Texas; is it part of the South or the Southwest? (El Paso: plantation, suite)

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

Bingo.

Honestly, I don't know why this is so hard for some people to grasp!

Because most Americans think that it’s impossible for one place to be Southern and Southwestern at the same time.
I lost count of how many times I saw cowboys and Mexicans working together
While country or Mexican music was playing in the background.

In Texas you’ll find cowboys cooking Mexican food
And you’ll find Mexican Americans listening to country music

That’s Texas for you

[turf3]

Very little of stereotypical "cowboy culture" derives from the Old South; it's almost 100% derived from the cowboys of Northern Mexico. So if you "see cowboys and Mexicans together" their shared culture is mostly a Mexican one.

[soletaire1]

Originally Posted by whereiend

I disagree, I think it's more location-based. East Texans / Houstonians will overwhelmingly say Southern. West Texans will say Southwestern. San Antonians / Austinities could go either way, but will lean Southwestern. DFW is right on the edge. (Dallas is probably Southern, Fort Worth Southwestern).

I think the answer is neither. Texas is its own region and it's a transition zone between the south, the southwest, the great plains, and Mexico.

Its definitely also location based

[supfromthesite]

Originally Posted by turf3

Very little of stereotypical "cowboy culture" derives from the Old South; it's almost 100% derived from the cowboys of Northern Mexico. So if you "see cowboys and Mexicans together" their shared culture is mostly a Mexican one.

Sorry but that's not true at all, both cultures influenced it.

[supfromthesite]

"American historians often write of a contrast between the South, a closed reactionary society, and the West, free and open and characteristically American. The dichotomy thus presented is a false one. The West is the South. That is, to the extent that the West is a theatre for heroic action, rather than just a place to start a new business, it is the Old South transmitted to a new environment. The cowboy, to the degree that he represents the embodiment of a code of life rather than just a person who tends animals, is nothing more or less than the Virginia gentleman on the plains.

It is no accident that the most famous Western novel, written by a Pennsylvanian, Owen Wister, and set in Wyoming, was called The Virginian; nor that the most memorable character in Robert Service’s Alaska poems was from Tennessee; nor that John Wayne’s best Western movie, The Searchers, begins in 1865 with the hero riding up to his prairie home in tattered gray.

But the Southernness of the American West is not just in the realm of romance. The romance in this case merely reflects the facts. Boone, Crockett, Lewis and Clark, the heroes of the Alamo, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jesse James, nearly all the epic heroes of the frontier were Southerners. The “cowboy humorist” Will Rogers was the son of a captain in the Confederacy’s Cherokee brigade. You will hear nothing except Southern accents today on America’s only remaining frontier, the North Shore oil fields.

We repeat: The West is only Western because it is Southern, because it bears the impress of the culture of the Old South rather than the Old North. That is why Oklahoma produces cowboys, oil wildcatters, country music singers, writers and scholars, evangelists and outlaws, and Kansas produces wheat and an occasional communist."

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by supfromthesite

"American historians often write of a contrast between the South, a closed reactionary society, and the West, free and open and characteristically American. The dichotomy thus presented is a false one. The West is the South. That is, to the extent that the West is a theatre for heroic action, rather than just a place to start a new business, it is the Old South transmitted to a new environment. The cowboy, to the degree that he represents the embodiment of a code of life rather than just a person who tends animals, is nothing more or less than the Virginia gentleman on the plains.

It is no accident that the most famous Western novel, written by a Pennsylvanian, Owen Wister, and set in Wyoming, was called The Virginian; nor that the most memorable character in Robert Service’s Alaska poems was from Tennessee; nor that John Wayne’s best Western movie, The Searchers, begins in 1865 with the hero riding up to his prairie home in tattered gray.

But the Southernness of the American West is not just in the realm of romance. The romance in this case merely reflects the facts. Boone, Crockett, Lewis and Clark, the heroes of the Alamo, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jesse James, nearly all the epic heroes of the frontier were Southerners. The “cowboy humorist” Will Rogers was the son of a captain in the Confederacy’s Cherokee brigade. You will hear nothing except Southern accents today on America’s only remaining frontier, the North Shore oil fields.

We repeat: The West is only Western because it is Southern, because it bears the impress of the culture of the Old South rather than the Old North. That is why Oklahoma produces cowboys, oil wildcatters, country music singers, writers and scholars, evangelists and outlaws, and Kansas produces wheat and an occasional communist."

Just curious, what is the source of this quote? And does the author go on to extend this explanation to vaqueros?

[turf3]

Why is it so damn difficult for some people to understand and accept that Texas, by its influences from Mexico, Germany, the Old South, and the Southwest, has evolved into something that is none of these?


I mean, most of modern-day Mexican culture is a mixture of Spanish and Indian culture, with their own little admixture of German. Mexicans are not Spanish, nor are they Indian.


British culture is a mixture of Germanic, Celtic, Roman, Norman French, and Scandinavian cultures, but no one tries to claim that England is really part of France.


Japanese culture has enormous influences from both China and Korea, but I wouldn't recommend going to a bar in Tokyo and claiming that Japan is really just Korea.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by turf3

Why is it so damn difficult for some people to understand and accept that Texas, by its influences from Mexico, Germany, the Old South, and the Southwest, has evolved into something that is none of these?


I mean, most of modern-day Mexican culture is a mixture of Spanish and Indian culture, with their own little admixture of German. Mexicans are not Spanish, nor are they Indian.


British culture is a mixture of Germanic, Celtic, Roman, Norman French, and Scandinavian cultures, but no one tries to claim that England is really part of France.


Japanese culture has enormous influences from both China and Korea, but I wouldn't recommend going to a bar in Tokyo and claiming that Japan is really just Korea.

Great post. To answer your question, it's been my observation that many people from a majority ethnic group want to site a vague notion of dominant cultural influence as a reason to force their values on the rest of the population. People of solely Spanish descent in Mexico quite often have a higher status than those who have more Native ancestry. Most of the landed elite in Britain still have last names of Norman origin. And in that same vein, much of America's elite is dedicated to pushing Anglo-American values and interests.

[soletaire1]

Originally Posted by supfromthesite

"American historians often write of a contrast between the South, a closed reactionary society, and the West, free and open and characteristically American. The dichotomy thus presented is a false one. The West is the South. That is, to the extent that the West is a theatre for heroic action, rather than just a place to start a new business, it is the Old South transmitted to a new environment. The cowboy, to the degree that he represents the embodiment of a code of life rather than just a person who tends animals, is nothing more or less than the Virginia gentleman on the plains.

It is no accident that the most famous Western novel, written by a Pennsylvanian, Owen Wister, and set in Wyoming, was called The Virginian; nor that the most memorable character in Robert Service’s Alaska poems was from Tennessee; nor that John Wayne’s best Western movie, The Searchers, begins in 1865 with the hero riding up to his prairie home in tattered gray.

But the Southernness of the American West is not just in the realm of romance. The romance in this case merely reflects the facts. Boone, Crockett, Lewis and Clark, the heroes of the Alamo, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jesse James, nearly all the epic heroes of the frontier were Southerners. The “cowboy humorist” Will Rogers was the son of a captain in the Confederacy’s Cherokee brigade. You will hear nothing except Southern accents today on America’s only remaining frontier, the North Shore oil fields.

We repeat: The West is only Western because it is Southern, because it bears the impress of the culture of the Old South rather than the Old North. That is why Oklahoma produces cowboys, oil wildcatters, country music singers, writers and scholars, evangelists and outlaws, and Kansas produces wheat and an occasional communist."

+1

[tcualum]

My stomach is thankful to all of the immigrants who made such wonderful things as chicken fried steak, pulled pork kolaches, and breakfast tacos possible.