Tukwila: The Most Diverse School District in the Country

This school district in WA has 3,000 students and 75% are from other countries. These kids are learning more about the world from their classmates than they ever could from books. - - Donna Poisl

by Manny Frishberg

Tukwila is, in some ways, a microcosm of what is happening across America. A mostly blue-collar suburb sandwiched between Seattle and Federal Way - Washington’s largest and fifth largest cities - Tukwila has undergone a sea of change in its ethnic makeup.

Just 15 years ago, the small city’s economy was stimulated by the aerospace giant, Boeing, and a large shopping mall, which together provided the predominantly White town’s property and sales tax revenues. But, a push by King County to build more low-income apartment complexes on one end of town attracted waves of new immigrants from the Horn of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Click on the headline to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.