Oklahoma's Regional Idenity (Tulsa, Norman, Kansas: hotel, college, retire)

StillwaterTownie · 01-26-2014, 12:45 AM

I'm mostly Anglo Saxon or a mixture of English, Irish and Scottish, so surprised, so many people in Oklahoma are of German origin.

johnspecial · 01-26-2014, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artsy11

I'm talking about REGIONAL identity. This thread is about regional which pertains to geographical location. I know there's a southern dialect in this state. Regional =/= cultural. Culturally southern. Geographically southwestern. Same thing with Texas.

johnspecial, here's the definition of Regional Identity:
Identification with a specific geographic region of a nation.

And the thing about American human migration, everybody in the US knows that.

I've lived in Oklahoma my entire life so I know quite a bit about this state, thank you very much. Those "not official region maps" are from teaching websites, one being National Geographic. So I'm going to side with them on this one.

Oklahoma is geographically south central. The 100th meridian is the true divider between east and west....Not the Mississippi River. Most of Oklahoma falls into the eastern half of the country and over half of the state lies in the eastern woodlands. We are not geographically southwestern...

...and we all know "teaching websites" are correct...

Here's another
PEMS Homework: Social Studies 8

Oklahoma is not in the same region as Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. I'm sorry. I lived in AZ and can tell you they thought my accent was very "different" You can pretend they are correct, but they are not. Where Okies come up with this ridiculous stuff is beyond. We are southerners. Accept it.

artsy11 · 01-26-2014, 12:55 PM

That site doesn't even mention the southwest. Some people are going to say Oklahoma's in the southwest. Accept that.

johnspecial · 01-26-2014, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artsy11

That site doesn't even mention the southwest. Some people are going to say Oklahoma's in the southwest. Accept that.

Go spend some time in Arizona and see if you are in the same region. Culturally, politically, geographically and spiritually, Oklahoma belongs in the southern United States.

Not a lot of adobe and Socorro cacti in the Sooner State.

artsy11 · 01-26-2014, 06:59 PM

Politically, Arizona and Oklahoma are both conservative. Oklahoma does have a small desert, but it's not as arid as New Mexico and Arizona. But geographically, it is in the southwest.

Bass&Catfish2008 · 01-28-2014, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artsy11

That site doesn't even mention the southwest. Some people are going to say Oklahoma's in the southwest. Accept that.

Yeh, I can see that too.

Technically, Oklahoma is in the South Central United States, but most folks (not even in Oklahoma) are taught this in school as it should be. For example, in grammar school (in Central Oklahoma) my classmates and I were taught that Oklahoma was the Old Southwest along with Texas/Arkansas (I think Louisiana was included but the teacher did not talk about that as much). My teacher was trying to show that these states were still a part of the overarching South, but also different in some ways....a western extension or boundary of the South.

Hence, I think the Southwest designation is probably the next best option even though much of Oklahoma (and by extension, Texas/Arkansas) does not carry a lot of the topographical traits of New Mexico and Arizona = southern West not the Western South of OK/TX/AR. Clearly, as has been shown in this thread, Oklahoma does not lie in the Midwest. That is one Okies should refute at face value because it is so off-base from the historically and geographically (Michigan/Whiskey/MN/Ohio/IL/KS/Misery/Indiana, etc.) understanding of the Midwest. If people would like to magically place Oklahoma in the Midwest, they'll have to rewrite our history, the majority of our cultural affiliations, and social norms...not to mention petition the Census.

I like to think of Oklahoma as a blending of Southern and Southwestern (and bit of Western too) cultures with the Southernness carrying the lion-share of influence. I don't see the geographical affinity with OK/TX versus NM/AR as much, but I do think there is some cultural overlap. Again, OK/TX (maybe AR) are the SOUTHwest while NM/AZ are the SouthWEST. There is a difference, but maybe not as much as some would like to assert.

I still think SouthXSouthwest (along with South-Central/Western-South but no one says these even though they're much closer to accurate) is the best overall designation.