Texas is the second largest state in the U.S., and it has changed drastically over the years.
The cities are getting bigger and are still growing, there has been a lot of technological inventions, traveling keeps on changing, different medical procedures are being discovered, prices have gone up, politics have also changed. But most of all, our population is booming. Babies are being born by the minute, girls are getting pregnant at a younger age. Our state was known as the “cowboy state”. We had our Wild West days. People would ride horses everywhere, and look at us now driving cars, boats and flying planes. With just one look outside, you can tell we are growing at a rapid speed. We don’t have as many trees or plant life anymore because they are being cut down to make more houses, schools, churches, cities and roads. Our economic freedom is a reason why we are a job producing, population attraction state. Literally, everyone and their families decided to move here to our very big diversity state. Everything is bigger and better in Texas.
One thing I feel that we accomplished as a state and country was having our first black president, Barack Obama. He was first elected president in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. No one in a million years believed we would have a black president. And that is how we see that everything in Texas has changed. Every single president we had in the past had different views towards our issues. They each handled the issues differently, and attracted different variety of voters. It was never the same thing. Each president had a different view on situations but they never reacted in how they felt, instead everything they did was to help our country, each individual state. Back then when you spoke to a few members about a certain issue, it was literally a few people. Now, you talk to half of the world about conflicts going on in one certain place. News would not travel fast then, the public would most likely find out about laws being passed or something days or a week later, today, everything travels fast. If the president or a member of congress is caught violating their rights or doing something that isn’t in their way of doing, half of the globe would know about the incident in a matter of minutes. Not many know this but Texas has not always been Republican. At some point it was blue when Lyndon B. Johnson was our president and was re-elected. Also the state has become more urban and more suburban. Our beautiful city Houston is the largest city in the state and either the fourth or fifth largest in the U.S. Politics has changed in different ways. The population in houston during 1900s was 44, 633 and in 2013 it was 2,151,475. When I say we are growing rapidly is because we are. Another thing is the election this year was just something else. This year we saw how not many voters that were registered to vote didn’t. And they didn’t just not vote because of their differences with the running parties but also because of how the two candidates acted and how they spoke. Some just voted because they hated the opposing candidate. Some voted for Trump because they did not like Hilary and vice versa. Many laws that would have never been passed back then have been passed. Same sex individuals can now get married, marijuana is being legalized, open carry is being allowed in some texas universities and colleges. Another thing that has changed is our state’s gas prices and home values have gone up. The approximate rent price is $1,400 and prices for homes are starting at $250,000. Funny thing is, the more successful people are becoming, the higher the prices are getting.
Our state is one of the majority of states that has a lot of immigrants. They come to this state to start a new life and better themselves. According to the Texas Tribune Tribpedia: Immigration, California is first and Texas second at having a huge number of undocumented immigrants. People that are against immigrants are arguing and complaining over the fact that the state pays too much for these individuals and their children. State representative Leo Bernam did a proposal that would deny any state services to be passed over to immigrants and their families. These group of people believe that by having immigrants in the state, we are jeopardizing Texas’ economy. They are saying that the immigrants are taking all types of agriculture, landscaping jobs. People don’t just take your job just like that. You may be qualified for it but maybe someone else can get the job done faster and better. Practically what these anti-immigrant folks are saying is that immigrants come to the state to take their jobs, when none of that is happening. Their main worry is having these new policies hurting the existing businesses and companies from other places not wanting to move down here. There is no need to make a big deal about us having immigrants because we were once immigrants to this state too. Other states look at us and see how diverse we are. In the past, whites and blacks were not allowed to be mixed in together. Both Hispanics and blacks were discriminated. Whites were raised as being “superior” to the blacks, Hispanics immigrants were strangers to this state, so they weren’t treated right. Nobody wanted to give them jobs. You would never ever see any of these 3 races together in the past because if you did, I guess all hell would break loose. Over time you’ve seen different races interacting with one another. Women were seen as lesser things compared to men. Women couldn’t work, or go to school to get an education. They had to stay home and were not allowed to vote. Women fought for their rights for about 70 years. Now times have changed and if we want to succeed with what we are doing and the other new challenges we are to face, we need to work together and have each other’s backs. If it wasn’t for the different ethnic groups we have like Mexicans, Salvadorans, Britons, Cubans, Colombians, Australians, Brazilians, Nigerians, Africans, Argentines, Spaniards and much more there wouldn’t be different cultures, different foods, music, and dancing. We would be plain ol’ Texas with just one race, and it would be very boring and dull to see the same people over and over again.
Technology has also changed very drastically over the years and it is ruining us. It is running every aspect of our lives. Not one person can go on with their day without looking at their mobile device. If you ask a random girl or guy what their hobby or career is, they’ll say something related to social media. The “cool” people are the ones with the most friends/followers on their social media accounts. Back then there were no cellphones, ipods or computers. If you were bored, you would go outside and enjoy the sunlight and fresh-air. Kids would get in trouble for being outside too long. I guess you could say the generations now are lucky to have computers and ipads in school to help them look up info for their homeworks and projects. Tests were done on paper not on electronics like today. Our grandparents, and great great grandparents and people before them didn’t have internet or wikipedia to use as their resources. Their resources were the teachers and the books. There were no calculators that would help you solve math problems like now. Everything was either done by solving it in your head or on paper. There are many different types of electronics now a days. We even have technology in our cars now, we can literally talk to our cars and they will respond back. Cars are able to turn on by just a touch of a button, no key needed. When using cell phones or laptops, you don’t have to type anymore, you click a button and say the command and it’ll do it all on it’s own. As new technology emerges and improves, people are going to start getting lazier and lazier, well some are already lazy but we need to do something to prevent this from spreading to future generations. Before people started listening to the radio and watching tv, everything was written down somewhere and you would read it and use your imagination to see everything the small print would say. The honest truth is that technology has made us fat. People will argue about this but it’s true. According to the charts on the State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, Texas is one of the states that has the highest rate of adult obesity, 32.4% of the population being obese. We were ranked as number 10 out of 51 states. The high obesity rates for this 2015 were between the ages 45-64, the race is black, and gender is women. Texans do not walk anymore because they rather drive or ride those hover boards. We need to open our eyes and see that this is an actual problem. Kids at a young age are texting, and getting all sorts of social media. Kids should be spending their time playing outside with their friends, getting all dirty and getting scrapes on their tiny legs. Instead, they are inside their homes playing games on their phones, and getting fat. In the 1900s technology was just another rumor. One century ago the new technological advances were teabags, escalators, instant coffee, simple things like that. If the old Texas would see the new and “improved” Texas, who knows what their reaction would be.
Yes, Texas has changed in a various of ways, good and bad but this state has revolutionized a lot. Diversity being number one, and the reason why Texas is a great state to live in. People are scared of change which makes them feel scared about speaking up.
History repeated itself in some ways and we have faced every challenge with everything we got and have never given up. Our state is growing rapidly at this very moment and it will keep on growing. Texas is the home for thousands of families with different backgrounds and even though many might not agree with what is going on and the changes being made here, and the ones that are bound to be happen, this is our home.