Is Texas a Southern or Western state? (Houston, Dallas: allergies, design)

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by jfre81

I lived in North Carolina and they generally do not consider Texas *The South*

They seem to think the South doesn't go west of the Mississippi.

North Carolina is right!!!!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by blueskies49

I think that Cathy (woman with a wonderful sense of humor!) maybe doesn't realize that Texas, even WTX, is just a variation on the "Southern accent" which encompasses all of the South and that the Texas accent is due to historic settlement by Southerners even as far as West Texas. When she mentions, LA, GA, AL, TN, etc., they all have their own various versions of the Southern accent of which Texan is just one of them. I've known Texans from every part of the state and they all have their own variation of the "Southern" accent. Except maybe El Paso. I've known people from there, too, and like most of us probably would agree, El Paso is on its own, lol!

And living in the DFW area, I know people here from all over the country including from all over the South and every Southern state has it's own accent. I've always heard outsiders call a Texan's accent Southern. Cathy, I'd love to hear you speak, I'd bet that you DO have a Southern variation of an accent going on!

Yes, WT and the rest of the state were definitely settled by southerners...I know something of my own history/geneaology, and had great-whatever grandparents on both sides that came from MS, GA, VA, et al....

For what it is worth, someone once asked me if I were from the Midwest....LOL!!!

I guess my point is.....the regional accents have changed over the years, and I suppose that TX is a variation of many southern accents, but they all vary so widely, even within the state. I am referring to those of us who were born and raised in TX...and have whatever the accent is without having moved from somewhere else. As someone mentioned, someone who grew up in EP is going to sound VERY different from someone who grew up in Beaumont.

Now...if a WT/South TX/Central TX accent is considered a "southern" accent, where does a southern accent end?
New Mexico? CO? Kansas?

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

North Carolina is right!!!!

Balony. Try telling someone from Louisiana or East Texas they aren't Southern. *grins*

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

Balony. Try telling someone from Louisiana or East Texas they aren't Southern. *grins*

If nothing else, they certainly SOUND like it.......not like WT at all.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by jfre81

I lived in North Carolina and they generally do not consider Texas *The South*

They seem to think the South doesn't go west of the Mississippi.

This entire side of the south shares the same sentiments with North Carolina. I remember me and another person from Georgia starting a conversation about where both of us were from. Keep in mind, this conversation was in Virginia because that's simply where I live right now. I said the south and she said you're really not from the "south" that I know. She called us southwestern. Others AGREED with her.

Now I personally do not care. But I do classify the majority of Texas as southern. People from Louisiana and Mississippi will say Texas is southern than the further east you go, the more you will hear people say Texas is not really a southern state. The majority of the 24 million Texas living in the eastern portions of the state which is heavily influenced from the south and starts to fade the closer you get to Austin.

I'm on the fence where people say Texas is neither Southern nor Western. Texas is Texas. But if I had to pick one, it's southern.

[crbcrbrgv]

Dallas, Midland/Odessa and El Paso are like "stereotypical" Texas, with El Paso being the more Mexican version of course. San Antonio is like Monterrey, which is a wealthy city in Mexico. The Valley and Laredo are kind of like an Americanized version of poor Mexico where many people who grow up there want to leave for a better life. Dallas and Houston have so many outside influences that they are, for better or worse, shadows of their former selves. And Austin is home of every damned limousine liberal imaginable and may soon become the next California. Lots of people are already heading off to Albuquerque much like many So Cal residents moved to Portland. Anything rural is pretty darn Texas also.

[atxcio]

Western or Southwestern, however you want to put it.

The historical ties between Texas and the "South" are fascinating museum material, but Texas shares a far more important trait with it's Southwestern neighbors -- hundreds of miles of border with Mexico. I think Texas alone has as much border with Mexico as all the other Southwestern states combined.

I personally agree with most of the posters that Texas cannot really fall under a "Southern" or "Southwestern" label, it is really it's own label.

Regarding accent, coming from NE (Rhode Island), I used to love the sound of the Texas accent (or what I thought was Texas, maybe it was Southern)... anyway, I kind of miss it now. Most people I speak with locally (Austin) or in Houston or DFW are recent transplants, only about 1-2 years here. So no accent, or an English one (UK, dunno why I notice that so much). Or Spanish speakers. Anyway, no more of that older "Texas" accent to be heard in most places... except movies/tv. The guy playing the VP in last season's 24 (lame, btw), that's how I remembered the TX accent.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

This is sort of where it stands today. That is, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico all being considered "Southwestern", yet too often no historical and cultural distinction between the former and the latter two when applying the label. So it gets confusing. Those in the latter two states tend to reject any sense of "Southwestern brotherhood" with us, and likewise, most Texans don't think of ourselves being Southwestern in the same vein with them.

Just stumbled acrosss this thread, and found it pretty interesting. I agree 100% TexasReb. First off, as a native Coloradan who has been living in Arizona the last several years, I can say there is no such thing as a pan-"southwestern brotherhood," period. It's just not that kind of region. For me, the West consists of 11 states: CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM, NV. There are a lot of mini-regions within this vast region-- like the Pacific Northwest, the desert southwest (which might include extreme West Texas and Big Bend), the Colorado Plateau/ Four Corners/ Indian country, the Rocky Mountain West, Mormonville (errr... Utah), and some might call California its own thing entirely. I think these 11 states, as a whole, have more in common with each other than any of them has with Texas. High elevation, mountainous terrain, vast deserts, snowcapped peaks, extremely arid, fragile, yet beautiful landscapes. They are each chock full of national parks, and a HUGE percentage of the land in each of these 11 states is owned by the federal government. Texas is majority private land.

The west is also characterized by a huge reliance on tourism (everything from Aspen to Las Vegas), a huge amount of real estate sprawl-- people building non-practical dream homes in pristine locations, and huge metropolitan areas, like Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA-- which once you go outside of, you are in the middle of nowhere with hardly any civilization in sight for hundreds of miles. As I said, there are parts of extreme West Texas which can qualify as the desert Southwest, but the vast majority of the land area of the Texas and its major cities are nowhere near that part of the state. Even California, once you are outside of the huge megapolitan areas, is practically uninhabited. Think Death Valley. Think the high Sierra. Texas is dotted with thousands of towns across the whole state-- again, with the exception of the Big Bend area. Texas is the West in the old sense of the term-- in the sense of cowboys, horses, and ranching-- but not the west in what it means for most people today. "The Western South" is a good way to put it.

Living in Phoenix right now, I can say that Phoenix, which is unquestionably in the heart of the desert Southwest, has far more in common with L.A. than with any city in Texas. Not that it's good or bad; just how it is. Most people here are either from L.A., or are from cities like Chicago or Minneapolis. The general culture is very upper midwestern-- you hardly hear southern accents here at all. Same thing with Denver-- even though a lot of Texans have moved to Denver, it's still pretty much a midwestern city, culturally. However, it is no secret that a lot of Texans look at the Mountain West as right in their backyard.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Western or Southwestern, however you want to put it.

The historical ties between Texas and the "South" are fascinating museum material, but Texas shares a far more important trait with it's Southwestern neighbors -- hundreds of miles of border with Mexico. I think Texas alone has as much border with Mexico as all the other Southwestern states combined.

I personally agree with most of the posters that Texas cannot really fall under a "Southern" or "Southwestern" label, it is really it's own label.

Regarding accent, coming from NE (Rhode Island), I used to love the sound of the Texas accent (or what I thought was Texas, maybe it was Southern)... anyway, I kind of miss it now. Most people I speak with locally (Austin) or in Houston or DFW are recent transplants, only about 1-2 years here. So no accent, or an English one (UK, dunno why I notice that so much). Or Spanish speakers. Anyway, no more of that older "Texas" accent to be heard in most places... except movies/tv. The guy playing the VP in last season's 24 (lame, btw), that's how I remembered the TX accent.

The thing is, that most of what makes Texas uniquely Texas are Southern in origin. This is true of even the most commonly associated icon of all, the Texas variety of cowboy and the cattle drive. I do agree that nowadays with the boom of hispanic migration, that certain demographic trends (and problems as well) are things more associated with the southwestern than southern states, however, this is a relatively recent occurance. In most other areas (culture, speech, traditions and customs, history, religious and political traits), Texas is essentially a Southern state, just not a TYPICAL Southern state.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

Just stumbled acrosss this thread, and found it pretty interesting. I agree 100% TexasReb. First off, as a native Coloradan who has been living in Arizona the last several years, I can say there is no such thing as a pan-"southwestern brotherhood," period. It's just not that kind of region. For me, the West consists of 11 states: CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM, NV. There are a lot of mini-regions within this vast region-- like the Pacific Northwest, the desert southwest (which might include extreme West Texas and Big Bend), the Colorado Plateau/ Four Corners/ Indian country, the Rocky Mountain West, Mormonville (errr... Utah), and some might call California its own thing entirely. I think these 11 states, as a whole, have more in common with each other than any of them has with Texas. High elevation, mountainous terrain, vast deserts, snowcapped peaks, extremely arid, fragile, yet beautiful landscapes. They are each chock full of national parks, and a HUGE percentage of the land in each of these 11 states is owned by the federal government. Texas is majority private land.

The west is also characterized by a huge reliance on tourism (everything from Aspen to Las Vegas), a huge amount of real estate sprawl-- people building non-practical dream homes in pristine locations, and huge metropolitan areas, like Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA-- which once you go outside of, you are in the middle of nowhere with hardly any civilization in sight for hundreds of miles. As I said, there are parts of extreme West Texas which can qualify as the desert Southwest, but the vast majority of the land area of the Texas and its major cities are nowhere near that part of the state. Even California, once you are outside of the huge megapolitan areas, is practically uninhabited. Think Death Valley. Think the high Sierra. Texas is dotted with thousands of towns across the whole state-- again, with the exception of the Big Bend area. Texas is the West in the old sense of the term-- in the sense of cowboys, horses, and ranching-- but not the west in what it means for most people today. "The Western South" is a good way to put it.

Living in Phoenix right now, I can say that Phoenix, which is unquestionably in the heart of the desert Southwest, has far more in common with L.A. than with any city in Texas. Not that it's good or bad; just how it is. Most people here are either from L.A., or are from cities like Chicago or Minneapolis. The general culture is very upper midwestern-- you hardly hear southern accents here at all. Same thing with Denver-- even though a lot of Texans have moved to Denver, it's still pretty much a midwestern city, culturally. However, it is no secret that a lot of Texans look at the Mountain West as right in their backyard.

Thanks for these very good comments and observations, vegaspilgrim. Yes, I too believe that "Western South" is the best way to characterize most of Texas. Incidently, my ladyfriend is also a native Coloradan and, before moving to Texas, also lived in Las Vegas (well, Henderson, actually) and very much agrees with you. That is, based on her own experience and travels (and perhaps regional predjudice! LOL), that Texas is not part of the true West (which she defines as you do), but the South.