"It's as if you grafted South Carolina onto the suburbs of New Jersey," said Robert Lang, a demographer and director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "This is a cultural divide that's on a national scale."
-- "So Close, Yet So Far Apart," WaPo, Nov 16, 06
The article's about the big, big divide between northern Virginia -- NoVa, as it was referred to on all the ride boards at college -- and the rest of the state. Having bounced all over the state from childhood to adulthood, I feel qualified to say that yeah, this article rings pretty true in terms of how distinct many different regions in Virginia are.
That said, I don't think "distinct" is the prelude to ranking the regions on some sort of scale. So I have to admit, reading stuff like this ...
Paige Grainger, a fundraiser for nonprofit groups, was born in Alexandria. Her mother was from Charlottesville. But, she explained to a group of working-mother friends gathered for a glass of red wine last week, she doesn't think of herself as a Virginian. The conservative bent of state politics is embarrassing, she said. And the recent passage of the ban on same-sex marriage makes her angry, especially because it passed on the day two gay friends bought a house on her street."I struggle a lot," she said. "When talking to people who don't know how different NoVa is, I don't say I'm from Virginia because I don't want them to think I'm in the South. That carries such baggage. That's not a part of me." In election years, especially, she finds herself saying, "I can't believe I live in a red state."
Wendy Moniz, an advertising executive who has lived with her husband and children in Alexandria for nine years, knows that feeling. "I don't live in the South. That makes me think of debutantes and gun racks," she said. "I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon line. I'm a Northerner. I can't be a Southerner. This can't be the South. No way." When people ask her where she's from, she never says Virginia. "I say I'm from the D.C. area."
... really chafes. It seems to me, ten years and 3000 miles from my days in the Old Dominion, that this kind of us-versus-them thinking is an uncanny echo of the national dialogue prior to the Civil War.
Nobody should be surprised if the phrase "Northern Aggression" begins popping up again, eh?
Did "northern aggression" ever go away? Earlier this year, a friend of mine got way-laid into "conversation" at a B&B breakfast table (in southern Virginia, actually -- they were following a bluegrass trail) with a gentleman using that exact phrase. Out of the blue on a complete stranger, who certainly hadn't brought up the subject of politics!
I do whole-heartedly support all efforts to reduce red vs. blue state bickering, though. I personally blame Karl Rove for a lot of it, and if he drops off the national stage after his protege GW leaves office (with no direct successor in sight), maybe things will improve!
Posted by: ambient | 2006.11.16 at 10:41
You know, I grew up in Reston and always thought of the North as "us" and the South as "them," instinctively. I assumed the Mason-Dixon was somewhere around Manassas. And living in the Pacific Northwest, I say I'm from DC too; culturally, it's closer to the truth than saying I'm from Virginia. I don't hate southern VA; I went to school in Williamsburg and loved it in a lot of ways. But at W&M, the history prof who taught the Civil War class did in fact refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression. And there are a lot of people down there who are still kind of fighting that war. Plenty of "Lee surrendered, I didn't" bumper stickers. So, I just don't think of myself as being from "Virginia," really.
Posted by: Sheila | 2006.11.16 at 23:48
I moved to Virginia in 1998. I lived in S.W. Virginia for seven years then relocated to Alexandria in 2005. I am originally from Arizona. I have never thought of VA as a Southern state.
The whole Civil War obsession is over my head. While we discussed it in Arizona, it really isn't an "all consuming" aspect of identity/history like it is in North Carolina etc. I remember during the year I lived in NC a women who was like a 10th generation NC-er called me a "Yankee". It completely blew my mind. I said, "oh I am from Arizona and we weren't a state until 1912." With all seriousness she said, "Yea, well you woulda swung that way!" The whole exchange was/is just absurd to me.
To upset Southerners when they bring up the Civil War now I always ask the to clarify which one, just to make sure we aren't discussing the Spanish Civil War etc.
Posted by: molly | 2006.11.19 at 18:18
I dated a fellow from Virginia. In his family the Civil War was always called "the recent unpleasantness" which sounds better than "northern aggression" until you realize . . . uh, recent?
He had been living up Nawth for a number of years, and told me that when "The Civil War" premiered on PBS and everyone was watching it, he was fascinated by his Philadelphian co-workers' reaction, which was basically: "I didn't know that about a) Stonewall Jackson b) The Battle of Bull Run c) McClellan d) insert kewl factoid here!" Whereas he knew every single general, battle and battalion gambit because 1776-1865 (with a special emphasis on the last four years of that period) was the sum total of the American History curriculum in Virginia public schools during the 60's and 70's. He said, "I couldn't figure out why they weren't taught every detail about Antietam and Manassas, and they couldn't figure out how I graduated high school without a clue as to who led the troops up San Juan Hill."
Posted by: Shotrock | 2006.11.20 at 16:21
Shortrock, your beau's history education mirrored mine. I am convinced that the reason I got a 4 when I took the AP American History test was because our history lessons more or less stopped right around the Industrial Revolution*. We had an essay question on the AP test on "the civil rights movement" and I was like, "Do they mean tthe Civil Rights Act of 1875? Because that's all I know."
On the other hand, I do know me some American history from 1607 to 1877.
* To be fair, we did spend a riveting three weeks covering World Wars I and II. Compare that to the three months we spent on the Civil War.
Posted by: Lisa | 2006.11.20 at 17:38