Home State.

This is something I've been wondering and hopefully the people of this forum will help answer my questions.The basic question is:
How much does one's State (e.g., Alabama) define one's identity?Do people associate themselves more with a region, such as seeing themselves as a Southerner or a New Englander or is it common to identify with their state?
I know people from Texas and other such large states identify with their state, but I'm not sure about smaller states.If so what does being a Nebraskan, e.t.c. mean to you?Finally I am aware that there are many who do not identify with such things.

Except for the common ones you mentioned like southerner or new englander, and perhaps mid-westerner, I think people here in the US identify more with their state rather than region.For reasons I don't fully understand. Im the son of an immigrant so I was raised identifying more with my parents country and our culture, it was everywhere I went. But, I think it may have something to do with supporting sports teams. There's a big affiliation with team and state. Both professional and collegiate so it covers a (lot)* of ground.*don't want to piss off Rrhain spelling it (alot).

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

pushing your daily allotment? I've been through parts of all states except 4 in the middle, and lived north east west and south as well as mid-west (michigan), to say nothing of living in two provinces in canada and being through most others, and parts of mexico.I consider myself a northamerican.But moving back near where I grew up and smelling spring sure brought back memories.Enjoy.

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Funny you should ask this, as I spent an hour the other evening memorising all the states and their locations. Amazing what I can come up with in an attempt to avoid my already late VAT return!

Ok, referring back to my post above, I have now memorised the locations of all of the states. How the hell is Michigan mid-WEST??? It's no wonder that I was always severely confused by your geography, until I ignored everything I had been told and just sat down with a map!

Strange, because what led me to posting this was that I also recently did the exact same thing. I decided that since China and America are such big, important countries I should know the names and locations of their various sub-regions.

For me, it was more in the hope of staving off Alzheimer's for a while longer Right, where's my map of China

Try learning all the moons in the solar system.You get a cookie of you can.

Well, to some extent I think I do both. I'm from Michigan, and have lived here for most of my life (since I was six). I think that being a Michigander has some unique qualities to it that no other State can claim. We are, after all, a peninsular State, being surrounded by The Great Lakes (Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circum spice), making us distinctive from any of our neighbors. So as a State, I think we're sufficiently different from others, such that I generally associate myself primarily with my State, more so than with any of my neighbors.And speaking of neighbors, look who we have to our south...Ohio and Indiana. Why would I want to associate myself with either of those two States? At the same time, however, I do consider myself a part of the upper mid-west and do not mind being associated with Wisconsin, Minnesota, and/or to some extent...even Ontario.

It depends on the state, but more than that, I think, it depends on the person. In my case, I'm a Virginian, but I'm not an idiot... promise.New Yorkers identify themselves with their state much more than people from most states do IMO.I think the more one travels and becomes acqainted with other regions the less they identify with their state. Personally, I haven't travelled much, but both my parents are from New York. And I've always tried to read about people in different places and times. In recent times, I think the internet has helped people to think outside of the box that is the state and region they live in. It's easier to become more wordly, if you will, and I think that this results in less state/region indentifying. On the whole I'd say this is a good thing.

I've always identified myself as being a Texan, even as it sets me somewhat off from being an American. Not sure why, but I guess it has rubbed off on me from the other prideful Texans I've seen in my home state. But now, even after ten years in Germany, it still comes naturally to me, simply to say, "I'm from Texas" and then, "from Dallas." This always elicits a smile as so many Germans still hold the characters from the Dallas TV series quite near and dear to their hearts. My honesty comes though at some cost over the past eight years as G.W. Bush has soiled tremendously the reputations of Texans everywhere.

I'm originally from Alaska, and I still take great pride in calling myself Alaskan. I moved away for graduate school, then to take a job, but even though it has now been 20 years I still consider it but a temporary move!To be more precise, I'm from Southeast Alaska (geographically, about midway up British Columbia), and at this point my feelings of being from the Pacific Northwest has sort of become stronger than my feelings about being from Alaska.So I guess it's becoming the fact that I am now identifying more with my home region than my home state.By the way, yes, "American" is just what it says in my passport. I consider my US citizenship more of a legal fact than an emotional tie. My emotional ties are to the Northwest in general (including the Canadian part of it), and Southeast Alaska specifically.

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Speaking personally, I find few things more awesome than contemplating this vast and majestic process of evolution, the ebb and flow of successive biotas through geological time. Creationists and others who cannot for ideological or religious reasons accept the fact of evolution miss out a great deal, and are left with a claustrophobic little universe in which nothing happens and nothing changes.
-- M. Alan Kazlev

I guess that, as Deftil said, it depends on the state. Some states have stronger identities than others, no?Over here, some counties have very strong identities, despite (or perhaps because of) having much, much smaller size than US states. Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cornwall spring to mind. People from those counties are very likely to identify with them strongly, often in preference to national identity.Other counties, such as my own, Leicestershire, don't really have a collective identity at all.Wouldn't it be similar with states?Mutate and Survive.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Here in Ireland the counties have very strong individual identities, even though they are far smaller than US states. This isn't too surprising given that most of them have had hundreds of years to build up an identity or even over a thousand years in certain cases such as County Meath and Kildare since they existed as the kingdom of Mide since at least 100 AD.

I've spoken to many Europeans who have lived in America for an extended period of time and I often hear high praise for the Pacific NorthWest. What in particular makes it a special place for you?