Who do you consider a REAL Texan? (Houston, Midland: transplants, home)

[nativetexasgal]

Who do you consider a REAL Texan? Only native Texans? Any and all residents of Texas? People who are non natives but love Texas as if they were natives?

When I lived in the Washington, D.C. area, if someone asked me where I was from, I always replied that I lived in Virginia at that time but that I was from Texas. That person laughingly told me that he ONLY heard that type of answer from Texans. He said Texans were the most state-proud people he had ever seen. I don't know about that, but what do you think?

As a native Texan whose roots go back six generations, I love Texas very much, but I also realize it's not perfect. I enjoy visiting many other states as well. But, I despise people who willingly choose to move here and then complain about the weather, conservatism, geography, etc.

Would welcome people's thoughts!

[Muhnay]

I was born and raise in Texas. No matter where ever I have lived in this country or abroad, I have always been Texan and will always be Texan, thats what separates the REAL Texan, and the people who have moved here. A REAL Texan feels it to the bone marrow... its something instilled in you from birth, I don't think someone who moves here can fully understand that inner strength, and pride we come by naturally.

Does that answer your question?

[Rakin]

As a native Texan whose roots go back six generations,

Just about all of my family moved here after the Civil War and after 6 generations I'm also pretty deep in the heart of TX.

Being a Texan is a state of mind and hard to define but if you are one you do know it. You've got to have a certain amount of in your face Independence, believe in justice & self defense and be very proud of your heritage.

True Texans can name just about every small town in the hill country and visited south Padre Island, Alamo, Palo Duro Canyon, and the Big Bend. They have an opinion on if Houston or DFW is better and like wise for UT or A & M.

A True Texan can't imagine living anywhere else and always hopes people from the north or CA don't screw it up. We also get to make fun of Oklahoma and OU but do appreciate their football since it's full of Texans.

It's the place you were born and the place you want to be buried.

[Jezer]

All I can say is that having lived in Texas for only a short while, I loved it and really miss it.

I come into contact with many Americans in my line of work, which is at a stately home in England.

If I mention to them where I lived I get annoyed if they try to put the State down, especially if they've never been there.

I do meet some lovely Americans and indeed there was a family from San Angelo there recently.

I know of no other State that displays its flag so widely or of a State so proud of itself.

[TexasHorseLady]

I was actually thinking about this, in an abstract sort of way, the other day. My roots in Texas go back at least four generations through all four grandparents, further with some. We were here before Texas was officially Texas, and fought to make her so.

I realized that Texans think of the land as a living being, as "one of the family". It's not so much that we're proud of ourselves as that we're proud of our State. We love her varied beauties, her independent streak, the fact that she's NOT like everywhere else (and we don't like people coming in and trying to make her so). We have a relationship with our state that I'm not sure many other states do (though I could be wrong) - perhaps it's because our ancestors had to fight so hard for her, perhaps it's because she offers us what we need, whether that be deep green pine forests or wide expanses of sky or the mountains of the Big Bend or the Highland Lakes or the beauty of the Hill Country.

It's a more personal relationship, I think, that a real Texan has with Texas. That may be what defines it.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by nativetexasgal

Who do you consider a REAL Texan? Only native Texans? Any and all residents of Texas? People who are non natives but love Texas as if they were natives?

When I lived in the Washington, D.C. area, if someone asked me where I was from, I always replied that I lived in Virginia at that time but that I was from Texas. That person laughingly told me that he ONLY heard that type of answer from Texans. He said Texans were the most state-proud people he had ever seen. I don't know about that, but what do you think?

As a native Texan whose roots go back six generations, I love Texas very much, but I also realize it's not perfect. I enjoy visiting many other states as well. But, I despise people who willingly choose to move here and then complain about the weather, conservatism, geography, etc.

Would welcome people's thoughts!

To me, it's not a matter of REAL Texan......I was born and raised in West Texas, and only recently moved after spending all of my 50+ plus years save 6 months in Texas. I am 5th generation, and have a great+ grandparent who came with the DeZavala colony to pre-republic Texas. I will always be a Texan, no matter where I live. Someone asked me how I liked being a New Mexican.....well.....I answered as nicely as I could that I love New Mexico, too, but that I was a transplanted Texan!

People can come to Texas...and love it dearly, but unless they were born here, will always be transplants, just as I am a (Texan) transplant to New Mexico, not a New Mexican!

AMEN to the last statement. All I have to say to them...if you don't like it, there are several roads that lead out of the state. Pick one, and go somewhere else, instead of always putting Texas down. I had a bellyfull of that during Midland's boom of the late 1970s/early 80s.

[TexasReb]

Lots of good answers to this very good question, and would agree with all of it.

I just want to add a little something which sums up some of that classic Texas Pride. Some years back there was a story carried in many newspapers about a Texas man and his pregnant wife who were, I believe, in the military, and couldn't return back home for the birth of their child. So, the parents had their family back in Texas dig up some turf and send it to them. The plan was to place the same under the delivery room table so they could honestly say their child had been born on Texas soil! LOL

Now, THAT's Texas Pride!

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

My Mothers family and my Fathers family can trace their roots back to the civil war in Texas.

[fierce_flawless]

Well I wasn't born here but I was raised a Texan and never questioned my "Texan-ness" in relation to my birthplace. I was born in Japan, due to my dad being in the Air Force (and I'm certainly not Japanese due to that! LOL!).. but we returned to Texas when I was 3.5 and my mom's side is all native Texan for generations back, my Dad's as well.

So I think there's a little more to it than where you were born. My family's roots are Texan and Southern above all else. Before Texas, in the early 1800's my family was mostly from Mississippi, NC, SC, Louisiana, and Tennessee. The ones who came to Texas in the 1800's from these other states stayed, well, forever.

It's hard for me... because I will tell you I don't really like it here, and I have plans to move in a few years after having lived in Tx most of my life... but there is a deep down "pull" and loyalty and Texan pride that I cannot deny even though I try real hard! LOL! It's a love-hate thing I guess.

[TexasHorseLady]

It's just a family thing, fierce_flawless. Don't we all have family members we love and sometimes want to get away from?