Texans first, Americans second?

Great Debates
61

I mention Newfoundland versus the other provinces for several reasons:

  1. I lived a long time in Newfoundland, and after living in the US and regarding Canada as a homogenous land of pleasant people “just like us” ™ I was surprised by the knee jerk separatism of Newfoundland. In particular, they are like Texas in that they joined up voluntarily.

  2. Quebec was conquered by Britain, and forced to join up. They have had a legitimate beef which is well known. I felt Quebec is perhaps more like the states of the former CSA. I have known a few Quebecoise who are separatists, and I think they are at best unrealistic in their goals.

  3. I now live out west (BC) and haven’t seen much of the fabled western separatism. I will keep an eye out though.

62

Thanks for the input, all. It seems that while Texas is different, it ain’t that different.

I’m glad you mentioned Austin. It reminded me that this couple was dead against Austin and anything/anyone from there. They spoke of it as disdainfully as McCarthyites spoke of Moscow. And they made no bones about how the “wrong sort of people” lived there.

63

I grew up in Texas. I spent well over 20 years there. I have lived briefly in several other states till moving to Alaska for the last almost 12 years.

Even though I have only been back to Texas twice in the last 12 years I still feel Texan.

Funny thing is I am more proud to be an Alaskan much more. I love Alaska the way George Bush loves Texas. “It is just Awesome” Funnier still I sometimes feel a big ol’twinge of guilt about that. And usually it doesn’t take long for someone to know I use to be from Texas. It is ingrained. I just cant seem to turn my back on the state completely. When I go back it fits like a good boot. Damn fine state Texas is. And forgive me Texas, really, but you ain’t got shit on Alaska.

Wow! That felt like i just stabbed my self in the heart.

Alaskan First
Texan Second
American Third

That felt a bit better

64

Well, there you go. No further proof of insanity needed.

Sounds like they were a very vocal sort in many respects.

65

Someone should mention to those two folks that Canada is annexing Austin.

66

I was born in Dallas in 1940 and lived in Texas until 1964. I began grade school in 1946 and I remember a LOT of Texas is best indoctrination. I remember Texas history being taught as if nothing worthwhile ever took place there until the first White people came along. I remember a place where racism was commonplace and I remember a pervasive air of potential violence. I remember a place where conformance to local standards was not only expected but required. I remember a place where lip-service to religion was common while actions were usually the direct opposite. I remember a place where questioning of local values was viewed with horror and I do remember a lot of people who exhibited the kind of behavior mentioned by the OP*. Basically, I remember a place populated by people who thought they were special just by virtue of being born there; the truth was that their forebears probably ran out of money in Texas and just stayed there instead of moving further west. I couldn’t stand the place and leaving there was the best thing I ever did. (I know I’ve made noises off and on about returning to Texas, but I’ve since realized that I would be foolish to do so.)

On the other hand, Texas is a place where many/most of the residents are basically warm and friendly but they manage to elect some of the most moronic politicians who ever lived and who have passed more insane laws, I believe, than most states.

*I’ve often thought that people who are overly boastful of being Texans secretly know what a restrictive place it is but lack the will or means to leave.

67

Interestingly, the term has a wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coonass

However, I didn’t look at it before I used that term in my post, and only now found out that it can be considered an ethnic slur, which I didn’t mean to connote. The folks I know who have always used the term wore it as a badge of honor. Nevertheless, my apologies for using what amounts to a racist-type term at the Dope. Not my intention.

I suppose the way I thought it was used was to describe a certain subculture of Louisiana. Generally Acadiana, but probably it extends a bit further than that. The folks that speak a mis-mash of French and English, eat whatever they can pull out of the swamp, and are viciously proud of their heritage.

Though I’m not one of 'em, and we tend to look at them a bit sideways, I feel some measure of kinship with them. Maybe because we’re so close geographically, maybe because they’re truly proud of where they come from.

Vis-a-vis Austin – I think most folks from outside that area view it as something of a Texas anomaly; it is a refuge of blue amidst the red sea (which, I reckon, is what makes it attractive to a goodly sum of Dopers.) I see Austin as quirky-kooky in that Haight-Ashbury sort of way. I’ve been there, but I’m probably influenced more by “Slacker” than my own visits.

Forgot to mention in my original reply that the OP’s story is, to me, also out of the ordinary. While we talk a big game, I don’t know anyone who seriously would want to secede from the Union.

68

I was born in Houston (in 1965) and have never moved, years ago I was walking back across the footbridge in El Paso when the Immigration guy asked my nationality and I responded “Texan”.

I work in north Louisiana (Mansfield) and spend a lot of time here and other places but Texas is “home” (I have a Texas shaped Texas flag patch on my sleeve right now).

I have been to plenty of places that were great for visiting
(northern California is really pretty, southern Utah was very nice, New Plymouth, New Zealand was a truly amazing experience, northwest Colorado in the winter was very scenic)
but I’ve never seen a place I wanted to live in.

I have travelled a good bit and I always tell folks I’m a Texan when they ask where I’m from, a big, booming “Howdy” parts folks like the Red sea and always gets me GREAT service!

The pride-thing gets a little strange sometimes but it is understandable given our state’s history (my favorite story was that we rented out the Texas Navy).

“come and take it” (the Texan attitude at it’s best)
Unclviny

69

I have family that lives in Austin and tells me of people like this. She does not think Texas is anything special but the people there swear by it saying how its the best and most beautiful state in the nation. Her daughter was born there and claims by it to. Her mom can’t see the beauty that Texans see. Texas as beautiful…ok

Besides we all know California is the best. I mean c’mon! Best looking women. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Homboldt County! The most diversity!

Really thought everybody loves there own state Texans just do it in a different way then other people not that they do it more

70

I definitely consider myself a Quebecer before considering myself a Canadian. And that’s probably the case with a large number of Quebecers, likely a majority. Some already mentioned our active independence movement, but a good number of federalists (opponents of independence) do consider themselves Quebecers first as well. (Though they may also be more likely to see themselves as “French-Canadians” rather than “Quebecers” – if they’re francophones that is.)

This is to be expected when we mostly speak a different language from the rest of the country, leading to us having our own home-grown cultural referents that are virtually unknown in the rest of Canada, while not knowing all that much about their own culture either. Other provinces do have their own regional identities, and their own interpretations of Canadian history, but in our case the rest of Canada doesn’t know or care about what we’re doing, and we don’t really know what they’re doing either.

71

Curiously, we do care. We also try to know.

72

I’m not quite a native Texan, but I’ve lived here for my whole adult life. On purpose, too. :stuck_out_tongue:

Texas pride is interesting stuff. We know our schools are not the best and our politics are not the most civilized. We know that our landscapes are not the prettiest, even though a great green hill speckled all over with bluebonnets is a sight to make the heart ache.

Still, we do have a rich history and a well-deserved reputation for being stubborn, proud, independent, tough, and friendly. In some ways we’re like Borogravia in Monstrous Regiment: “They’re not the most beautiful mountains, but they’re OUR mountains!”

Many Texans really hate being called on this and will thoroughly and dogmatically defend their home state. I am very guilty of this: I get very defensive when my state is characterized as an ignorant backwater. The people who say this mostly have never been here or have not been here in, say, forty years. There’s ballet and theater and museums and art in Houston and Austin and Dallas. There is even (or was, twelve years ago) a surprising burgeoning little artist community in Corpus Christi, the city that time forgot somewhere in 1974.

I love it here and I’m proud of being a Texan. I get teased for it by my Canadian friends and I tease right back: just like I wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and ride a horse to work every day, they live in igloos and drink moose milk.

We have a damn weird sense of humor. My father, native Texan and avowed coonass, was made an Admiral in the Texas Navy when he retired from the US Navy. He was made so by then-Governor George Bush. I believe part of his commission is permission to take the USS Texas out for a spin whenever he wants to. :smiley: I often relate, with my usual perverse pride, the story of how the Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives escaped the state under cover of night to avoid a vote to gerrymander their districts. It’s a ridiculous-but-true story that sounds more like a Coen Brothers movie than reality (for that matter, by the way, No Country For Old Men has as perfect a rendering of small town Texas as I’ve ever seen).

But Texas separatists? They exist but they’re pretty rare and get filed under the same mental heading as UFOlogists for most of us – relatively harmless, most of the time, and kind of off.

Oh, and a lot has changed in the last forty years. I learned a good deal about pre-Western civilizations in Texas history. I do remember hearing some interesting stories about the Carancahua, for example.

73

Well, remember that most of what we produce is in French, a language most of you learned in school but do not remember much about other than what you see on cereal boxes. :wink: Also, many things we produce [thread=484905]would not get nearly the same reception[/thread] in the rest of Canada, where people do not know anything about the cultural background.

The existence of “two solitudes” is a near-inescapable consequence of the demographic makeup of Canada. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to understand where other people are coming from.

74

Actually, so was my home state of MA. But instead of a covered wagon, they took a boat. :smiley:

75

:frowning: Awww. I miss home :frowning: Need to find an excuse to head south come bluebonnet season.

And I’m from just outside of Dallas, proud to be Texan, and think those people were putting it on a bit, but also were a bit out there.

Who wouldn’t be proud of a state that has 4 seasons (Summer, Football, chilly and windy, and spring football), the best state flag out there, the Alamo, the Dallas Cowboys, the right to self divide into 5 smaller states (at one point in time anyway), bluebonnets, Austin City Limits and I’m sure there’s something nice to say about Fort Worth and Houston, but I can’t think of anything :D.

I’m going to school in Oklahoma, and it’s nice, but it ain’t nothing compared to Texas. Crossin the Red River just feels better.

76

My favorite “texas” moment in film:

77

A lot has changed here since 1964. Speaking of moronic politicians–you now live in Florida?

78

Texas pride comes through. As a native Californian, I can see where we have our own cockiness, but it seems *more *in Texas.

While some folks have mentioned football and the Cowboys in particular, I am surprised that no one has focused on that. The Cowboys since Jerry Jones took over have been a big media circus and now they are a joke - and since Texas places a lot of weight on football, I wonder if that contributes to the national POV on Texas Pride. They did great in the first-gen Jones era with The Triplets (Aikman, Smith, Irvin) even though Irvin was a rock-head. But now they just come across as completely into themselves and trying to get attention but without much substance to back them up.

Frankly, between that and the way that Bushie has come across - again, like the Cowboys lately, all hat and no cattle - I can see where Texas pride, when it does manifest on a national scale, has been getting slammed a bit. Oh, and add to that the “Jessica Simpson as a Dallas Blonde” part of it, too (she was featured as the ultimate Dallas Blonde in a Texas magazine while I was staying there a few months ago…) - again, not the best representative for having substance to go with the style…

So I have always noticed Texas Pride, it was fun when the 49’ers and Cowboys were both high-quality rivals, but right now it seems like Texas Pride isn’t at that place right now in the national spotlight…

79

All nine of them. See ya later! :wink:

In seriousness, though, in southern Ontario, it is certainly true that people don’t really think of themselves as Ontarians; they think of themselves as Canadians. Some parts of the media try to whip up Ontarian, anti-Canadian sentiment, and fail. There’s a strong Toronto identity in Toronto, and a strong not-from-Toronto identity outside it.

Some places just don’t have much of a regional identity, and identify themselves more with country or city. Residents of New York City don’t tend to identify with their state; they’re Americans, and New Yorkers with reference to the city. Provincial identity is certainly extremely strong in Quebec, strong in Alberta or Newfoundland, weak in Ontario. State identity is much stronger in Texas than in California. Different strokes, right?

80

Qadgop, I know people like what you describe do exist because I’ve heard others make mention of them too but honestly, in my 30 something years of living in Texas, I’ve never come across such boneheadedness in person. Yes, most if not all of us have a lot of pride in the state and I think rightfully so. There’s a lot of friendly, industrious, hard-workin’ and hard livin’ folks here and, with many, making their aquaintance is quite enjoyable. There’s always going to be some asshole though that derives his worth and self respect through some completely disarticulated rationale.

BTW, did the hotel recs in San Antonio work out for you and did you get to see some of the natural wonders in that part of the state? I certainly hope that overall your stay was a very pleasant one.