The Varied Latino-Ness Of Texas and California

Currently, I am sojourning in my native land, Los Angeles. I can tell you it’s great to be back! But since I’ve moved ever closer to become a Tejana it’s always interesting to try and explain to Californianos what the difference is between the Latinos in Califas and the ones in Texas (mind you there are some very obvious ones, such as my best friend here is Salvadorian whereas I haven’t yet run into one in Texas).

Last night I ventured to make one big difference. On average, I find the Latinos in Texas to be much closer to being bilingual than the Latinos in California. This is by no means a hard and fast rule, but a general observation and nothing more. Secondly, there’s probably a lot more variation of Latino nationalities in California than there are in Texas — anyone who’s spent time in Texas can tell you that Hispanic is pretty much full code for Mexican-ish.

There are other differences, too. The food is definitely one — don’t get me wrong I love some Tex-Mex but LA has some great Mexican and Salvadorian food. Then there are things like the type of music that gets listened to; I’ve been working on becoming a Tejana for several years now but I still can’t get down to Tejano music.

But I suppose the most important thing about the differences between California and Texas Latino is that, when it counts, these differences don’t seem to be too big at all. A night spent in the company of good friends in LA was just as much fun as one spent doing the same thing in San Antonio: Same Spanglish, same chistes and same camaraderie.