Does anyone know when and where this phenomenon started? I started noticing a few of them here & there, a few years ago, when I lived in the PNW. Last year I relocated to Florida, and it seems like I see them all the time here. They’re predominantly on pickup trucks. I wondered if this was started by a cultural influence, or a marketing one.
I started noticing these in the early, mid 1990s as Hispanic immigration began in earnest around my small town in Northeast Nebraska. They often featured one of those typically Latin American Marys as well–there’s a specific name for that image of Mary, I forget what it is. [Edit: Our Lady of Guadalupe]
From there, I assume it got adopted into the Yankee culture.
I’ve decided that there’s some kind of rule that if you’re a Florida redneck you’ve got to drive one of those pickups.
Another anecodal cite that I only started to really see them when we got a lot of Hispanic immigrants.
I see them occassionally here in S FLA. And it’s always hispanic names being memorialized. So it may be cultural after all.
I see these in central Florida all the time. I think they go hand in hand with the over the top roadside memorials. I’d love for someone to explain the root of this custom.
The first ones I saw here in TN were Hispanic (our Lady of Guadalupe, hispanic names) but they have totally been eclipsed by the redneck adoption of the custom. Now you see them on pickups, cars and SUVs and include images of 4wheelers, horses and Chevy and Ford emblems. Very few religious symbols any more.
It may or may not be related, but these are the same kinds of trucks that used to display truck nuts.
The first ones I remember seeing here (West Central Georgia) were right after Dale Earnhart’s death.