Culture of Texas

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The "Lone Star" Belle, postcard, around 1908.
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The culture of

German Texan, Tejanos, Cajuns, Irish, African American, and White Southern
enclaves established before the republic era and admission to statehood.

Texans will tend to acknowledge the five major regions,

Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio
, is an interstate corridor between the three major Texan cities closest to the geographic center, that anchor three different cultural regions of the state.

Texas is bordered by the western prairies, the

Anglo traditions. It includes island communities from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Mexico, southern African American and White Southern populations, and historic tribes of Native Americans. Texas is also larger in size and population than most European nations. Texas is placed in the Southern United States by the United States Census Bureau.[1]

Agriculture

Ranch and cowboy culture

See also:
Texas Cowboy Reunion, and American Cowboy Culture Association

Texas has a strong

country western music. The state's numerous oil tycoons are also a popular pop culture topic as seen in the hit TV series Dallas.[2][3]

Rodeo

In 1997, House Concurrent Resolution No. 21 was adopted by the75th Legislature of the State of Texas, declaring rodeo as the official sport of Texas.[4] The annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the world's largest known rodeo. It is held over 20 days, from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at NRG Park for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as, concert performances from major artists, and carnival rides. The Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo last three weeks in late January and early February. It has many traditional rodeos, but also a cowboy rodeo, and a Mexican rodeo in recent years, that both have large fan bases.[citation needed]

State Fair

Big Tex, the mascot of the State Fair of Texas since 1952

The big

Dallas each year between late September through mid- to late October at Fair Park. Two noteworthy college football games, the Red River Rivalry between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the University of Texas Longhorns, and the State Fair Classic between the Grambling State University Tigers and the Prairie View A&M University Panthers are played at the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park during the State Fair. The State Fair is known for its fried food, particularly the corn dogs. The State Fair is also home to the Texas Star, the tallest Ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere, and Big Tex
, a 55-foot-tall (17 m) cowboy statue.

Other state fairs held in Texas include the

North Texas State Fair in Denton, the South Texas State Fair in Beaumont, and the East Texas State Fair in Tyler
.

History

Main article: History of Texas

The history of Texas, particularly of the old independent

American Old West in Abilene. The Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the state of Texas. The Texas State Historical Association publishes an encyclopedia on Texas history, geography, and culture called the Handbook of Texas.[citation needed
]

In Norway, "Texas" is used as slang for something chaotic and uncontrolled, as influenced from popular Norwegian depictions of cowboy culture and Western literature associated with Texas. "Der var helt texas! (That was totally texas!)" has mostly pejorative connotations but can also refer to a party out of control or a runaway success.[5]

Folklore of Texas

See also:
Tall tales

Texas has a considerable independent body of

Texas War of Independence. The Texas Folklore Society
is the second-oldest folklore organization continually functioning in the United States. Many well-known figures and stories in American folklore are associated with Texas:

State holidays

Texas has several recognized

state holidays
, including:

Art

Architecture

Main article: Architecture of Texas

Music

Main article: Music of Texas

The Lone Star State has helped popularize this musical style throughout the world and made the Texas cowboy an international icon that would forever be identified with country music. Although many people may think of country music when they think of the Lone Star State, Texas actually encompasses a wide variety of ethnic musical genres and regional styles.[7]

Texas has a vibrant live

the University of Texas at Austin campus. Austin City Limits and Waterloo Records run the Austin City Limits Music Festival, an annual music and art festival held at Zilker Park
in Austin.

In

D.R.I., Helstar, La Mafia, the Geto Boys, and ZZ Top. The Houston Symphony and Houston Grand Opera are both attractions of the Houston Theater District
.

Literature

Main article:
Literature of Texas

Sports

Main article: Sports in Texas

Texas is well known for its love of

NFL's Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans on Sundays. Texas high school football fans are famously passionate, and the various teams often become the obsessive pride of the towns they represent. This phenomenon was documented in the 1990 book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream and its popular film and television adaptations. School districts in Texas are sometimes criticized for the amount of money spent on their sports programs and facilities; for example, the Allen Independent School District spent $60 million to open Eagle Stadium in 2012, only to see it closed in 2014 due to serious structural problems.[8] However, this spending is often driven by local residents—the Allen stadium was built using funds from a publicly approved bond issue.[9]

Minor league baseball is also well-attended, with three teams in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and five in the Double-A Texas League
.

Other popular sports in Texas include golf (which can be played year-round because of the South's humid climate), basketball (the state's three NBA teams, the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Dallas Mavericks, have all won league titles), fishing, and auto racing, particularly at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Lacrosse, originally played by some of the indigenous tribes, is a visible sport and growing. Soccer is a popular participatory sport—especially among children—but as a spectator sport, it does not yet have a large following despite three Texas teams in Major League Soccer (FC Dallas, Austin FC, and Houston Dynamo FC). Ice hockey has been a growing participatory sport in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since the Minnesota North Stars became the Dallas Stars in 1993. Minor league professional hockey has since grown and is also home to the San Antonio Rampage and Texas Stars of the American Hockey League and the Allen Americans of the ECHL. Texas was home to many Central Hockey League and Western Professional Hockey League teams prior to the leagues' dissolution. Some of the organizations involved with the former leagues launched junior ice hockey teams in the North American Hockey League and the league headquarters were moved to Frisco.[10]

Rodeo is the official sport of Texas; see § Rodeo for more information.

Media

Media devoted to Texas culture include Texas Monthly, a monthly magazine headquartered in Austin that takes as its premise the idea that Texas began as a distinctive place and remains so. It publishes articles on all things culturally Texan, with past pieces on such topics as Texas politicians, the Texas Rangers, Texas cuisine, and true crime incidents in Texas. In 2013, the magazine established a food writing position entirely devoted to barbecue.

Cuisine

Main article: Texan cuisine
See also:
Tex-Mex cuisine

Important aspects of Texas cuisine include

Tex-Mex cuisine
.

Other

The Texas Folklife Festival is an annual event sponsored by the University of Texas at San Antonio's Institute of Texan Cultures celebrating the many ethnicities represented in the population of the state of Texas. Thousands attend the three-day event each year, which features food, crafts, music, and dances from ethnic groups that immigrated to Texas.

A 2015 report by

non-profit organization Mission: Readiness found that 73% of military-aged youth in Texas were physically ineligible for military service due to issues with obesity and ill-health, a rate much higher than the national average.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Census Regions and Divisions of the United States" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  2. ^ Dallas (Drama, Romance), Larry Hagman, Ken Kercheval, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, Lorimar Productions, Lorimar Telepictures, Lorimar Television, April 2, 1978, retrieved December 28, 2020{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ Arnold, Richard (August 2, 2018). "40 years on from the TV series, Dallas is much more than oil barons and big hats". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  4. ^ "Rodeo – not football – is the official sport of Texas. Here's how that happened". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2023-12-26.
  5. ^ Barford, Vanessa (October 23, 2015). "Why do Norwegians use 'texas' to mean 'crazy'?". BBC News.
  6. ^ "Swamp Thing of Ottine: Your Friendly Neighborhood Bigfoot". Texas Hill Country. 2018-01-26. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
  7. ^ Hartman, Gary. The History of Texas Music. N.p.: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. Print.
  8. ^ "Cracks force closure of $60M stadium in Allen, Texas". Espn.go.com. February 28, 2014. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  9. ^ "Allen (Texas) High School ready unveils $60M football facility". Espn.go.com. September 1, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  10. ^ "NAHL contacts". North American Hockey League. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  11. ^ Alvarado, Beatriz, "Too fat, too frail to serve, report states", Corpus Christi Caller-Times/Stars and Stripes, October 10, 2015
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