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To me the geography does influence the culture to some degree due to weather, economy, and things of that nature. However, having actually lived out there (Lubbock/Alpine) and having lived in the Southwest there is some overlap in culture.
Lubbock is as much or more like Tucson as it is Little Rock or Jackson in many ways. This is particularly true historically more than the "move in" culture obviously. Cowboys, ranching etc.
But I can't argue that west Texas doesn't have a stout southern "people" culture. Because it certainly does.
What do you mean historically? Like the Comanche?
Curious on the similarities between Lubbock and Tucson
The idea of rodeo being southern is nonsense. Rodeo (and cattle ranching as opposed to farming) is Western and is rooted in Spanish traditions. That's a very common fallacy I see in this recurring debate: take something that is distinctly Texan, declare that it is Southern, and then use that to prove that Texan == Southern.
I know this. But culminating with Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road and Rodeo. At this point cowboy culture has been wholly co-opted and claimed by the South. I swear more musicians from Georgia and Tennessee especially country artists, wear cowboy hats more than any of the musicians from Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado.
I’m not calling the Rodeo Southern because of Texas but because theirs been a move over the last few decades to completely merge Southwestern Style with Southern style especially in Country music. Now Cowboy hats are seen as a staple of the South even though their origins only slightly overlap in Texas.
To me the geography does influence the culture to some degree due to weather, economy, and things of that nature. However, having actually lived out there (Lubbock/Alpine) and having lived in the Southwest there is some overlap in culture.
Lubbock is as much or more like Tucson as it is Little Rock or Jackson in many ways. This is particularly true historically more than the "move in" culture obviously. Cowboys, ranching etc.
But I can't argue that west Texas doesn't have a stout southern "people" culture. Because it certainly does.
I agree at first. Geography determined culture- 99/100 worldwide you would find nomadic peoples in Arid locations and what we call civilization in a temperate/subtropical/tropical (albeit not super-dense jungle) climate. This is true on virtually everywhere. But in the modern era now that humans can effect their environment much more or at least have a higher indifference to their environment due to modern technology culture has escaped those geographical boundaries. Southern culture in my opinion while it has receded in some places notably Delaware/Maryland has spread far outside of the South. “Y’all” being the most obvious modern export. But in fact the Great Migration which most people attribute to the spread of “black culture” but don’t realize its as much the spread of “Southern Culture”. Because 95%+ of the people in the great migration were black southerners. Now other regions also have similar influence like the general American accent has origins in the Midwest and if you go back far enough the original frontier of Pennsylvania and Upstate New York as well as inland New England. But in the modern day, post 1950s, with the spread of Southerners around the country, I feel like virtually every rural part of America (Outside of probably the PNW and New England) is seeing some sort of Southern influence. This is especially true with Country music being one of the most popular genres of music geographically.
Last edited by NigerianNightmare; 11-19-2020 at 03:13 PM..
I can't think of a single similarity between San Antonio and Abq. other than lots of mexicans.
That's what it is for them. Their idea of South vs Southwestern is based on the presence of Mexicans. I guess Dalton, Georgia has more in common with Albuquerque than Atlanta.
I agree at first. Geography determined culture- 99/100 worldwide you would find nomadic peoples in Arid locations and what we call civilization in a temperate/subtropical/tropical (albeit not super-dense jungle) climate. This is true on virtually everywhere. But in the modern era now that humans can effect their environment much more or at least have a higher indifference to their environment due to modern technology culture has escaped those geographical boundaries. Southern culture in my opinion while it has receded in some places notably Delaware/Maryland has spread far outside of the South. “Y’all” being the most obvious modern export. But in fact the Great Migration which most people attribute to the spread of “black culture” but don’t realize its as much the spread of “Southern Culture”. Because 95%+ of the people in the great migration were black southerners. Now other regions also have similar influence like the general American accent has origins in the Midwest and if you go back far enough the original frontier of Pennsylvania and Upstate New York as well as inland New England. But in the modern day, post 1950s, with the spread of Southerners around the country, I feel like virtually every rural part of America (Outside of probably the PNW and New England) is seeing some sort of Southern influence. This is especially true with Country music being the most popular genre of music geographically.
My take on Texas vs. the Southeast,
1. The geography in (most of) Texas is pretty distinct from the southeast in two major ways: First, it's much more arid, so the agriculture economy was historically completely different. Second, Texas happens to have large oil reserves that led to a 20th century oil-based economy that is mostly absent in the south outside of Louisiana.
2. While Texas received many Anglo-Saxon peoples from the southeast, it was also settled by the Spanish/Mexicans and German immigrants. I'd argue these three groups are roughly equal in terms of how they shaped Texas culture. San Antonio in particular is much more dominated by the latter two groups historically. That's not even considering the fact that Texas has also had much more 20th and 21st century immigration than the southeast, excluding Florida.
3. Texas is physically huge and could easily be multiple states. It's not outlandish to suggest that it deserves its own "region".
Ultimately, I think Texas culture is a cousin of the southeast, but comparably distinct as say Chicago is to the Northeast.
That's what it is for them. Their idea of South vs Southwestern is based on the presence of Mexicans. I guess Dalton, Georgia has more in common with Albuquerque than Atlanta.
It's not "presence of Mexicans." It's that San Antonio was part of the Spanish Empire for 100 years and a Mexican city for another 15 years prior to the Texas Revolution.
But I realize to you that is exactly the same as the 10,000 20th century Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia.
It's not "presence of Mexicans." It's that San Antonio was part of the Spanish Empire for 100 years and a Mexican city for another 15 years prior to the Texas Revolution.
But I realize to you that is exactly the same as the 10,000 20th century Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia.
So what? Mexicans who have hundreds of years of heritage in actual Mexico move all over the US and have kids who assimilate to whatever the local culture is.
So what? Mexicans who have hundreds of years of heritage in actual Mexico move all over the US and have kids who assimilate to whatever the local culture is.
And in San Antonio there is a much stronger link, vibe, and presence of that Mexican culture as opposed to the assimilation that happens in other places.
San Antonio isn't unique because it has a lot of people of Mexican descent. It's unique because it actively displays a much higher level of Mexican culture than any other major American city.
So what? Mexicans who have hundreds of years of heritage in actual Mexico move all over the US and have kids who assimilate to whatever the local culture is.
In a constantly evolving culture, most of the south doesn’t have the type of Mexican influence that Texas has. So it definitely feels less southern than the rest of the south because of this. My argument is that the south is bigger than just the deep South and you have common traits all throughout the south that you don’t get in the rest of the Country. So why we assume Georgia and Alabama are the focal point while the south is much bigger than that is where I disagree.
I know this. But culminating with Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road and Rodeo. At this point cowboy culture has been wholly co-opted and claimed by the South. I swear more musicians from Georgia and Tennessee especially country artists, wear cowboy hats more than any of the musicians from Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado.
I’m not calling the Rodeo Southern because of Texas but because theirs been a move over the last few decades to completely merge Southwestern Style with Southern style especially in Country music. Now Cowboy hats are seen as a staple of the South even though their origins only slightly overlap in Texas.
"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."
-J. Evetts Haley, Texas historian (he spent his entire life in west Texas btw)
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