Growing up in Houston, Texas, I saw the mechanisms of Ethnocentrism hard at work. Ethnocentrism is loosely defined as my people are better than your people.[1] Which can best be seen on bumper stickers in Texas stating “Texas Secede” or in Alaska, “Alaska and the Lower 48” and I even saw it between Houston and Dallas with the pride of the football teams and oil or no oil. It may have looked like JR had oil in the TV show Dallas, but oil is synonymous with Houston. Which is why our football team was named the Houston Oilers! While this is Ethnocentrism at its finest, these were also our values and our culture. [2](PSU)
From Houston I moved to Naval Air Station Adak, AK. Adak was the second to last populated island in the Aleutian Chain; approximately 3 hours by plane from Anchorage to Adak and halfway between Seattle and Tokyo. When I deplaned, I walked down a flight of stairs onto the tarmac and not onto a jet way that lead to marble floors. Then I did a big circle and did not see a single building over two stories tall. Gone were my beautiful skyscrapers with nothing to replace them with but huge mountains as far as the eye could see. I was scared and it was then I really knew I wasn’t in Houston anymore. It was shortly thereafter that my ego ran right straight into the US Navy, an entity with a culture all of its own. They told me who I could make friends with, they spoke a funny language made up of acronyms and to make things worse, it was freezing cold outside. The wind never ever stopped blowing! In fact, Adak was knick named “The Birthplace of the Winds.”
It was while in Adak and Anchorage that I found that Alaskans had a similar pride and Ethnocentrism as Texans. For real Texans nothing else exists. For Alaskans it’s Alaska and the Lower 48. Roughly translated, we’re up here and they are down there. Then I realized that Alaska is probably 50% Texan because what is in Alaska? Oil! They also took a special pride in being able to work in any kind of weather. Weather that stops major city’s from working in the Lower 48, was a mere trifle in Alaska. Not only did they work, their children went to school. That’s how tough Alaskan’s are. This is Ethnocentric pride as well.
From Alaska, we were relocated to Omaha, NE, then to Jacksonville Beach FL, where I spent two years on the beach. We then moved up to Washington D.C. where at a networking event I called someone “dude” and then said something was “cool”, Goodness did they stare at me. I needed to shake off the sand and do what people in D.C. do, get involved with politics. After D.C. was our first move down to Atlanta, GA. Over the course of 15 years, I grew to love each place we were transferred to and began looking forward to the new things that this culture and set of values would bring to me. I finally realized that it wasn’t Texas and no place else but Texas and every place else.[3] (PSU) It had taken all of the living, raising of children and reaching out to new friends that each place became home. Then, when it was time to leave, it was with sadness in my heart for I had come to love the people, their customs and what their traditions brought.
Now I call Atlanta, Georgia home and am so proud to be a “Georgia Peach.” It took a long time for me to be able to call Atlanta home. Ethnocentricity had been removed from me[4] (PSU) but now as I look over my life, I feel it creeping back into my heart, in Georgia.
[1] Drever, H. E. (1952). Hammonsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
[2] OLEAD 410: Leadership in a Global Context. (n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2016, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802572/discussion_topics/11373476?module_item_id=21179057
[3] OLEAD 410: Leadership in a Global Context. (n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2016, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802572/discussion_topics/11373476?module_item_id=21179057
Barbara,
I also agree that you should be proud of who you are, and when you’ve come from. I think you did a wonderful job of navigation the transitions you faced, and adapted well to the culture in which you rooted within. I agree that rather than turning to an ethnocentric perspective you were mature and found common ground between the different cultures and the one in which you call your own.
Thanks for sharing!
Jade
Hi, Barabara! Thank you for your response. This enables me to see a bigger framework and more indepth understanding of ethnocentric views of those places.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. While growing up in Texas I did see differences in the way they saw people from other states, especially Louisiana, Alabama, New York and New Jersey, frankly any place outside of the state especially “Up North.” This was due to the fact that “Yankees thought we were stupid because we talked more slowly and with a Texas accent.” Many a “yankee” was duped in business deals when the migration from the North to the South began.
Today, Texas is very globally minded. Many companies have locations all over the world and vice a versa. However, there still lives within them a special pride that separates them from the rest of our Country. You will still see the “Texas Secede” bumper stickers, men in expensive suits wearing cowboy boots and the annual Offshore Technology Conference or OTC where people from all over the globe attend yearly.
The one event that still tells the tale of Texas is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo coupled with the Saltgrass Trail Ride; where people travel the original Salt Grass Trail in horse drawn covered wagons for about 100 miles and even shut down a lane of the freeway as they ride all the way to the Rodeo for the official kick off with “Go Texan Day.”
In Alaska, they were just superiorly minded. They were so far away from everyone else that it was basically a country unto itself. In fact, while I lived there I had to keep reminding myself that we were part of the USA and not in a foreign country.
There was a pioneer spirit of the Alaskans and respect for the Native Aleutians that was different from my experience with the Lower 48. They were protected and honored in a differential manner. As an example, the Rural Alaskan Television Network, would stop all regular TV programming and only televise the meetings of the different Tribal Councils. This would last for a few weeks every Summer. This was different from going to a demonstration of a life once lived in the Lower 48. This was their real meetings for government and demonstrations of each tribes dances and traditions. I think this is why Alaskans respect their land so much. Every Alaskan cares about the fisheries, herd quality and the earth itself much more than any other state i’ve seen save Oregon.
Hi, Barbara
Thank you for showing examples from your personal impressions. From your experiences did you notice the difference between the way people from Texas perceived people from neighboring states and people from Alaska?
Thank you for your comment. I was trying to reduce a complex term to layman’s language, in order to provide a clear framework for my own experience.
Hi Barbara,
“Ethnocentrism is an “exaggerated tendency to think the characteristics of one’s own group or race is superior to those of other groups or races”” (Drever, 1952, p. 86, as cited in PSU WC, 2016). I think it is a good thing to be proud of who you and where you come. However I think that pride becomes ethnocentrism when superiority is perceived over other groups. I really like how when you arrived in Alaska you were able to find similarities and common ground between their culture and you own rather than resorting ethnocentrism. I think that was very intelligent and mature of you.
References:
PSU WC (2016) Lesson 2 Introduction to Culture. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802572/modules/items/21179054