Come to the South: affirmative action isn’t a thing here. It’s a breath of fresh air. You’ll find that there are other freedoms that have been taken away from you in the north. All of them are alive and well here.
It's a lot harder to measure how welcomed specific groups are than to measure diversity in general, but it's my (anecdotal, limited) understanding that they're reasonably welcomed. It's worth noting that South Carolina and Louisiana are the only states outside the West Coast to have elected Asian governors.