Reflection: It's following me...

So over Thanksgiving break my family and I went into the city to visit friends who were visiting from Texas. They have a daughter the same age as me, Claire, so obviously our families had a lot of college talk between us.

Apparently where Claire goes to school, there are very few people from Texas, and when other students hear that that's where she's from, there's usually a big reaction. And her father went into a description about how "high identity" states like Texas and New York tend to get bigger reaction than other states. I nearly cried.

But I have to admit he had a point. States with a lot of stereotypes or are very known for certain people/mannerisms (aka "high identity") usually get a bigger reaction from people. I can remember from the first few weeks being here at school, I met a girl from Alaska. She smiled when she told me and said "I love to see people's reactions." She was pale, blonde haired, blue eyed, and looked nothing like the Inuit Eskimo image I had in my head of Alaskans. Minus Sarah Palin. But it took me by surprise because we were all the way in DC, where people in this part of the country think of igloos and dogseld races when they think of Alaska.

These "high identity" states also bring in the idea of "othering" that has been talked about in class. When people think of states such as Texas, California, Alaska, Hawaii, these states are very clearly not like your own, and therefore we're more excited to find out from people what their lives are like there. We assume they must be very different from ours, even when it might not be any more different than someone from Nebraska.