Is Tampa the South to you? (fit in, 2013, to live in)
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Wonderful post. Southerners in this forum seem to want to disassociate from the south or say my city doesn’t have southern characteristics as if there’s only three traits rhat southerners share. Tampa is suburbia? Ok the south has suburbs. Houston is diverse? Ok the south is diverse. I saw in another thread that Houston isn’t southern because their restaurants don’t have sweet tea. 1 that is not entirely true, 2 sweet tea doesn’t make a place exclusively south.
I will say that I don’t think dc is the south
It's not entirely true and it hardly makes a place exclusively southern. But sweet tea wasn't a thing in Texas like it is in Georgia or in particular, the Southeast. In Texas, if you went to most restaurants and ordered a sweet tea, they will bring you a lemon or raspberry tea. Or bring you unsweetened with loads of sugar. Houston was the same when I was a kid and visit family and friends down there back in the 90s.
I've been arguing that Florida, all of it, is Southern for years on here. This includes Miami. My family and friends in Miami and Fort Lauderdale have always looked at themselves as Southerners. Their culture is far more connected to the rest of the South than it is to any other region from my experience.
1. The First flaw is thinking there monolithic "Southern vibe" that doesn't exist, the South in general have different sub regions that have different "vibes". Atlanta and Charlotte have similarities because there both "Piedmont cities", but Atlanta and Charlotte isn't like New Orleans and Mobile gulf area, which isn't like Dallas and OKC Southern plains, which isn't Virginia Beach and Wellington NC, tiewater and etc areas.
Again for region that goes for Northfolk VA, New Orleans to San Antonio what makes you think the Florida pensula isn't the south because it didn't have have a "Atlanta and Charlotte" Piedmont vibe, Most of South doesn't have an Atlanta and Charlotte vibe either. The Florida peninsula is at most another Sub region of the South. Not an exception of being the South.
2. Because it's the same story, the story of South Florida is the same thing that happen in Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas. South Florida was never unique in the South with transplants and cultural changes. You think your saying something unique about Florida transplant feeling regarding how they see the rest of the region as different. Your not.
Again these places were a million or less people in the 60's..... So the argument that Miami is different because "it's younger and has a lot of transplants" so we don't identified with traditional Southern stuff never made sense, because Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas were medium size cities before Sunbelt boom. Those cities are also full of transplants and immigrants. They might have a couple of 100k natives that go back past the 60's but majority of multi millions of people came with in last 3 or 4 generation.
So you really think the millions of people that has went to Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, the last few identify with your "stereotypical Southern culture" any more than the was that went to South Florida........... No is my point. All these cities are multi dimension. They all of course have small degree of reflecting stereotypical cultures, but most of there nature is cosmopolitan. there a little bit of everything.
When transplants come to Atlanta, Houston and Dallas they view them as these progressive oasis in the south away from they view stereotypical of slow peace Mississippian view of the South.
There reason why some Floridians get these assertion of "being somehow intentionally disingenuous" because their argue is base on the flaw view that............... Florida is unique and rest of the South in monolithic. This basically reads as insulting the rest of the South and boasting Florida. The South is already too cultural diverse of a region for South Florida to be exception to it, The Florida Peninsula is not the only more progressive place that contrast other part of the South.
So if some Floridans are not intentionally disingenuous, they are unintentionally disingenuous with identity as Southerners. because they where always southerners regardless of how they insult the rest the south by trying paint the rest of South as this giant monolithic Mississippi.
I say this again "Southern culture" doesn't define the South, The South regionally define what is Southern culture. If a place change that change is now southern.
At this point you're hilarious, trying to explain to someone who lived in FL (1978-1994) and NC (1994-2010) for most of their life that we were living some kind of lie because of how we felt. I'm not boasting about anything, and if you read my last comment you'd see clearly see that personally I embraced being Southern- when I finally lived in a place that felt Southern, as there was a noticeable difference in the people, the culture, and the history when I moved into the Carolinas.
Everybody's got their own take on this. You do you. But stop with the passive aggressive nonsense that somehow many Floridians are just flawed with how they feel or self-identify. Yes, there are some similarities in growth patterns and differences between the way people in major cities in the region regard themselves. Living in the region I had PLENTY of exposure and visits to LA, AL, MS, TN and panhandle FL, which we definitely considered Southern, despite the noticeably different vibes. And sure, some Floridians apparently feel like they're Southern. But very few, if any, that I know do or did when I was growing up. There's a big difference IMHO between Southern on a map and Southern in your heart and mind. Either you understand that, or you don't.
I don't know about all that but it is annoying for people to consider Florida anything but southern just because the culture is different, than the rest of the south.
Once again, I absolutely agree that it's technically in the South, and I even like some of the points Chia makes, like the rebranding of the new South. I'd also even agree more that more recent growth in the Sunbelt ties FL more into the region and recasts the region in a more comparative light.
What's a little bit annoying is the assertion on this or other threads that Floridians or ex-Floridians are being somehow intentionally disingenuous about their self-identification. That came from living in the area, and it's not like we planned thirty years ago to try one day to pull a fast one on people on an online discussion thread in the future. But we (everyone around us, without exception) absolutely did not identify with Southern culture, and my family in Clearwater, FL felt more connected to the places that we lived prior, Columbia, MD and Bellevue, WA. My relatives in Boca were part of the biggest Jewish population outside of NYC, in high-rises on the water. There was never even the most remote hint of Southern culture, anywhere.
Yes, places like Charlotte and Atlanta are absolutely filled with transplants. But there's definitely a different, palpable vibe that I get when visiting a state like NC or GA, and reminders are everywhere that you're still in the South, culturally. Again, when I was a kid, we had absolutely no connection to anything Southern and viewed a trip up north as "visiting the south." That's not an insult- we viewed Atlanta as the capital of the South, and enjoyed visiting.
Whether you understand or not, my first experience living in Southern culture was in Charlotte in 1994. And as I watched the population boom there, people moving to the area (often from NY and PA) acknowledged and embraced the Southern culture. It was not at all like my experience in beach culture FL. And FWIW, I was excited to identify as "Southern" while living there, though the Southerners around me made fun of transplants from FL as "Yankees" - furthering my point about there being a noticeable difference.
So argue away all you'd like. Show me all the graphs you'd like- it doesn't change the way people have collectively felt in urban FL for several generations. Again, I think the idea of the New South brings FL more into the region these days. And I don't know how old you all are, but what we're experiencing today is different than what was going on 30-40 years ago when exponential growth in the region was mostly confined to FL (and yes ATL, which has always been growing). In any case, peninsular FL at the time felt more isolated from the rest of civilization, or at least from Midwest or NE cities that most Floridians moved from. So a current snapshot does not a whole story tell.
Ultimately, it's not wrong or right how we felt-but it was actually the overwhelming general perception by people living near me in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. The area may seem more Southern to you now, although that may even be a more recent development- things like rampant regional growth and the invention of the internet have made the world- or that corner of the world- seem closer together. But telling me how everyone should have felt about who we were back then is just absurd. This feeling has been the norm there for generations-it's not a new phenomenon, and it's not "erasing culture" -because in most cases there wasn't any dominant culture to begin with. And if there was, it bore no resemblance to our Southern neighbors to the North.
I mean, FWIW I grew up in urban/suburban Florida and I identify as a Southerner, with no asterisks needed. Where is Florida? The South. What region did I stay fully living in til age 23? The South. Hell, I was almost 22 when I first set foot in a northern state (Kansas). For most of my life the only state I had been in, was Florida. And then for most of my adult life, it was Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and all the states west of there til Texas. The South was the only part of the country I had known. How can I identify as another region? And don't gimme that "Florida is it's own thing". All states are. And Florida got nothing on Texas, which is still the South. Texas reminded me a lot of Florida, anyway.
You also mentioned: "my family in Clearwater, FL felt more connected to the places that we lived prior, Columbia, MD and Bellevue, WA." There's your issue. There's places you had lived in before that you felt a connection to. For my family, the only place we lived in before was Cuba, but I didn't grow up in Cuba. I feel Cuban by heritage but that's about it. You're gonna tell me that after almost 24 years of living in this country I should feel more Cuban than American? Gimme a break. Cubans are to Florida like what the Cajuns are to Louisiana. Give it several more generations and the Cuban-American Floridian community will be just as southernised as the Cajuns in Southern Louisiana. A lot of my Cuban relatives in north Florida already sound just as country as many Cajuns do, and they've intermarried native Floridians, white and black alike, with strong southern drawls. South Florida is just urban, but that doesn't make it non-southern.
Btw this song is probably the best hip hop anthem for Miami. Will Smith, who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq8wvwZsvM Idk about you but this to me sounds like classic Dirty South hip hop. I'm not even a big hip hop fan, but you can't deny it's influence in MODERN southern culture (that's another thing, y'all focus on outdated stereotypes, it's 2020. Li'l Wayne is just as southern as Hank Williams) especially in the 2000s when the South and Midwest were put on the map against the East and West Coast. In terms of urban culture, Miami, Tampa and maybe even Jacksonville are very connected to Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and Memphis.
I don't know about all that but it is annoying for people to consider Florida anything but southern just because the culture is different, than the rest of the south.
Yes. And even worse when people try to do the same with New Orleans and even the rest of Louisiana. Just baffling to me! As a kid, Louisiana was to me the epitome of "the South" and I saw it very similar to Florida. Gators!!!
I don't know about all that but it is annoying for people to consider Florida anything but southern just because the culture is different, than the rest of the south.
These debates always boil down to one of three basic opinions:
1.) State x is at latitude y, therefore south. The end.
2.) "The south" has a,b,c characteristics, this place has x,y,z characteristics, hence not the south.
3.) I've lived my entire life in new England and I visited once and it sure felt like the south to me!
Anyway, no opinion on Tampa. Personally I do consider Miami as being part of the Caribbean region rather than the southeast USA. I also consider places like VA, WV, TX, OK, MO to be border regions that have a mix of regional characteristics. It's not crazy to me that Tampa could be in that category, but I haven't spent much time there.
I mean, FWIW I grew up in urban/suburban Florida and I identify as a Southerner, with no asterisks needed. Where is Florida? The South. What region did I stay fully living in til age 23? The South. Hell, I was almost 22 when I first set foot in a northern state (Kansas). For most of my life the only state I had been in, was Florida. And then for most of my adult life, it was Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and all the states west of there til Texas. The South was the only part of the country I had known. How can I identify as another region? And don't gimme that "Florida is it's own thing". All states are. And Florida got nothing on Texas, which is still the South. Texas reminded me a lot of Florida, anyway.
You also mentioned: "my family in Clearwater, FL felt more connected to the places that we lived prior, Columbia, MD and Bellevue, WA." There's your issue. There's places you had lived in before that you felt a connection to. For my family, the only place we lived in before was Cuba, but I didn't grow up in Cuba. I feel Cuban by heritage but that's about it. You're gonna tell me that after almost 24 years of living in this country I should feel more Cuban than American? Gimme a break. Cubans are to Florida like what the Cajuns are to Louisiana. Give it several more generations and the Cuban-American Floridian community will be just as southernised as the Cajuns in Southern Louisiana. A lot of my Cuban relatives in north Florida already sound just as country as many Cajuns do, and they've intermarried native Floridians, white and black alike, with strong southern drawls. South Florida is just urban, but that doesn't make it non-southern.
Btw this song is probably the best hip hop anthem for Miami. Will Smith, who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq8wvwZsvM Idk about you but this to me sounds like classic Dirty South hip hop. I'm not even a big hip hop fan, but you can't deny it's influence in MODERN southern culture (that's another thing, y'all focus on outdated stereotypes, it's 2020. Li'l Wayne is just as southern as Hank Williams) especially in the 2000s when the South and Midwest were put on the map against the East and West Coast. In terms of urban culture, Miami, Tampa and maybe even Jacksonville are very connected to Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and Memphis.
Good point about the Latino Southerners of Florida. I have a good friend who is Nicaraguan and a Miami native. We went to New York City to visit some friends and the other New York Latinos could not get enough of his Latin/Southern/Country accent. He actually sounds a lot like Pitbull and he is not a street guy by any means. Many Latinos in Florida's urban areas pick up their English accents from Afro-Americans and lower income whites, so they kind of mix the Latin accent with the Southern accent like New Yorkers mix the Latin accent with the East Coast accent...same with Texas, California, etc.
With that said, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa are very Southern. Take away the palm trees and replace them with maple trees and it's very clear. The overstressed infrastructure (a hallmark in the South), people trying to talk to you everywhere you go, the more casual dressing, the car culture, the disastrous urban planning, the lack of focus on education or social services, the food obsessions, underlying religiosity at many events etc. Florida is about as southern as can be. Only thing that has changed is the amount people, the cost of living, and pace of life. Florida and Texas are just the South on steroids with a Latin flare and some palm trees.
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