My first trip to San Antonio was in March of last year, when I came to visit Trinity with my dad. Along with visiting the school, we also had about a day and a half to tour the city, and in that short amount of time one of the Texan stereotypes became quite apparent to me: Texans are very proud of their state. This loyal attitude struck me when we were walking around an old neighborhood just south of the downtown area. This neighborhood was lined with old but mainly well-kept mansions from the Civil War era. But more than the stunning architecture, what really intrigued me were the displays of the Texan state flag. It surprised me that people even owned their state’s flag, much less decorated the exterior of their homes with it. No one hangs the state flag on their private property in California. In fact, I have lived there all my life, and I couldn’t even draw a picture of my state flag if you asked me—I only know that a bear is depicted on it. The more I think about it, the Texan flag is the only one out of all the other states that I would recognize. Why shouldn’t the flag be hung proudly? It is, after all, a very nice-looking flag.
The Texas bumper sticker is another phenomenon that indicated patriotism in this state to me. There’s the conservative “Texas is bigger than France” sticker, the proud “American by birth, Texan by the grace of God” sticker, and, my personal favorite, the “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could” sticker. If I ever get my car out here, the third bumper sticker will be a necessary addition to it. In contrast, I’ve never had a patriotic Californian bumper sticker on my car; I’ve never even seen a patriotic Californian bumper sticker. Are you noticing a theme here?
My next encounter with Texan patriotism was during my first week at Trinity. During New Student Orientation, we attended an event where we played games to meet new people. In one of the games, we were told to start an argument with another person. Knowing my opponent was a Texan, I decided to have some fun and argued, “California is better that Texas.” He must not have realized that I was kidding, because I could tell by the look on his face that he strongly disagreed with me. The ensuing argument was really pretty funny.
Now, I’m not implying that Californians don’t love their home (I think California is a beautiful, opportune place to live), nor am I meaning that all Texans are patriotic. But from my short experience, I’ve seen a lot more state pride in my past few months in San Antonio than I have in 18 years in southern California. I think the reasons for this difference are largely political, but since this isn’t a political blog, I’m not going to delve into that subject. My goal is to record my observations of the new culture I’m living in and compare them to the way of life back home.
