I stood at the counter of my local grocery store exchanging pleasantries with the cashier, as I am wont to do, and this time it only took twenty seconds for the nice lady to ask what I’m always asked out here in Southern California, “Where are you from? Are you from Texas?” You have to pity the poor people in California; they don’t know any better than to assume if someone has a Southern accent, they’re from Texas ( as if the state of Texas counts as a Southern state, which I say is questionable because everyone knows Texas is its own animal.)
I’m a transplanted Southerner who hails from the Mississippi Delta, and although I am now long in another region, it is no influence on the armor I wear around my Southern DNA. It is its own protective shield, a source of self-identification, and I see the world and its people through the focused lens of my Southerness, which couldn’t be more convenient, for it simplifies everything.
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Claire Fullerton Author 