the bay area" I meant California, as in "rural america is very close geographically to metropolitan america".