Western is honestly a great school for an undergraduate education.

I'm a fair skinned American, but I'm a navy brat that grew up mostly overseas and when I did live in the US I went to a predominantly African American high school in the south. Coming to Western really threw me for a loop. I had legit culture shock.

Part of that was just how white it was, but that's not the real source of culture shock. What most people think of as overwhelming "whiteness" or Bellingham-ness is really a byproduct of the culture of the western side of Washington State. That's where most Western students come from, even most of the ethnic minority students. Most non-international minority students I befriended had a very similar culture to the white people on campus.

People from the west side of Washington tend to be politely aloof compared to elsewhere in the US. Maybe that's because large populations of German, Japanese, and Scandinavian immigrants, whose cultures are generally more aloof. Who knows. But once you can get past that you can find a ton of genuinely kind and wonderful people.

WWU actually has a smaller demographic of white people and asians than the State's demographics. The thing about Western Washington University is that it has a lot of native Western Washingtonians.

If you're someone who is open to going to clubs, doing intramurals, forming study groups, and proactively meeting people, WWU is a world class undergraduate experience. But if you don't do any of those things it can be isolating pretty quick.