I always found it weird to hear about [typically "western"] foreigners who go out of their way to avoid people who are from their country/country with a similar culture. My mom has lived in the US longer than she has lived in her country of birth, Jamaica. Want to know the background of a good percentage of her friends? Jamaican or other Caribbean nationalities. I'm from a small suburban town that doesn't have a large Caribbean population like New York City and South Florida, yet my mom still managed to find and befriend the few that are in the area. In general, foreign communities in the US often stick together. Some neighborhoods are even named after the people of the largest demographic: Little Havana, Jamaica Queens, Chinatown, Spanish Harlem (Dominicans and Puerto Ricans), Koreatown, etc.

I currently live in Taiwan and I found the foreigner community to be VERY helpful in ways that would be hard for my local friends to assist because they don't know what it's like to be a foreigner here, especially one with subpar Mandarin proficiency. Both are good to have for very different reasons.