Texas Time Travel

Discover Your Cultural Heritage

Georgia O'Keefe may have provided the best description of Texas when she said, "I couldn’t believe Texas was real … the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Texas is indeed diverse geographically, and it is equally diverse when it comes to our cultural heritage. Today the influence of many cultures is peppered throughout our everyday lives in our food, our traditions, our vocabulary, and more. Dive a little deeper into the rich cultures that made Texas — and Texans — what they are today.

Credit: Patrick Hughey / Texas Historical Commission

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Credit: Travel Texas

Prost! Salud! Cheers! Gezondheid!

Ask a visitor what they love best about Texas and you'll usually get one answer above all others-"The food!" Where else can you consume pork tamales, a bowl of three-alarm chili (no beans!), bratwurst and sauerkraut, baby-back ribs, kielbasa, dim sum, gravlax, pemmican, crayfish étouffée, and pecan pie all in one day? The smorgasbord of cuisine available in Texas reflects a much grander design of diversity-our own! As Texans, our pride of place is eclipsed only by pride of an ancestry hailing from all points on the compass-Mexico, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, and Native America. And while Texans across the state may represent a generous distinction of cultures, we all seem to share at least one common denominator-the love of good food. We also like to party. Maybe that's why our calendar is filled with cultural heritage festivals like Oktoberfest, Cinco de Mayo, the Highland Games, Texas Folklife Festival, Charro Days, and the National Polka Festival.

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Comfort Cemetery

Located in the town of Comfort, southern folkloric practices are on display at Comfort Cemetery where graves are decorated with seashells.

Though Comfort was founded by German immigrants in 1854, using seashells to decorate graves was a practice found in many parts of Texas into the early 20th century and was widespread among different ethnic communities. Historians have pointed to different origins to explain its significance. While some believe that the shells are meant to symbolize eternal life, others contend that the shell is itself a vessel for the soul's eternal presence. Texas graveyard historian, Terry G. Jordon, makes the connection between this practice and a pre-Christian Mediterranean deity who ruled the dead and granted rebirth through requests made by placing shells on graves Though pagan in nature, this tradition spread to Christianity during Roman times, then to Britain and northern Spain. Therefore, it isn't farfetched that the practice came to Texas through Spanish colonists, German immigrants, or other European influence.

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