Elvis, Dolly Parton, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Internal and External Creation of Southern Identities

Abstract

As an American living abroad, Europeans often ask me where I am from in the States. I say the South. They respond with enthusiastic smiles and quote John Denver’s song “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” or frown and mention racism and religious fundamentalism. They have been to Florida, usually either Miami or Orlando, home of Disney World and other theme parks, and have images of many tourists, bright sunshine and suffocating humidity. I almost never mention the fact that John Denver lived in Colorado and sang mostly about the West. It isn’t important. The song evokes for those people the carefree simplicity of farm life often associated with the traditional image of the rural agrarian South. And while northern Florida shares some characteristics with its immediate neighbors to the north, Georgia and Alabama, central Florida’s Orlando and much of South Florida have more in common with Southern California and Cuba, respectively, than with the South.