I’m Still Below the Mason-Dixon Line!

When Aquarius and I were preparing to move from Shreveport to Maryland, we got a lot of unexpected negativity about moving this far North. This seemed to come mostly from my family members who consider themselves northerners in comparison to our cousins in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. People were fairly happy about Aquarius’s new job, but we got an ear full about how much we were going to hate it “up there.” I found this odd coming from people who had never lived outside of Louisiana, Texas or Mississippi. Nevertheless, we got their expert opinions on the bitter cold weather and the terrible snow storms we would face each winter. We were also warned about all of the damn Yankees, but I’m still not sure what is supposed to be so scary about people who live in the North. We may as well have been moving to New York or Canada; the reaction would have been the same.

Once we were settled in Maryland and had officially become northerners in the eyes of our friends and family in the Bayou State, our regional citizenship didn’t feel drastically different. Admittedly, none of my new neighbors welcomed me with baked goods, but no one chastised me for saying “y’all” either. (As a side note for any southern readers, the contraction of “you all” is not spelled “ya’ll.” Keep in mind that apostrophes are placed where letters have been removed.) As I began to learn more about my new home state, I was startled to realize that I was still living in the South. We had never driven past the Mason-Dixon Line. I remembered learning in elementary school that the Mason-Dixon Line separates North and South, but I had apparently forgotten where this invisible division is located.

This makes me ask: Which states make up the South? Maryland was never part of the Confederacy, yet it is south of the line. I don’t really feel like I live in the South. The number of churches does not exceed the number of schools, people are generally well educated and easy to understand, and interracial couples are not denied marriage licenses. So, if the historic Mason-Dixon line is false, who decides what constitutes the South? A quick survey of my Louisiana friends on Facebook revealed widely differing opinions on this topic. Many Louisianans don’t think that Virginia is part of the South, but I imagine there are many Virginians who would disagree. So, why is there so much discord on where to draw this cultural line, and why is there so much negativity toward my new place of residence? Could it be regional pride or simply the confusion between the South and the Deep South? My guess is maps. U.S. southerners don’t have maps. Without maps, they cannot divide the United States into definable regions. That seems like a clear enough answer.