Texas being excluded from the South (Houston, Dallas: transplants, apartment, home)

[hotboyxroshi]

I've never understood why people try to exclude Texas from the South. Obviously places like West Texas and the Panhandle aren't Southern but it's just strange to me that there's always been a debate for the rest of the state and it sometimes gets excluded for the strangest reasons like Mexican influence (as if other cultures haven't influenced the rest of the South) or accent (as if there is only one Southern accent and only one Texan accent).

Is it the pine trees that only certain parts of the South have? The transplants? Is Atlanta kicked out of the South too? Not that I'm proud of Texas' role in the Civil War, but growing up in Dallas/Fort Worth, we had schools, statues and streets dedicated to Confederate soldiers. I grew up not far from two streets named Jefferson and Davis than run parallel to each other.

I just don't get it.

[Spade]

When you're on the edge of a region, you're going to get questioned. Especially when it comes to the South. Virginia at times go through the same thing. You have parks and statues named after confederate heroes in Northern Virginia including even a highway just a couple miles south of DC yet people will say NOVA isn't Southern. People look at the Southeast as the heart of what it is to be the South and Texas is not in that so they get questioned.

[grampaTom]

Texas is generally felt to be in the Southwest like Arizona and New Mexico. Not a big deal. I don't feel like Texas fits with "The Deep South".

[BrianGC]

Because Texas is so huge, I honestly can't mentally put it in just one region. East Texas, where the largest population lives, is fitting with the south, but west Texas really belongs in the southwest.

[SunGrins]

Texas can't seem to decide for itself.

[R1070]

Most of Texas is the South, but not the Deep South. East Texas/Piney Woods region of the state is where the feeling of being in the South starts/ends and that includes the Houston area. The I-35 corridor is where you start to notice the difference and then going West the landscape, etc really changes a lot.

[silibran]

To the rest of the non-Southern country, TX seems Southern. Possibly to West Texans, where they live feels more western than southern.

Texas certainly aligns itself with other Southern states idelogically, historically, and politically.

[NOVA_guy]

Who wants to exclude it from the south? Texas is most definitely the south.

[mwalker96]

Everytime I hear Texas brought up it always grouped with the south/bible belt being that most Texans live in the Eastern half of the state. Most Texans I know identify with the south rather than the southwest but acknowledge that Texas is 100% southern but more people would group Texas with the south than Oklahoma, Maryland, or even Flordia.

[lvmensch]

i grew up a borderline southerner. I was born in NYC but grew up in Louisville. Did K-11 there.

I ended up travelling to Dallas professionally for a couple of years in the early 90s. Actually had an apartment there for a year or so. Would fly out of LA Sunday afternoon and come back on Tuesday evening.

It was interesting. After a day I would start saying "you'all". And the Louisville accent would all come back.

I have an advantage over most as I can actually control my accent. Three years of hard speech therapy in the 6,7,8th grade. I stutter and mispronounce "L" words..."Wittle", "Wake". I am actually past that but I still say "small".

So I feel very at home southern in Dallas. Not sure it would be the same elsewhere. Kind of interesting as my friends from the parent plant in upstate NY felt much more uncomfortable than I did.