On a trip to Texas, I realized that parts of my life would be better if I lived there
When our Greyhound pulled into Waco, Texas, the first thing I noticed is that the bus station doesn’t have digital screens with the departures and arrivals. Instead, there was a corkboard with individual letters spelling out the cities, somewhat similar to what you’d see at a movie theater. It seemed like I had just arrived on the set of a western.
I was there with my then research and romantic partner to conduct four interviews for our study on queer college students’ experiences with identity and community.
I was scared of Waco. My then-partner grew up in College Station, home of Texas A&M, and she had described Waco as all of the bad things about College Station except smaller and more conservative. I had been to Texas once before, the highlight of which was my trip to the Houston Rodeo, and it awed me and frightened me at the same time. I grew up in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with friends who were primarily moderate or liberal and we kind of made fun of places like Texas. They had accents and cows and were actually The South compared to Fredericksburg, where most of the people weren’t from there and didn’t feel particularly attached to it.
Fredericksburg doesn’t even feel like the South until you’re driving on Blue and Gray Parkway but then turn on Jefferson Davis Highway because you’re picking your kid up from Robert E Lee Elementary since you had the day off for Lee-Jackson Day.
(Maybe we shouldn’t have been so up on our high horses. Spotsylvania County went for Trump, and lost its mind when the local Islamic center inquired about building a mosque.)
My partner and I arrived in Waco right after graduation at Baylor, so there weren’t many people around. Everyone we talked to was particularly friendly in that small-town way. I spend most of the year at school in Boston, where people are often busy and focused on just getting through conversations. But in Waco, the motel receptionist asked us why we were in town all the way from Massachusetts, and our Lyft drivers were interested in our project, even if we didn’t feel comfortable telling them about the queer side of it.
It was paradoxical in the sense that we felt so welcomed by these people that we wanted to tell them about our work, but we realized if we told them about the exact nature of our research we probably wouldn’t be so welcomed anymore.
The current political climate has fueled a regional divide between “coastal elites,” “flyover country a.k.a The Heartland,” and the South, but are we really seeing the whole picture? Over and over, students told us that their conservative universities provided more resources for queer students than our liberal, private university in Boston. Baylor, a Baptist university, refuses to recognize the LGBTQ student group on its campus, but its student health center provides intentionally LGBTQ-friendly counseling services. At the University of Texas at Dallas, students can get letters authorizing them for hormone therapy for free. Our interviewees explained that they attended more conservative schools, but there was also a sense that they needed to take care of each other. The same premise can apply all over the world.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we took care of each other more in Boston. I’ve struggled with my mental and physical health the entire time I’ve been in college, and I’ve found it difficult to find help when I’ve needed it. While I was in Waco I found myself thinking about how my life would be different if I went to school in a community where strangers would go out of their way to help me in a tight spot.
I spent my high school years in my parents’ church feeling confused and frustrated. I didn’t understand my own identity, but I knew I didn’t fit. That said — I always knew that there were people there who cared about me and wanted to see me succeed. People who’d pray for me and send snacks to my dorm and ask about me when I avoided going home at all costs. I lost that when I moved to Boston.
As we got on the bus to College Station, I found myself rethinking my position on Texas. Sure it was too hot and too attached to evangelical politicians, but we wouldn’t have even made the bus if it wasn’t for Edwin, our several-time Lyft driver. Outside of the academic year, there are very few people driving for Lyft, as there isn’t much demand, so we had the same few drivers multiple times over the four days. When we explained that our last interview ran over and we were afraid of missing our bus, Edwin agreed to take us from our last interview to our motel, wait there while we checked out, and then drive us straight to the bus station. We tipped high, of course, but it wasn’t about that for him, as he agreed to wait well before we brought that up. He just knew he was in a position to help us out, so he did.
Maybe us coastal elites could learn something from Texas about caring for each other.
