Knew a girl from Texas who was constantly crowing about how Texas has been under six flags (or whatever) of rulership and how it was written into their state constitution that they could secede if they wanted. Our response? Please, please do it!
Another Texan (our neighbour in CO for a while and a wonderful person otherwise) was driving us around Houston and pointed to a billboard with two Cowboy helmets on it and one Miller can. He said, “All fine Texan traditions.” Living in Milwaukee at the time, all I could think was “…errr?”
–From the great state of Wisconsin, where the winter is jus’ fine.
I’ve got a good buddy from San Benito, Texas, right on the Mexican border. He is of Mexican descent, he grew up speaking Spanish, and has a Spanish/Mexican accent. (In fact, people always assume he’s from Mexico, much to his annoyance.)
He is just as much a loud-mouthed braggart as the rest of 'em. (And I say that in an affectionate way. Heck, they wouldn’t be Texans if they weren’t loudmouths!) Don’t even get him started on the Dallas Cowboys. :rolleyes:
By the way, McKenna, if you want a better understanding of race relations in Texas, you might want to watch the movie Lone Star for a pretty good summary. (The script got an Oscar nomination, I believe.)
I’m a hispanic Texan. I grew up in Austin (central Texas) and have neither a Texas or Spanish accent. We’re pretty much like the rest of the Texans you meet.
I hate to see shows where Texans are portrayed as these tobacco chewing, stetson hat wearing people with thick Texas drawls. Of course there are some people like that, but not as many as people seem to think. I can tell you to take what you see about us on tv and throw it out the window.
Californians aren’t all surfers. New Yorkers aren’t rude and unfriendly. And, Texans aren’t the hicks that everyone seems to think we are.
BUT, we do love our state. We think it’s great and we’re proud of our people and our history.
Oh and Spoke-, I’ve been to San Benito many times. Talk about a boring town. Part of the weekend entertainment is to drive down Main Street, circle the Sonic parking lot, and drive back down Main Street.
Yeah, I visited the place once myself. It did seem a bit, well, boring. On the other hand, South Padre Island and Matamoros aren’t far away. Plenty of fun to be had there!
I’ve only been to Texas once, and that was to Dallas. The thing that struck me was that every advertisement found a way to use at least one of these phrases: “Texas-sized”, “big enough for Texas” or “big as Texas”. Size, apparently, matters very much in Texas.
Thing about Texas is that it’s so big you could break it up into several smaller regions, each with it’s own culture. You can’t really say Texas is this or Texas is that, different regions are very different so what is true about one place is false about another.
East Texas is probably closer to being like the other ‘Southern States’ than any part of Texas. Locals tend to speak in really strong accents, there’s a lot of racial prejudice, biggest minority group is blacks who are descendents of cotton-picking slaves. It’s kinda like the less French-influenced parts of Louisiana, or hick states like Arkansas.
The Panhandle is like most midwestern states - mostly empty land inhabited with boring white people and cattle.
Along the Gulf of Mexico it’s just like the rest of the Gulf-facing states - mostly poor with the occasional tourist trap (i.e. Galveston).
Southwest Texas is a lot like Mexico - the closer you get to the border the more corrupt the local officials are and the poorer it gets. I saw an article about a sociologist who treated the region as a separate state and if it was, it would be among the poorest and worst-educated states in America. It’s what brings Texas down from the top ten in those national rankings.
Most of the big cities remind me of Southern California - big, sprawling, can’t walk anywhere, self-segregated communities for various minority groups, lots of nouveau riche and affluent white trash in the suburbs. I’m talking about Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin, and Houston here. San Antonio has a much more Latin feel.
I grew up in Texas and left at age 18 and I have never looked back. I found life in New York, Boston, San Francisco and finally Seattle to be more enriching. I think that a few Texans make a lot of other Texans look foolish. A rude, brassy, loud mouthed person dressed in an electric blue suede jacket with a sequin Texas on the back, faux python skin slacks, three color cowboy boots, flamingo pink silk shirt, big silver belt buckle and ten gallon hat tends to confirm peoples opinion of Texas and Texans.
(We just recently encountered a person dressed and acting just like this in the terminal at O’Hare.)
Mrs D used towork w/ quite a few Texans in the nat’l gas pipeline biz in Midland and Houston. The ones I met seemed just like normal folks. They tended totalk funny and were real weenies about a little cool weather, tho.
IIRC, Ann Richards gave the keynote speech when Clinton was 1st nominated. I think her most memorable line was something about paterfamilias Bush being born with a silver foot in his mouth. And of course the worst thing she did was lose to Dubya.
Someone, I’m not sure who, once said that if you meet someone who has ever, at any point in their life, been associated with the State of Texas or with Harvard University, they will work that fact into the first five sentences of the first conversation you have with them.
I think that’s my main impression: people who think that where they’re from matters a lot more than I think it does.
I’ve lived a couple of places in my life, but was mostly raised and now live in western Washington state.
Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan The Barbarian fantasy series was a native of Cross Plains , Texas. I believe that’s in west Texas.
He drew on Texas oilfield workers, cowboys, gamblers, local politicians, & bullies as templates for the characters. He , himself, was the model for much of Conan.
Otherwise, Texas is a total waste of space.
I don’t know much about Texas personally (passed through Dallas/Fort Worth airport a lot. Stayed in San Antonio for a few days once), but I’ve picked up a lot rom reading Molly Ivins. Her piece about Texas in “Nothin’ but Good Times Ahead” is hilarious, and I expect its dead-on ccurate (and not particularly partisan). Ivins is a liberal sort, but you can pick up a lot about Ann Richards, etc. from her stuff. I’m surprised none of you have mentioned her in this thread. Surely you’re not all Repubicans.
I love Texas and Texans. They’re home to TI and Dell. Their Death Row actually functions as its name implies (Yes people, executing people on DEATH ROW is not morally wrong in any way, as the constitution does allow for the death penalty). And their state government isn’t trying to take their guns! God bless those gun totin’ Texans!
Predominant opinion of Texas as expressed in my high school: “What, those big belt-buckle wearin’ cowboys in the funny hats and the stupid governor who ride wild horses and kill people? Go home.”
My opinion: “Texas? Hell yes. Not nearly enough of them wear cowboy hats. So what if they kill people? Death rocks. They’ve got the Texas Rangers, Sons of the Desert, and Gunslinger. They’re HUGE. They used to be a COUNTRY. They could kick New York’s ASS if they decided to try and it was one-on-one. And backwards, it’s Saxet.”
Well, I went to London a few years ago. I took a tour of the Tower of London. Our tour guide was this wonderfully charming Beefeater. Before we kicked off the tour, he asked our group where everyone was from. “Is anyone from Europe? What country? Asia? Whereabouts? North America? What states?” and so on.
After which he said, “I presume that those of you who have not spoken are from Texas.”
Hey there. Nice to meet you too. Why haven’t you come to any of the Dallas gatherings? Keep your eyes posted, they happen pretty frequently (we just met again on Saturday).
