Format JSON from controller for use by a plugin

I'm getting a JSON string from my controller:

    public ActionResult Highlight()
    {
        var statesHighlight =
            db.Jobs
                .Select(r => r.Location);
        return Json(statesHighlight , JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

I'm getting it via an Ajax request like so:

    $.ajax({
    async: false,
    url: '@Url.Action("Highlight", "Jobs1")',
    data: JSON.stringify(),
    type: 'POST',
    success: function (data) {
        citydata = data;
    }
});

The issue is that this doesn't maintain the format of my string. Calling the controller action shows that it's correctly formatted JSON, but once it comes out of my Ajax request, it's not. Here it is directly from the controller:

["HDQ","HDQ","EVA","HDQ","HDQ","HDQ","EVA","SVF","SVF","SVF","SVF","DFC","DCF","Feedlot","DCF","DCF","DCC","AGNW","AGNW"]

Is there any way that I can ensure that this is the value set to the variable before I pass it along to my plugin?

The plugin I'm using is called ImageMapster. Currently, I have the JSON hard coded for it and it works as intended.

var data = $.parseJSON($('#map-data').text());
var cities = $.parseJSON($('#city-data').text());


$('img').mapster({
    mapKey: 'state',
    clickNavigate: true,
    isSelectable: false,
    highlight: false,
    onConfigured: function () {

        // make the array into a comma-sparated list
        var state_list = data.join(',');
        var city_list = cities.join(',');

        // the 'set' activates the areas
        $('img').mapster('set', true, state_list, options = { fillColor: '638EA5' });
        $('img').mapster('set', true, city_list, options = { fillColor: 'ffffff' });
    }
});

I was looking the wrong place entirely for an answer. The formatting was just fine; I discovered this when I took a closer look at the formatting of the variables I was originally using. As it turns out, I was making things more complicated than they needed to be. Bypassing one of my incremental steps ended up being the right solution. Here is my final code:

 //retrieve JSON strings from controller
var citydata = {};
$.ajax({
    async: false,
    url: '@Url.Action("Highlight", "Jobs1")',
    method: 'GET',
    success: function (data) {
        citydata = data;
    }
});

var statedata = {};
$.ajax({
    async: false,
    url: '@Url.Action("HighlightState", "Jobs1")',
    method: 'GET',
    success: function (data) {
        statedata = data;
    }
});

//imagemapster to generate map behaviors
$('img').mapster({
    mapKey: 'state',
    clickNavigate: true,
    isSelectable: false,
    highlight: false,
    onConfigured: function () {

        // make the array into a comma-sparated list
        var state_list = statedata.join(',');
        var city_list = citydata.join(',');

        // the 'set' activates the areas
        $('img').mapster('set', true, state_list, options = { fillColor: '638EA5' });
        $('img').mapster('set', true, city_list, options = { fillColor: 'ffffff' });
    }
});