I noticed similar things when I was living in the Detroit area.
I got sent down South on business for a few months. Was struck by the fact that in the former home of the Confederacy, Slavery and Jim Crow, black people were far more willing to smile and strike up a conversation with me.
When I got back to Michigan we were checking each other out for weapons again.
Friends (actually the wife was a friend & her husband a foaming at the mouth liberal idiot) visited with me a time or two here in the South from their home on Staten Island.
She made the observation that back home, the different ethnicities had their own employment niche, meaning the same sort of job like waiter or behind-counter retail, and not a whole lot of variance between job strata.
Down here, you’re going to run into a mix of races on staff no matter where you go. Tho we do have, for instance, Middle Easterners running the local tobacco shop & Central/South Americans at field work & creeping into construction. I especially hate that because construction used to be a way for an un-degreed but hard working American to earn a decent living.