I moved to Utah 23 years ago, and upon arrival I made all sorts of comparisons to my home state. Utah was better because it didn’t have humidity, it had mountains, and every day is a beautiful day. In New York, if the day is nice, you go outside and do something because you never know when it will be nice again. Syracuse, New York, hasn’t had a weekend without rain since last November — weeks on end without sun.

But New York is better because it has buffalo wings, green trees everywhere, and people swear a lot. I will never understand how people in Utah think wings with any sauce are called buffalo wings; they are not. There is a sauce, created in Buffalo, New York, and it goes with blue cheese and celery, never ranch. New York is better because the Italian food is on point, not in franchises but in local family restaurants. New York is better because it has the greatest city in the world, New York City, where I grew up, where my daughter is going to college, and where in two hours I could (and she will) hop on a train or a bus and get to a Yankee game or a Broadway play. The world’s best baseball and best theatre just a ride away.

My child has been in New York every summer of her life, except the pandemic year. When COVID-19 hit, I seriously thought to myself, if I had known I couldn’t get home I may have never chosen to live in Utah. Part of what makes me not homesick is that I know I can spend weeks back in that humid, cloudy, green place, eating tons of real buffalo wings. Now I have another reason to visit often: my baby is there, living her best life.

Over the years I’ve been asked why I came to Utah and why I stay. I always say how different Utah is. I love living in a place where I’m an anomaly. Only in Utah is being a Catholic a super-minority; everywhere else it’s “The Church.” My politics here are also different, from both the Republicans and the Democrats, as I’m not persuaded initiatives are necessary to democracy considering New York doesn’t have them. And, the last time New York voted for a Republican for president was when Reagan ran for reelection. I have a tendency to be a geographic chauvinist, as most of us do. In Utah, I often comment on the food, the lack of water anywhere, and it makes total sense to me that my child went to New York for college. Of course she did, why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t anyone?

But my child didn’t go to New York because she thinks it’s better; she went to the University at Albany because it’s an excellent school and she got a good scholarship. So, when she was sitting at a table one evening chatting with people she’d met during welcome week, she started texting my husband and me questions: what is a regents exam? (That’s the end-of-level test in New York.) Her school used the names secondary math I, II and III, so how does she know if she took geometry? (New York calls it Course I, Course II and Course III, so those kids don’t know either.) And could these people actually think there are mountains in New York? (There are, and they also hosted the Winter Olympics.) But she was sitting at that table, making comparisons to her home state, and laughing a little at New York.

When my child talks about Utah, she gets to be different. Every time she says she’s from here, the students around her are stunned. When she talks about Utah, she brags about skiing and the mountains. She laughed when people there said it would be super hot when the high was 80 degrees. While sitting at a painting event, she painted the Utah flag and probably said something like “Utah’s flag is prettier” (it is) to the east coast students sitting around her. In her first weeks at college, all the way across the country, she taught me that in this nation of ours, the differences of new places is what makes us beautiful.

Leah Murray is a Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.