haciendome tejana

my family has divided loyalties.

my mother was born in south texas; i was born and raised in california.

a little over six years ago i moved to texas for graduate school, and i'll be honest: i hated it. i hated the texas flags every where; i hated that eight out of every ten business establishments contained the word "texas" or its derivative, "tex" in it; the big trucks; their crazy drivers; the bumper stickers (e.g., God Bless Texas; I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could; Remember the Alamo). the endless texas emblems.

as far as i was concerned, texans suffered a strange kind of nationalism. sure, they were american. but first and foremost, they were TEXANS.

my mother was insulted by my disdain. as far as she was concerned, because she was a tejana, i was half. i told her no. i was from california. she persisted. i came from her and she had lived and breathed texas for years of her life. i had la tierra tejana in my blood. like it or not. ugh.

then something happened. i can't say exactly when or how. but i started to kind of like the texas flags here and there. the badass big trucks. and i had to admit that the barbecue in texas was the best i'd ever had. i started to enjoy certain texas emblems. they're unique, and they give me a sense of place.

and even though texas is, by and large, a red state, austin a liberal bubble. and i'm happy there.

so. even though i am in california for the holidays, i was rooting for my longhorns during this evening's rose bowl. though they were the underdog, they played their lonestar hearts out. and now we--the texans--are national champs. :)

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