by Nicole DeNaeyer
Born in Manhattan in 1966 and raised in the suburbs of New York City, my aunt Ann Marie Thornton spent most of her youth in the North. It was not until after college that she got her first authentic taste of the South, working in Fairfax, Virginia, alongside people from West Virginia. “I can remember those ladies, with their Southern accents. They’d drive an hour, 60 miles, in from West Virginia. They drove their trucks, and they lived on dirt roads, and that seemed very different. So I find it pretty funny that 20 years later I have a truck and live on a dirt road!” (Thornton).In 1992, Ann Marie and her family moved to San Antonio, Texas, and ten years later they moved to Vass, North Carolina. From her time spent living in Texas and Vass, Ann Marie has come to discern the distinct differences between the ways of life in the South, and those she observed growing up in New York. The main contrasts in culture that she has experienced were those of religion, food, people’s appearances, and attitudes.
Ann Marie was raised Irish Catholic but, attending elementary school in New York, had classmates who came from many different backgrounds and, therefore, had many different religions. In the South, Catholicism is not particularly prevalent, and Protestant Christianity is the more widespread. Ann Marie found it interesting at first that, for example, in the South a person would simply say "Christmas break," whereas in New York she was accustomed to saying winter break or the holidays. “You were always aware that there were people around who were different and had different points of view, and you’d be polite about that. And then I realized that people weren’t accustomed to growing up with different points of view” (Thornton).
In San Antonio, Ann Marie worked at St. Phillips College, a historically black school with a strong Baptist influence. People said grace before every meal and prayers before every reception, and that was something new for Ann Marie. “If you were going to have cookies and juice, someone would say a blessing. That was different to me, even having gone to a Catholic college, I felt like it was really noticeable” (Thornton). In general, Ann Marie found that the way that people talk about religion and incorporate it into their everyday lives is certainly different in New York than in the South. Another interesting experience for her was people inviting her to their church. “It’s meant totally as a complement, but it’s like ‘no, I have a church and I have a system’” (Thornton).Growing up in the 1970s, it was the time of the women’s movement: moving away from objectification, beauty queens, and Miss America. So as you can imagine, Ann Marie was shocked when someone told her that her daughter was very pretty and she should enter a beauty contest. “It was hard not to laugh. It was bizarre to me, and I think a beauty contest would almost be a put down in the North. It would mean that someone was frivolous or vain, but that’s totally different here, and in no way did they mean it as a criticism of my daughter” (Thornton).
Ann Marie has also observed that Southern women certainly put a lot of effort and care into their appearances. Even just dashing out to the grocery store, the women put time into getting ready, whereas in New York, you just dash out to the store as you are. A funny experience for her was being at a polocrosse tournament where people camp in their cars and are around horses all day. Yet all the ladies were wearing mascara! It was something she didn’t expect to encounter at tournaments here in North Carolina, considering it more of a Texas stereotype. “People like to get their nails and hair done, and dress their best to meet whomever when they go out” (Thornton).
“If you think of a stereotypical New York shopping interaction, New York is known for the ‘whaddya want?’ sort of direct, straight to the point, brusque, no eye contact, that sort of thing. But you don’t typically find that in the South. If you go to a restaurant, it’s “What’ll ya have, Sugar?” (Thornton). This difference in people’s friendliness and attitudes was a pleasant change for Ann Marie. She observed that transactions in the South tend to be friendlier, slower, with more polite talk, and people use words like “sugar” or “sweetie” – words which in the North are not really used unless referring to a sweetheart. There is also an interconnectedness in the people here. Ann Marie remembers that when she worked at Sandhills Community College. If there was a bad news or something in the paper, chances were that one of her students would know the person involved or know their family. “That may be more small town than Southern, but that’s true” (Thornton).
Cooking is an integral part of life here. People cook different things for all occasions, and they cook them from scratch, whereas in New York, people pride themselves on knowing where to buy the best foods. When she was growing up, both of Ann Marie’s parents worked, so not everything was made from scratch. She considers that to still be part of who she is and what she does. She remembers once telling a Southern friend that she didn’t have time to bake dessert when her parents were visiting her, so she went and bought something instead. “She said, ‘Oh, I would have baked a cake for you,’ and that was nothing I expected to hear, but I found it so funny that my friend was like ‘I can’t believe that you would serve Harris Teeter cake when you could have something homemade” (Thornton).Here the values surrounding cooking are definitely different than in New York. People adhere to traditions, eating the same meal every year for certain holidays, and not straying from that. Ann Marie was attending a friend’s New Year’s brunch one year when they had collards, hambone, and black-eyed peas. The peas are eaten for good luck in the New Year, something that Ann Marie had never heard about. She remembers her friends were mildly shocked when she told them she had never had black-eyed peas before, and furthermore had no traditions for New Year’s Day!
Because Ann Marie’s grandparents emigrated to the US from Ireland, most of her extended family’s food traditions are Irish, and “old country” dishes.” She grew up in New York surrounded by other families, where the kids her age were also only second-generation Americans. “Most of my Southern friends, their families have lived here for a long time, so their traditions are more Southern, more so than in New York” (Thornton).
These differences in culture are something that I, as a European, have also observed in my short time in the South. I found it extremely interesting to listen to Ann Marie’s stories about her experiences here and compare them to my own. While the North differs from the South in many ways, both cultures are unique in their own ways.
Work Cited
Thornton, Ann Marie. Personal interview. 13 Sept. 2013.
Note: Nicole A. De Naeyer lives Southern Pines, NC, and is studying for an Associate's in Arts degree at Sandhills Community College. She is a native of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where attended an American school.
