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View Poll Results: Is Texas the south, the southwest or just Texas?
The South 46 38.98%
The southwest 15 12.71%
Texas all its on uniqueness 50 42.37%
Just a combo of all that is America 7 5.93%
Voters: 118. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 07-02-2019, 10:33 AM
 
Location: "The Dirty Irv" Irving, TX
4,001 posts, read 3,217,824 times
Reputation: 4821

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I highly recommend reading "Lone Star" by T.R. Fehrenbach. All Textbooks get history wrong in their own ways, and Fehrenbach makes an effort to tone down his homerism, anti-Catholicism, racism, and Southern Bias, but it still jets out a little here and there, especially his pro-southern attitudes. All and all it is still a decent book.



The History of Angolo Texas is a Southern History. The Texas Revolution was at least the 4th attempt by American Southerners to get Texas to join the Union as a slave state. The only reason that Texas didn't immediately join the Union like a bunch of other states that were briefly their own "Country" (the Republic of California, being the most famous) was specifically because the US wasn't ready to start a war with Mexico and because the Northern States didn't want to add another Slave State. The Texans who rebelled were surprised they weren't immediately allowed to join the Union. For most people that was the main objective.

Texas was spacely populated even during the Spanish and Mexican rule, there were only a handful of permanent settlements at the time of the final and successful Texas Revolution. There are parts of Texas that can claim a legitimate Hispanic history.

San Antonio and Border Region are not really that Southern, sure, but they make up a minority of the state, both in Land and Population.

Texas, along and east of 35 is where the majority of Texas's population currently lives and has lived since the 1830s. Once the illegal Anglo immigrants flooded across the border from the Southern US to meet with the Legal Anglo residents they within 10 years constituted the majority of the people living in Texas.

European immigrants to Texas settled in the country rather than cities and adopted a mostly southern ethos.

Texas, and by that I mean Anglo Texas as its own "Country" and as a US State right up to the civil war is definitely southern.

Directly after the war, it remained definitively southern as the state actively advertised in southern states to try to bring in people to work the plantations that were understaffed after emancipation.

Texas attitudes towards "Carpet Baggers" and "Yankees" are definitively southern values and reactions to the reconstruction.

At this point, Texans considered themselves Southern.

The first attempts to farm west of the 35 farm line attempted to use southern methods, which failed because of the lack of water. Just because the techniques changed doesn't mean that the culture across Central Texas didn't stay predominantly southern.

People will still offer you sweet Tea in Abilene. They follow southern values and religion They don't do this in the west.

There was an active effort by the state to rebrand itself with the cowboy culture that emerged on the southern plains. Texas actively wanted to disassociate themselves with the south. Most Texans never had anything to do with cowboys and remained southern.

I don't think the cowboy culture means that Texas isn't Southern. Texas has great plains culture, but a southern version of it.

Nebraska had and still has a strong cowboy culture, but Nebraska is still a midwestern state, even if the western edge is Western in Culture...Same with the Dakotas and Kansas. Iowa is part of the great plains and doesn't look like Ohio, but it is still part of the midwest, just as central Texas is southern without looking like Mississippi.

You can make an argument that Texas is a mix of cultures as it sits on the border of the west and east and this is true. Texas has a distinct border culture and the southwestern part belongs in the South West.....on the Whole though, Anglo Texas is and has been a southern state as that is the predominant culture.

Yes the big cities are cosmopolitan and international, yes they have lots of transplants. The same is true of Atlanta, and no one says Atlanta is no longer a southern city.

Chicago has a massive influx of Southerners (Great migration) and International immigrants. That doesn't mean Chicago isn't a midwestern city.

Despite the best efforts of Texans to reframe themselves as part of the west instead of the south, we are, fundamentally, a Southern State.
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Old 07-02-2019, 06:48 PM
 
15,440 posts, read 21,230,065 times
Reputation: 28675
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92 View Post
Despite the best efforts of Texans to reframe themselves as part of the west instead of the south, we are, fundamentally, a Southern State.
Only few "Texans" try to re-frame the State as not being Southern. For what reasons escapes me but this native deep east Texan knows his family roots and cultural heritage are very deeply set in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and the Carolinas. For that I hold no shame or remorse because my ancestors were individuals just as I am.

Luckily, each of us will be held to God's standards, not the standards of prejudicial and bigoted humans.
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Old 07-02-2019, 09:53 PM
 
1,972 posts, read 1,267,705 times
Reputation: 1790
I'm no expert on the matter, but DFW, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso do not feel southern at all to me. At least not compared to the places I experienced in Louisiana, Georgia or Alabama.
The Texas cities I listed alone are about over 5 Million in population. I wouldn't necessarily call that the minority of the people in TX.
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Old 07-02-2019, 10:57 PM
 
23,690 posts, read 9,251,463 times
Reputation: 8650
Quote:
Originally Posted by MustermannBB View Post
I'm no expert on the matter, but DFW, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso do not feel southern at all to me. At least not compared to the places I experienced in Louisiana, Georgia or Alabama.
The Texas cities I listed alone are about over 5 Million in population. I wouldn't necessarily call that the minority of the people in TX.
I would say El Paso is Southwestern.
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Old 07-03-2019, 08:53 AM
 
1,534 posts, read 2,753,208 times
Reputation: 3588
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92 View Post
I highly recommend reading "Lone Star" by T.R. Fehrenbach. All Textbooks get history wrong in their own ways, and Fehrenbach makes an effort to tone down his homerism, anti-Catholicism, racism, and Southern Bias, but it still jets out a little here and there, especially his pro-southern attitudes. All and all it is still a decent book.



The History of Angolo Texas is a Southern History. The Texas Revolution was at least the 4th attempt by American Southerners to get Texas to join the Union as a slave state. The only reason that Texas didn't immediately join the Union like a bunch of other states that were briefly their own "Country" (the Republic of California, being the most famous) was specifically because the US wasn't ready to start a war with Mexico and because the Northern States didn't want to add another Slave State. The Texans who rebelled were surprised they weren't immediately allowed to join the Union. For most people that was the main objective.

Texas was spacely populated even during the Spanish and Mexican rule, there were only a handful of permanent settlements at the time of the final and successful Texas Revolution. There are parts of Texas that can claim a legitimate Hispanic history.

San Antonio and Border Region are not really that Southern, sure, but they make up a minority of the state, both in Land and Population.

Texas, along and east of 35 is where the majority of Texas's population currently lives and has lived since the 1830s. Once the illegal Anglo immigrants flooded across the border from the Southern US to meet with the Legal Anglo residents they within 10 years constituted the majority of the people living in Texas.

European immigrants to Texas settled in the country rather than cities and adopted a mostly southern ethos.

Texas, and by that I mean Anglo Texas as its own "Country" and as a US State right up to the civil war is definitely southern.

Directly after the war, it remained definitively southern as the state actively advertised in southern states to try to bring in people to work the plantations that were understaffed after emancipation.

Texas attitudes towards "Carpet Baggers" and "Yankees" are definitively southern values and reactions to the reconstruction.

At this point, Texans considered themselves Southern.

The first attempts to farm west of the 35 farm line attempted to use southern methods, which failed because of the lack of water. Just because the techniques changed doesn't mean that the culture across Central Texas didn't stay predominantly southern.

People will still offer you sweet Tea in Abilene. They follow southern values and religion They don't do this in the west.

There was an active effort by the state to rebrand itself with the cowboy culture that emerged on the southern plains. Texas actively wanted to disassociate themselves with the south. Most Texans never had anything to do with cowboys and remained southern.

I don't think the cowboy culture means that Texas isn't Southern. Texas has great plains culture, but a southern version of it.

Nebraska had and still has a strong cowboy culture, but Nebraska is still a midwestern state, even if the western edge is Western in Culture...Same with the Dakotas and Kansas. Iowa is part of the great plains and doesn't look like Ohio, but it is still part of the midwest, just as central Texas is southern without looking like Mississippi.

You can make an argument that Texas is a mix of cultures as it sits on the border of the west and east and this is true. Texas has a distinct border culture and the southwestern part belongs in the South West.....on the Whole though, Anglo Texas is and has been a southern state as that is the predominant culture.

Yes the big cities are cosmopolitan and international, yes they have lots of transplants. The same is true of Atlanta, and no one says Atlanta is no longer a southern city.

Chicago has a massive influx of Southerners (Great migration) and International immigrants. That doesn't mean Chicago isn't a midwestern city.

Despite the best efforts of Texans to reframe themselves as part of the west instead of the south, we are, fundamentally, a Southern State.
Anglo-Texans are a numerical minority in the state of Texas, and getting more so. The state is close to 40 percent LatinX. Their cultural contributions to the food, music, culture etc of the state cannot be ignored. Texas has away been a border state. While it has strong Southern elements, it is too influenced by Mexico to be a Southern state.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:01 AM
 
Location: "The Dirty Irv" Irving, TX
4,001 posts, read 3,217,824 times
Reputation: 4821
Quote:
Originally Posted by MustermannBB View Post
I'm no expert on the matter, but DFW, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso do not feel southern at all to me. At least not compared to the places I experienced in Louisiana, Georgia or Alabama.
The Texas cities I listed alone are about over 5 Million in population. I wouldn't necessarily call that the minority of the people in TX.
Where are you getting your numbers?? DFW is about 8 million, El Paso is about 1 million, and San Antonio and Austin are a little more and a little less than 2 million respectively.

Dallas is Southern in the sense that Chicago is Midwestern. Most of them get their transplants from their Region (South and Midwest respectively)

Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama are the Deep South. That is different from other southern subregions...upper south for example.

Dallas is Southern in the way that a big transplant filled southern city is Southern. Dallas used to be the biggest inland Cotton Market. Dallas is home to Southern Methodist. Dallas is Southern. Texas on a whole is Southern. That isn't a bad thing.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:16 AM
 
Location: "The Dirty Irv" Irving, TX
4,001 posts, read 3,217,824 times
Reputation: 4821
Quote:
Originally Posted by homeinatx View Post
Anglo-Texans are a numerical minority in the state of Texas, and getting more so. The state is close to 40 percent LatinX. Their cultural contributions to the food, music, culture etc of the state cannot be ignored. Texas has away been a border state. While it has strong Southern elements, it is too influenced by Mexico to be a Southern state.
Anglo Texans dominated "Texas culture" from the 1830s till now, though that is changing.

In 1850, there were more Ethnic Germans in San Antonio than Ethnic Mexicans.

Some Regions have never been Anglo Majority. This is true. Most of Texas has.

Most of Texas has been majority Anglo-Celtic American Southern influenced for 150 years. We have had sizable Hispanic and black minorities for a long time, but unfortunately, they have rarely wielded any real power and the majority of mainstream "Texas" culture has ignored them (Except for food and music)

Until very recently the major cities in Texas have been dominated by native Texans...Texas industrialized at a later date than the north and in a different way, Texas was more about extracting natural resources than midwestern or northern industry in the 1900s.

Houston and Dallas are finally getting a large number of international immigrants a full 100 years after Chicago, NYC, Philly, etc had their influx. Texas is at least 50 years behind the rest of the country when it comes to being a melting pot. The cities have done so rapidly in the last 20-30 years. Texas is changing quickly.

Don't take my word for it this is the general consensus of Texas historians.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:18 AM
 
Location: "The Dirty Irv" Irving, TX
4,001 posts, read 3,217,824 times
Reputation: 4821
Quote:
Originally Posted by C24L View Post
I would say El Paso is Southwestern.
In the same way, Lamar, CO is midwestern, while Colorado as a whole is Western.
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Old 07-03-2019, 10:22 AM
 
Location: "The Dirty Irv" Irving, TX
4,001 posts, read 3,217,824 times
Reputation: 4821
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired View Post
Only few "Texans" try to re-frame the State as not being Southern. For what reasons escapes me but this native deep east Texan knows his family roots and cultural heritage are very deeply set in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and the Carolinas. For that I hold no shame or remorse because my ancestors were individuals just as I am.

Luckily, each of us will be held to God's standards, not the standards of prejudicial and bigoted humans.
Yeah, I mean I don't understand why everyone is so afraid of Texas being Southern.

Sure, there are some ugly parts of history, but it is what it is. Its history is southern, the people are for the most part southern or southern influenced, and they are generally nice people.

Most of the people who tried to reframe Texas as a Western State were actually Northerners who moved to Texas and didn't want the stigma of being "Southern"
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Old 07-03-2019, 11:26 AM
 
5,250 posts, read 6,335,795 times
Reputation: 6216
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People will still offer you sweet Tea in Abilene. They follow southern values and religion They don't do this in the west.
Yeah, no. I grew up in and around Abilene and 'sweet tea' (pre-made, pre-sugared tea) was not a thing while I was growing up. They gave you plain, unsweet tea, and you sugared it yourself. I first had pre-sweetened tea in Alabama. It's 2019, you can get sweet tea (pre-sweetened) all the way to Seattle now.



I don't know why pre-sweetened tea wasn't available, because it is awesome. But it wasn't. And yeah, I'd agree Abilene is generally 'southern', but so is Barstow CA and Gallup NM, in the exact same ways.
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