WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ‘TEXAN’ TODAY?
For all its myth, immigration has always been at the core of our history — expressed most recently by Asians
What does it mean to be a Texan? It means to be an immigrant.
As Texans we have been ridiculously obsessed for over a century with ourselves, our special if not exceptional place in American history, our self-professed superiority — despite the current state of our football — and our outsized role in determining the fate of America if not, in fact, the world. As my colleague and ultra-talented keyboard player Lawrence Wright wrote for The New Yorker, “America’s future is Texas,” and then wrote a book about it. My own book said the same years earlier.
To be a Texan today, on the cusp of the second decade of the 21st century, now means to be that most American of things: an immigrant. There are all kinds of immigrants, of course. There are those who arrive from foreign countries right here in America, otherwise known as the other 49 states. There are those who arrive from neighboring or nearby nations in Latin America — historically Mexico, from which Texas itself originates. Yet increasingly being a Texan now means coming from far across the world: Asia.
By way of a little background, I got to thinking about this because our esteemed and frequently missing-in-action governor, Republican Greg Abbott, seems to enjoy pontificating a lot about the meaning and greatness of Texas. He likes to equate it, particularly on Twitter, with employment growth and the oil business, both conveniently during his term.
The pity is that Abbott’s in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to Texas existentialism.
“Texas,” he wrote, “is a jobs juggernaut.”
The United States “is now a net exporter of oil,” he wrote the other day. “Texas is a big reason why America will be free from the dictates of OPEC.” He said that just as the Dallas Federal Reserve reported that the crash in the price of oil has made the Permian Basin a drag on the state’s job creation. Far larger literary giants have sized up Texas with far more insight than our governor.
“I dearly love Texas,” wrote the late Molly Ivins, “but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part and discuss it only with consenting adults.” John Steinbeck, a Californian, wrote: “Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is an obsession in every sense of the word.”
T.R. Fehrenbach, author of the classic history “Lone Star,” said: “Texas mystique (has been) created by the chemistry of the frontier in the crucible of history and forged into an enduring state of heart and mind.” Eloquent as it is, I’m not sure of that; Texas is a place much more alive than the meeting of history and geography. Today, that’s like saying
New England is really just the province of the Pilgrims or Pennsylvania is just for Quakers.
To these observations, I offer two new pieces of evidence because the story of Texas is no longer, right or wrong, a story rooted in the vast landscape. It is instead a blur, a bustling people on the move. Until recently, the people I call the New Texans have been young people with two distinct origins. Latino millennials who were born in Texas or immigrated as young children from Latin America. As of last year, Latino kids still accounted for half of the public school students in our state. Latinos, numbering over 11 million, will outnumber Anglos literally any day now, for the first time since the last Spanish census in 1820.
The other New Texans are also migrants: just from other states. Most have come, according to Census Bureau data, from the most populous U.S. states: New York, California, Illinois and California. So now, Texas ranks 7th in the country for its share of these young people who are — right about now — in their mid-20s, according to the Brookings Institution. Houston has drawn people from Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis. Dallas has attracted people from Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami. Austin? Orange County and Providence, Rhode Island. San Antonio? Arizona, New Mexico and the Chicago suburbs.
But I’ve hidden the ball a bit here (something neither the damned Aggies nor my beloved Longhorns seem able to do). The next wave of immigrants is already here: I call them the Next Texans. And no they are not arriving by crossing the Rio Grande.
Instead, they have already come from China and India. Over 4 million people of Asian origin are Texans now. Texas ranks third in the nation as a destination for Chinese immigrants, only behind California and New York. As likely evidenced by the Houston turnout for India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, Texas is the second-most popular destination for migrants from the subcontinent and the world’s largest democracy.
Nearly all the population growth in Texas is driven by people once termed minorities; today, they — Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans — are the emerging majority, the state demographer, Lloyd Potter, recently explained to a Senate committee.
“In 2005, before the recession, approaching 70 percent of immigrants, people coming from other countries were coming from Latin American countries; in Texas’ case mostly from Mexico. By 2015 this has shifted pretty dramatically. With the recession we saw pretty much a standstill of net migration from Mexico and Central and South America and that has not really rebounded,” Potter also testified.
“Listening to the news you may think we’re being overwhelmed by migration from Mexico and Central and South American countries, but really it’s pretty level,” he added, “there is positive net immigration, but it’s not anything like it was in the previous decade.”
This week, State Rep. D.F. “Rick” Miller of Sugar Land dropped his re-election bid after fellow Republicans chastised him for remarks about his Asian opponents. Lost in the rapid news cycle is that two Asian challengers in the Republican primary signals not just demographic change but continuity. Asians, like Latinos before them, will mix it up on the left and right, largely renewing values that we hold to be Texan.
The reality of being a Texan is that nearly half of us are not actually from here originally; I was born in New Mexico and did not arrive, I confess, until the age of two. Just like David Crockett, though, I got here as quick as I could. Six in 10 Texans were born here — which means everybody else came from somewhere else. Yes, we should, as a matter of manners if nothing else, honor the rituals of Texas from quinceañeras
to rodeos.
But that also means never forgetting their, and our, true roots: the vaquero was a Spanish invention long before there was a Texas. And now we have new rituals and words added to our language: a new lunar new year approaches as does Republic Day in 2020, just before the rodeo, in fact.
Welcome, y’all. Because if you really know your Texas history, what it is to be a Texan is to be that most American of figures: an immigrant.