Horses, Handguns, Hospitality: The Stereotypes That Define Texas
The Texas Story Project.
Tumbleweeds blowing past a lone town of wooden houses and saloons standing tall in the barren desert. Pistol duels are not uncommon on the long single road leading up to the sheriff's office. Boot loving, gun toting, rednecks are riding horses to their oil drilling jobs. Anyone who doesn't work in oil is either a farmer fighting banditos for land or a prospector fighting banditos for gold. Tall cacti are the only natural source of shade and water in the vast, wasteland like desert. To many, this may seem the spitting image of Texas.
Texas isn't quite the set of a wild west movie. It isn't a sprawling urban expanse, or a deep heavily wooded forest. Sure, Texas has all of these to some extent, but none make up the entirety of Texas. Texas is a collage of different environments that are all so different but somehow exist in the same space. The area where farmland ends and woods begin is not awkward to look at. It is something you wouldn't think twice about seeing, because of how naturally they fit together. The biomes and people of Texas have a lot in common. Texans are some of the most diverse people I have ever seen. We all fit together and live in the same space. We fit together like the landscapes. It's a shame that people refer back to stereotypes when describing a Texan.
The fact of the matter is that Texas is one of those places you have to see with your own eyes. It's hard to understand that a place so stereotyped by outsiders, who only understand a small bit of the culture, has such a high diversity of thought present within its borders. Out of every place I've traveled, I have never seen a group of people who can have such different beliefs as the Texans. We all think very differently, we're all over the place. Stereotypes paint us as horse-herding cowboys, but other stereotypes show us to be a hospitable bunch, who just want to make you feel at home. Isn't it funny that people who shout "secede" and "come and take it" would make it their every goal to make you comfortable while you're around them? I find it strange that our stereotypes contradict each other. For instance, why are we all environmentally unaware oil stealers when Austin is recognized for its green, liberal, hipster population? Stereotypes are derived from truths, so who's to say that no one in Texas fits the strangest name we were ever given? I will not deny any stereotypes or labels, because how can people be diverse in thought if some ideas are denied?
I feel no bitterness towards anyone who mislabels us as being any of the many stereotypes we're known for. Instead of getting mad at them, I invite them to experience the vast culture of the population of Texas. I invite them to understand that what defines our state should not be the labels that only represent small chunks of us, but the label we should have earned by our people's vast diversity. By diversity I don't mean the color of our skin; I mean the diversity in our minds and in what we believe as Texans. Being a Texan means whatever you need it to mean because aren't our differences what define us as humans and in that sense as Texans?
William Gerome Ragni is a student from St. Catherine's Montessori. He has lived in Houston his whole life, and is an eighth generation Texan. He has always found overblown stereotypes of Texans to be funny. There is something that he really likes about that kind of character, so he chose to write this essay about that.
Posted December 21, 2017
