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How's about, pretty much every single demographic change in Florida since the 1880s had been NOT SOUTHERN. Northern transplants, Carribean transplants, Catholics, Jewish, athiest, agnostic.
How absolutely HILARIOUS that in your mind none of these things can be deemed as Southern.
Temple Mickve Israel in Savannah is the third oldest and the only purely Gothic revival synagogue in the entire Country, founded in 1733.
A group of nearly 3,900 French, Haitian, and Irish Catholic troops fought in the Revolutionary War in the Siege of Savannah in 1779. The Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Downtown Atlanta has bullet holes from the Civil War in its pews. Georgia alone has around 1.4 million Catholics today.
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Florida isn't southern cultured and doesn't want to be. Get over It. And the 1/3rd comment... you realize that only 1/3rd of the people living in Florida were born here? The rest are transplants, primarily from the north and Carribean. The 1/3rd of the people born here are primarily not from Southern backgrounds.
Your blind hatred of any and all things YOU consider to be Southern is causing you to yet again project what you wish Florida to be onto the REAL History of your State AND region.
Florida was the LAST Southern State to experience all of the demographic changes you so proudly tout as NOT SOUTHERN at the beginning of your post.
Learn a little factual History before you continue to spew this alterna-Florida fantasy History you have created in only your mind. And get over it yourself.
I think Utah is probably the only state that "feels" out of place. Even then, I don't think it would "feel" more in place anywhere else. It has many characteristics of the interior west, but Mormonism is just a unique American culture, it isn't going to fit in anywhere else.
I'd throw Texas into the discussion. It's "sorta" southern, kinda western with a nice dollop of Mexican. It doesn't seem to fit into any singular region.
I'll just say you defeated your own point when you said you need to go to the "outskirts" of Florida's major population centers to find your Southern culture. "outskirts" define anything since when exactly?
That confederate flag is waved everywhere these days. The smaller percentage Southerners become in a Florida metro the more they scream about that flag. And it is only economically disenfranchised white males waving it around (many of whom might not even have Southern ancestry), which kind of lends credit to the stereotypes a lot of Floridians and Northerners have about Southerners.
Truth be told I've seen way for confederate flags in the Midwest than in the North Carolina. I have never even seen one ever before in Charlotte city limits and I lived there 10 years.
I have news for you, Floridians are Southerners - whether you like it or not.
I'm from Tampa but all my family is from the Carolina's and I've traveled and stayed in every southern state. Florida is only southern north of Orlando except for a few small towns. There are more people from The tri state area living in Florida than people from Florida living in Florida and even us natives talk much differently and eat much different food than people in other southeastern states. I was raised on beer battered mahi mahi, plantains, and grapefruits. My family in the Carolina's grew up on fried catfish, grits, and black eyed peas and make fun of me for talking like a "Yankee".
No place is monolithic, especially the huge region we call the American South. But as far as Florida being dramatically different, no.
Tampa Bay's predominant immigrants were Cuban, Greek & Italian - not Cuban & Spanish. The Spanish went to Pensacola, St. Augustine and the Jacksonville area. By the 1920's Jacksonville and Tampa were already big cities by Southern standards, while Miami was still a small Southern town with Northern influences. This changed after WWII, but the waves of Cuban immigrants to South Florida arrived in the 1950's & 60's - NOT the 1800's.
And how convenient that you totally omit Florida's real founding history and roots, which is as Southern as it gets.
From the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education at the University of South Florida:
"Settlers began to move to Florida once it became a United States territory. By the mid 1800s, it was a rural territory with large farms and plantations. In 1845 when Florida became a state, the population was approximately 140,000. Of these, 63,000 were African Americans, most of whom were slaves. The state's economy was based on cattle and crops. Slavery was practiced in Florida but not all African Americans were slaves. Many bought their freedom or were freed by their owners. Some were Creoles, free descendents of Spanish citizens of African ancestry. When Florida became a state, it was considered a slave state. This was an important factor in Florida's part in the Civil War. "
And from the Florida History Museum, in Tallahassee:
"Florida contributed more than 15,000 troops to the Confederate war effort. While this was a small number when compared with other southern states, it was the highest percentage of available men of military age from any Confederate state."
You can't wish this sort of History away, no matter how hard you try. This is straight-up Southern, big time.
Remember the Jim Crow laws that lasted well into the mid-20th Century? Florida lived with that, along with the rest of the South. Ever heard of 'Sundown Towns'? Almost every single Beach Town in Florida was one for years, and black people had better be out by dark. It's why American Beach was founded, look it up.
To deny all of this exists in the fabric of Florida is an attempt to erase History.
Again, the South is not monolithic. No region is. Of course Florida is going to have unique geography and plant life in certain parts of the state, due to location alone. Nobody expects it to have waterfalls and mountain lakes like neighboring Georgia.
Not true. Your little bubble in SW Florida may seem like this, but it is hardly representative of the entire state at all. Tallahassee has already had lows in the 30's, and it isn't even Winter yet. I know you'll dismiss this though, as that's the Panhandle - part of your hated 'other Florida.'
How nice, so is one of mine. The other is a native Floridian.
No you're both, due to location alone. Whether you can deal with it or not.
Per your posting history, hatred of anything you perceive to be Southern would be more accurate.
More evidence that you live in a SW Florida bubble, or you're just making this up. And you must not have any black friends.
The overwhelming majority of African-American Floridians identify as Southern, and believe Florida is a Southern State.
How cute.
I have news for you as someone that loves Florida. Most of the civilized world has a bizarre opinion of the place.
'Only 1/3rd' is 6.7 million people that you are dismissing! And to assume that they all think like you is ridiculous.
Oh, so the waves of Koreans, Mexicans and other immigrants from around the World that have moved to Georgia don't count as having shaped cultural changes? Got it.
Your hatred of any and all things you believe to be Southern has caused you to create an 'alterna-Florida' that only exists in your mind. It defies logic in the real World, and isn't based in reality.
Standing Ovation, good friend. He and people like him tries so hard to distance Florida from the South because of his personal hatred of the South and then projects the entire region as one monolithic area.
I'm from Tampa but all my family is from the Carolina's and I've traveled and stayed in every southern state. Florida is only southern north of Orlando except for a few small towns. There are more people from The tri state area living in Florida than people from Florida living in Florida and even us natives talk much differently and eat much different food than people in other southeastern states. I was raised on beer battered mahi mahi, plantains, and grapefruits. My family in the Carolina's grew up on fried catfish, grits, and black eyed peas and make fun of me for talking like a "Yankee".
Every Southern state basically has different cuisines they were raised up on. They eat fish and grits in Florida. As they do in Georgia and South Carolina. However, it's not as big in Texas. I just don't get this Florida is Southern north of Orlando. Try telling that to my family and friends born and raised in not only in Orlando, but Miami and Clewiston as well. Nobody is sitting here telling me that Belle Glade isn't Southern. A state where they say "Great day in the morning" all the time to express something shocking. Where they still say hang for hand and mayne for man. Where people use the "sc" for words that start with "st". Florida is Southern whether people like it or not.
Every Southern state basically has different cuisines they were raised up on. They eat fish and grits in Florida. As they do in Georgia and South Carolina. However, it's not as big in Texas. I just don't get this Florida is Southern north of Orlando. Try telling that to my family and friends born and raised in not only in Orlando, but Miami and Clewiston as well. Nobody is sitting here telling me that Belle Glade isn't Southern. A state where they say "Great day in the morning" all the time to express something shocking. Where they still say hang for hand and mayne for man. Where people use the "sc" for words that start with "st". Florida is Southern whether people like it or not.
I said "other than some small towns." That would be belle glade. Belle glade has a unique history in and of itself and is very isolated and poverty stricken. I agree with you that Belle Glade is VERY southern, Deep South as are all towns in the okochobee region, Lakeland and plant city too but that is not the reality or culture that 80% of Florida residents Orlando to The Keys live in. Also some of those southern things you listed also apply to African Americans not living in the south. Chicago blacks talk VERY country. There are little patches of Miami metro that are southern (mostly black ghettos) but most of it has a very Caribbean flair and has tons of people and culture native to the tri state area. It's very different from anywhere else in the south or anywhere else in America actually. There are some things that are southern about it but if I were to take your family from Orlando to where my family stays in South Carolina where even the white people say screet and eat collard greens and neck ones, and every single person in the entire community is African American or scotch Irish, mixed with cherokee and have lived on the same land for 8 generations. They would realize very quickly they are only mildly southern and that's only cause they are black (I'm assuming) 90% of white Orlando residents are not southern at all.
Many blacks in Chicago have a twang but to describe the collective as accents that are very country is a huge exaggeration. Some do, most do not. As far as the city/small town divide. Well this is occurring not only in Florida but Texas as well. Most Blacks in any part of the state of Florida would agree that they are either in the South or are Southerners. Quite honestly, what is Southern. Because from the looks of it, it seems that Southern is only existing in large cities like Memphis, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, and small towns but disappearing in the biggest cities plus those that are demographically different from the rest of the South.
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