Born and raised in Texas, though I’ve lived in other states and I travel extensively. The state has both advantages and disadvantages, just like any other state. For instance I find Texans to be generally friendlier to strangers than many other parts of the nation, though I also find we have the tendency to violate personal boundaries more than is desirable. I could go on, naming a dislike for every like I have about Texas, but who couldn’t do that for anyplace?
I do find the Texas stereotype somewhat bizarre, and I’ve tried to figure it out from time to time. It is such an exaggeration as to be, well, bizarre. Every single time I’ve had guests, either business or extended family, come to Texas for a visit they are completely taken by surprise, it is nothing like they imagined. Is there some truth to the stereotype? Sure, but just barely. I think maybe it comes from TV shows and movies like *Dallas * or something. It’d be like people assuming that everyone in California lives like those in the show the OC or that everyone in Australia lives like Crocodile Dundee. Frankly is kinda bigoted and small minded, yet we tend to accept the stereotype in an ironic manner as evinced by my favorite radio jingle for a local clothing store:
I got a ranch in downtown Dallas,
I drill oil wells just for fun,
I drive cuties in my Cadillac,
I buy diamonds by the ton . . .
We’re way the hell too punitive. The criminal justice system here is badly broken. The desire to put people away, not to mention execute them, has gotten entirely out of control. I don’t know where it comes from.
Too many northerners. And I say that as a transplanted northerner. The main thing northerners have introduced is rudeness. When I got here 30 years ago, people were so friendly it was beyond my Ohioan comprehension. That’s mostly gone in the big cities, although out in west Texas (where northerners fear to tread), things haven’t changed.
Really, though, I don’t see a lot wrong with Texas that isn’t wrong with the rest of the country.
I think arguing that there is some radical change in attitude and culture when one crosses the state line is kind of silly. I’ve been able to observe stupidity, racism, xenophobia, provincialism, and the whole nine everywhere I’ve lived. But as others have argued, when you have such a position due to the media, the arts, politics, and so forth, you can either argue vociferously against it or make fun of it. Which is part of the Texan culture, I would argue. There have been quite a few tongue in cheek hyperbolic statements about Texans and Texas from Texas Dopers in this thread, but somehow people take 'em seriously.
Especially considering that “across the state line” only offers you Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana or New Mexico as choices. Maybe if there was a shared border with Oregon or Maryland or something…
Having lived in Northern New Mexico, I’ve got to say that you can get better Mexican, not Tex-Mex, food in West Texas now. And South Texas kicks both Northern New Mexico and West Texas ass food wise.
No, I haven’t. I imagine any such people are probably tour guides at the Alamo.
Texans have more of a thing for the Confederacy the for the R.O.T. in any case. My children, to my shame, think that the Confederacy is “our” side. I like to point out that Sam Houston didn’t feel that way at all, while sidestepping the fact that that did nothing for him politically.
I sure have. But actually, Texas did want to become a US state from the beginning. Back then, though, states had to be admitted in pairs: one slave state and one free state. Being a slave state, Texas had to wait 9 1/2 years for a new free state to be ready, which was Iowa. Texas joined the Union on, if I remember correctly, December 29, 1845, and Iowa a day short of a year later, on December 28, 1846.
