I used to see a bumper sticker occasionally on the road that said, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could!”
It’s a phenomenon that always struck me as odd: people who move to Texas on purpose seem to really love Texas. This includes lots of Canadians. Canadians!
I was born and grew up in Waco, Texas and did not see what the big deal was. We didn’t even have mountains (that I’d seen yet, anyway). Boring! I mean, also I grew up in Waco in the 80s and 90s, which was no hotbed of multicultural thought. “What do we have here that’s cool?” I’d think. “The Dr. Pepper Museum and the Suspension Bridge? Lame.”
Boy did the Branch Davidians show me!
Texas is really big and super diverse — actually, so much more diverse than people think. Houston was ranked in 2024 as THE most diverse city in the country! Did you know that? I didn’t know that, but it’s easily believable. They have a Chinatown with actual street names in Mandarin next to English. Wow!
This is a good place to add a reminder, actually: if you haven’t seen that show Mo, you really should.
Anyway, Texas is real, real big, and kind of like India (I’m told) it might as well be divided up into several pretty distinct regions and areas. Here’s my favorite totally scientific explanation from one of my favorite dark comedies, Bernie:
All this said, especially if you’re part of the dominant racial group like I am, all that diversity isn’t something you’ll notice if you’re not looking for it, meandering into the parts of town where Not the White People live. I went to school with plenty of Black kids, but there was only one Latino kid in my class, and he kind of kept to himself. Thinking about it now, he probably didn’t speak much English, which is something that hadn’t occurred to me.
I don’t think I even ever heard anyone speak Spanish in real life (and not on the radio) until I was well into elementary school. And this was in Texas, where the Latino population sits at over 40%! Where were they? Not in my school, hailed at the time for its diversity (about an even divide between Black and white kids, more economically diverse than anything else, which is important for a school).
It wasn’t until middle school that I saw my first Mexican “baile folklorico” performance and was blown away. “THE BOYS ARE DANCING WITH THE GIRLS?? And they look happy doing it?? And the girls get to wear those beautiful gigantic dresses?? Why don’t I get to wear those beautiful gigantic dresses and dance with boys??”
That was the moment I knew I was missing out. (Early happy ending aside: boys in Mexico really do want to dance with me and are openly romantic. It is fabulous.)
Alas, it stopped there, at least at the time, as the racism that was naturally soaked into the culture had soaked into me as well. And with it, of course, comes fear. Because you can step over to the other side(s), but it’s hard and anxiety-inducing. Will they like you? Will they be nice? Will they resent you, make fun of you? I hadn’t personally designed the classification of Latinos in Texas as second-rate citizens, but I was a descendent of those who had.
I believe it’s that mix of shame and fear that keeps most people hanging back instead of taking the risk of popping over to get to know the neighbors. We fear what’s different, especially if we know that our ancestors had their knees on their ancestors’ backs. No one ever officially kissed and made up about it, and no reparations were ever made, either, perpetuating inequalities for generations that are still easily visible. I mean, just look at the statistics. I’d be mad.
It felt a bit like avoiding a friend who you suspected might have found out you were spreading rumors about them; you wanted to avoid a possible confrontation, because should one arise, there was no way you’d not come out looking like a toad.
So in high school, I didn’t take Spanish. I took German, the language of my ancestors and also a language that today, truth be told, is not all that useful.
Then I went to college in Indiana, where I was an “outsider” practically on the level of the international students. Most of the student body came from places that were a maximum three-hour drive from campus. Lots went home at least one weekend a month, and we “outsiders” learned to create out own little international enclaves.
And that’s how I got to Mexico: I met and made friends with Mexican exchange students, and people from all over the world. I remember having to clarify with friends back home in Texas: “No, I don’t mean Hispanics, I mean, like, people from the actual country of Mexico.” Because in Texas, calling someone “Mexican” was practically a slur — a signal that you didn’t know or care where Latinos there were from, but rather that you recognized as Not American.
Basically, I had to leave the often uncomfortable racial dynamics of Texas to realize what great, quality people one could find hailing from basically anywhere on earth. “Oh! How did I not realize this?”
I am embarrassed to admit that this was any kind of revelation at all, but what can I say? No one can explain the grammatical rules of their own language unless they’ve specifically, intentionally, studied them. It’s the same with baked-in cultural habits.
Lucky for me, my specialty wound up being language and Sociology, which is its own kind of decoding, but of society.
So here I am, many years later, finally appreciating the Texas I grew up in, learning all kinds of things I never did in Texas History (pro tip: the Mexicans are actually not the bad guys).
Since I left, Latino culture in general is having A Moment, which I’m glad of. When I was headed to Mexico in 2002, most people would raise their eyebrows, widen their eyes, and say, “Why?!”
But things are different. Now when I return to Texas and say I live in Mexico, people say, “Oh, cool!”
And this year, I visited McAllen, a well-known border town for the first time. How had I never realized what cool places might be right there along the divide? Well, I know exactly how I didn’t realized: racism made the idea that any place more Mexico than the US would be implicitly worse.
But it is not. It is awesome.
And now I can say, for the first time, that I feel like a proud Texan: proud of the diversity of my state, proud of the variety of language, of people, of food, of ideas. I even wear a cowboy hat now sometimes.
Y’all know I love Tiny Desk Concert, and I was excited to come across a Texas born and bread band on it…who spoke and sang entirely in Spanish. It made my little Tex-Mex heart swell with pride.
Actually, this blog was going to be a lot shorter and mostly for the purpose of showing you this video to enjoy on your Sunday, but I got carried away. So finally, without further ado: the Edinburgh, Texas native band, Grupo Frontera!
Y’all are going to love these guys.
Beautiful gigantic dresses! Yes, sure captured my Canadian heart at a young age, 65 years ago give or take. Maybe watching Zorro on tv? I still am fascinated by the colourful dresses.
I lived in Houston less than two years, so I didn't know about the different "parts" of the State. Thanks for the info and two videos! I did have a set of soft-cover books which explained to "us Easterners" the interpretation of words we couldn't undersand (i.e., "Would you like a glass of 'whale' water?" I couldn't understand why the water-softener man was talking about water that sprang up from a sea creature.) I wish I stillll had them, but they were part of the down-sizing I did when I moved to Mexico.