Stereotypes of the different U.S. states

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was born in New York, but have lived in Europe all my life. I haven’t travelled the U.S. much, and there’s not a lot of information available here about the cultural differences within the U.S.

All I know is that the east and west coasts are supposed to be more ‘enlightened’ and easy-going, and that there is a ‘bible-belt’ in the south where people are, err… well kinda the opposite of those on the coasts.

So, please forgive my ignorance and set me straight.

Could you tell me what’s up with Georgia? What’s the common conception of Oregon? What’s the prejudice about people from Wisconsin? Tell me about the different states of the USA, I wanna know!

2

I know that people from NC commonly jest about what rednecks and hillbillies WV has although they have “neder gat thas thair vehical tos worsk!”

NC and the Bible Belt actually do exsist. My friend who is into the skating culture got kicked off a church trip recently for a)bringing a skateboard and b)following the bus because they wouldnt let him ride.

Oh, New England is supposed to be complete and total assholes.

3

If you ask me, the recent trend toward suburbanization is crushing the whole country down to normality. I move back and forth between Claremont, California and Lexington, Kentucky. Other than the occasional palm tree, there’s no difference between a recently constructed subdivision in California and one back in the east.

I would say that there are some regions of rural Kentucky, especially in the east, that live up to their stereotypes remarkably well. You’ll see lots of tacky lawn ornaments, confederate flags, and old rusty pickup trucks sitting on cinderblocks if you drive the back roads.

4

The US is huge and even within the regions of the country, there is a vast difference amongst its populace.

New York City and New York State might as well be seperate entities; Northern Florida is very agrarian and much like the rest of the Southeast but Southern Florida might as well be a Mid Atlantic state; Western Oregon, from what I understand, is vastly more progressive and urbanized than Eastern Oregon; Eastern Tennessee has generally been a lot more progressive than Middle and Western Tennessee, and so on.

There’s a ton of diversity and it’s hard to stereotype but if you insist:

New England, the Mid Atlantic, and the Pacific Coast states are generally not as religious as the interior of the country and are more progressive and urban.

The Southeast and the Midwest are the agrarian, religious, and conservative states.

The Southwest has its own Mexican influenced identity but I’m not very familiar with it. I believe it tends to be more conservative as well but Texas is the only state I’m really familiar with.

I don’t know many stereotypes at all about the Rocky Mountain states or Alaska or Hawaii.

5

Way back when I lived there, Wisconsinites by and large thought that they had more culture than the other Midwestern states. Not “culture” as in “Zubin Meta conduct the Rice Lake Symphony Orchestra,” but rather that they preserved their pockets of little Norway/Belgium/Switzerland/etc. while the starts-with-a-vowel/ends-with-a-vowell states simply slumped into bland homogenization.

Of course, to outsiders it’s “Wisconsin - come for the cheese, stay for the cannibalism.” (Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, God knows who else way out in the sticks as well.)

6

People from Missouri: just kind of your typical hillbilly. But I can say two things for us:

  1. We can still make fun of Arkansas.
  2. We had the good sense to elect Mel Carnahan instead of John Ashcroft. For any given political office, a corpse will still be better for the job than John Ashcroft.
7

Well, I am from Tennessee. And, I am an agnostic vegitarian who has not (yet? maybe it is inevitable) felt the desire to marry one of my siblings, cousins, or my dog (or is it supposed to be a farm animal?)

:slight_smile:

But, then I am from west TN. Everybody knows the hicks live out yonder…er…out east.

8

I live in Augusta, Georgia, and all those preconceived notions of everyone from the south being a stupid hick pisses me off. In my experiences every state has it’s own special breed of redneck. I also think people exaggerate about it being the “Bible Belt” I mean sure a lot of people are religious but it isn’t like that is the only thing people talk about or that everyone walks around with a bible in their purse or strapped to their body or something, or will start quoting scripture.

9

But of course one stereotype holds true:

I am apparently as dumb as a doorknob. “Paw, woodjah fetch mah dickshunarrie”

I do believe it isvegetarian…not vegitarian.

10

I’m from California and I live in the Midwest. Apparently:

Everyone in California is PC. It’s neat that my boss knows all 32 million people in California intimately enough to say that they are PC.

It’s hot in California. Well, there certainly are hot places, but I do not happen to be from one of them. It doesn’t usually get cold enough to snow, but it’s hardly t-shirt and shorts weather in winter - and there ARE places in California where it snows in massive quantities, all year round.

I must know celebrities, or at least run into them on the streets. Hahaha. I’m from a small town 500 miles from Hollywood. I don’t think so.

Everyone goes to the beach all the time and sunbathes. You know, you’re cordially welcome to go swimming in the Pacific on the Sonoma Coast. Just don’t forget to wear your wetsuit. And sunbathing? I wouldn’t go to the beach without at least a sweatshirt.

Talking to people in California about my new home in Illinois, I have discovered that it snows all the time here. Okay, I learned that from my mom, who is afraid to vist me, for fear it will snow. She’s coming to visit in late May/early June, and doesn’t believe me when I tell her she’s nuts to worry about it. I looked up the weather comparisons for Chicago v. San Francisco, and not surprisingly (to me), it’s warmer in Chicago over the dates she’ll be here. She should be grateful to leave frigid California for the sunny warmth of the Midwest. Well, maybe it’ll be the rainy and humid warmth of the Midwest.

11

[ul][li]Chicago and Illinois might as well be separate entities, also.[/li][li]Southern Florida is actually part of the Caribbean not the Mid-Atlantic states.[/li][li]There is nothing in eastern Oregon except tumbleweeds, but I believe they are progressive and urbanized tumbleweeds.[/li][li]Eastern Tennessee has beautiful mountains, but is not more progressive or urban. Memphis and Nashville are larger than Knoxville.[/ul][/li]
My point is that you must not believe everything you hear, especially about Mississippi. :wink:

12

Friends, I really am ignorant. I hope you can still be patient with me:

Zebrasha, what’s NC and WV? North Carolina and…? Or am I completely off-track?

ITR, could you expand on the Kentucky stereotype, please.

Aesiron, what’s the difference between mid atlantic and east coast?

I’ll take a break and explain this: you all live in the states and some of my questions might seem incredibly naive, but believe me, I’m far ahead of what your average european knows about the US.

Slithy, is there something geographically peculiar about the stars-and-ends-with-a-vowel states?

Tentacle, :smiley:

captain and pool, would you say that you feel strong differences between your respective states?

13

Los Angeles is the most diverse, tolerant, and culturally sphisticated place in the entire country. The rest of you pikers are just jealous you don’t live here. :smiley:

14

Zebrasha, what’s NC and WV? North Carolina and…?

WV would be West Virginia, where I live. You have an excuse for not recognizing it by abbreviation, as you didn’t grow up here. You would be AMAZED at how many born-and-bred Americans simply think West Virginia is western Virginia, and not an actual, separate state.

As in: “Whereya from, Abbie?”
“West Virginia.”
“Oh yeah? My cousin lives in Arlington.”

RRARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

West Virginia catches the most hell out of all the 50 states, bar none. We are apparently all inbred (just ask Abercrombie & Fitch), backwards hicks with rotting teeth, we have about 6 kids by the time we’re 18 and we never go past the 4th grade. We all work in the coal mines, you see, so we have no need for “book learnin’.” And oh yeah, we’re all poor and we have lots of tacky lawn ornaments and dead cars sitting in our yards on blocks.

15

Karmagun I can answer a couple of your questions:

Yes, NC is North Carolina and WV would be West Virginia. There are two letter abbreviations for all 50 states used by the US Post Office and many people use them as shorthand in other contexts.

Mid Atlantic means the states in the middle of the eastern seabord, usually Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, maybe Pennsylvania and possibly other states as well? I don’t think there is any official definition. So mid atlantic is basically a subset of the East Coast.

Starts and ends with vowel states: I think what was being referred to here was some midwestern states like Ohio, Iowa, Indiania. Apparently Wisconsinites look down their noses at such places, which is news to this Easterner.

16

I could be wrong, but I have never heard of New York (or New Jersey) being referred to as Mid Atlantic. For my money, it runs from North Carolina to Delaware, including Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Going down the east coast of the US, it goes New England (Maine to Rhode Island), East (NY, NJ, CT), Mid Atlantic, South, Deep South.

17

Oh, and Colorado has a reputation for sandal-wearing, laid-back, granola eaters. Note that we have a republican governor and two republican senators.

Boulder, Denver city, and Vail try to keep them in line, though.

18

[QUOTE=kniz]
[ul]
[li]Eastern Tennessee has beautiful mountains, but is not more progressive or urban. Memphis and Nashville are larger than Knoxville.[/ul] [/li][/QUOTE]

I was born and raised in Cleveland, TN, a small city fifteen minutes from the Smoky Mountains and am pretty well acquainted with its history and geography and over most of TN’s history, that area of the state has been more progressive. It almost seceded during the Civil War and was one of the few areas of the South to have a decent Republican voter base during the 80 years that the Republicans weren’t composed of bible thumping fundamentalists.

I never said it was more urbanized.

Karmagun: Laughing Lagomorph’s definition of the Mid Atlantic is the designation I am most familiar with. It is Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Everything north/east is New England and everything south is the Southeast.

19

I’m from southern Mississippi (on the golden coast). The common conception of Mississippi, of course, is that there are no cities, everyone lives in a trailer (or in a van down by the river), we’re desperately poor, we all have quaint southern accents, we’re racist yet religious, and we still preserve the old southern hospitality. (Any other MS stereotypes you can think of?)

No cities: mostly right. I live in Gulfport, which is one of the largest cities in the state, and we have less than 100,000 inhabitants. However, that doesn’t mean we’re completely backwater, it just means there are a lot of smaller towns (which I think I prefer anyway).
Trailers: not really so much, at least on the coast.
Poor: overall, we’re not exactly an economic powerhouse. However, again, the coast fares better than the rest of the state thanks to tourism (especially casinos) and manufacturing.
Accents: okay, this is mainly true. A LOT (but by no means all) of the people I know have strong southern accents.
Racist: I can honestly say I don’t see racism as being a problem; instead the problem is the few crazies who still remain faithful to the KKK, and the media who latch on to such things and blow them out of proportion.
Religious: definitely, though I don’t think Mississippians are hostile to people who are non-religious. I don’t want to say too much, though, since I come from a religious family and attend a Catholic high school.
Southern hospitality: I actually think this is true for the most part. I’ve found the majority of people living here to be very pleasant and hospitable. I couldn’t really compare it to anywhere else, though, since I’ve lived in this state all my life.

I know a lot of people my age who want more than anything to get out of Mississippi, to tell the truth. However, I’d prefer living here to plenty of other places. Believe it or not, Mississippi can be a beautiful place, and there are plenty of things to do on the coast (contrary to popular belief, cow-tipping and the like isn’t that common down here - most people have better things to do).

But yes, it does get swelteringly hot. I think the temperature yesterday may have been in the nineties, and it gets even worse during the real summer months. And no, the Gulf isn’t the most wonderful body of water to swim in. But I’d much rather have it than nothing…

20

NJ native here. I’ve also never heard of NJ or NY being referred to as Mid-Atlantic. I’d put my perceptions as:

New England (Maine to Rhode Island)

The “tri-state” area (NY, NJ, CT–this is out of habit; if pressed, I’d classify CT and northeastern NY as New England…think of New England as the area north and east of the Hudson river)

Mid-Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia)

Southeast (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida)
A couple of notes:

I don’t think of Pennsylvania as being a coastal state, even though there’s easy access to the ocean via the Delaware River.

The northern and southern halves of New Jersey are significantly different. Northern NJ has more in common with New England, while southern NJ is…well…more southern (remember that it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line). The old south Jersey accent is definitely a southern drawl.

Major metropolitan areas such as NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and so forth form their own little oases of culture; similarly, there will be other pools of culture within states, such as the “Amish country” in Pennsylvania. Or, for example, you could divide NY state into at least half a dozen distinct regional areas.