From Houston to Harvard

I cannot cook.

My wonderful roommates that I lived off-campus with in the spring of 2021 can attest to this. Dinner time would roll around, and there I would be, patiently sitting at our rickety kitchen table, embarrassingly waiting for one of them to begin the daily meal preparation while I offered encouragement from the sidelines. Literally — I would stand to the right of my roommate Eleanor (a fellow Crimson Editorial editor) as she cooked at the stove, pestering her on the daily.

The necessity of cooking had never once entered my mind in high school, and for good reason (or at least, what I believed then was a good reason). This was part of my rebellion against my Southern upbringing — the most anti-feminist thing I could think of at the time was making food and being confined to the role of a homemaker. Armed with the ease of binary thinking, I made cooking my adversary, and nothing could make me bend my own will to its seemingly submissive character.

‘Twas the day before The Game, and I, as well as thousands of other Harvard students, sit in excitement, waiting to make the trek down to Yale for an event heralded as one of the “defining moments” of the classic Harvard experience. But, unlike the average student, my excitement for The Game does not stem from my hatred of Yale or some deep-seated school pride — no, it stems from my weird (and very newfound) belief that football exemplifies the dichotomy of social change.

I do not think the average American understands Texas’s love (or borderline problematic obsession) with football. In fact, I don’t even think Texans understand our own obsession with football until we venture outside our state. Just miles from my own home, a $70 million high school football stadium was built a couple of years ago, and eight out of the nine largest high school stadiums in the United States are in Texas — and not a single Texan will bat an eye in reading those statistics. Other states may enjoy professional football and encourage their children to play while growing up, but only in Texas does a single sport have such a chokehold on the local community.

“Friday Night Lights” is known to many as a popular television show that delves into a world of football, community, and life; but in Texas, this phrase leaps out of the pages of the screenplay and, emulating the spirit of the production, perfectly encapsulates the ability of Texas football to bring together people that would not usually be together. Stories and perspectives collide in the grill-saturated air of a tailgate as blinding fluorescent lights illuminate the field the moment the sun sets on a Friday night. Texas football is a microcosm of a messy and beautiful life, bringing a community together in the spirit of celebration and fellowship.

It has recently come to my attention that I have a bit of a Southern accent.

Allegedly evident in the slightly twangy way I say the word “when” (apparently I say it like “win,” but I am not fully convinced) and my drawn-out pronunciation of “y’all” (okay, this one I understand), it was something I was originally averse to, but have slowly grown to love.

Why do I love it? Many reasons. Maybe because it comes out the most prominently when I am on the phone with my parents. You may have caught me in the act — speaking perhaps a little too loudly on the curb of Widener with the slight trill of a Southern accent, calling my parents every Sunday afternoon. Maybe because it reminds me of old friends and family back home. Regardless, it is a piece of home I may have once rejected, but now embrace with open arms, all because it reminds me to slow down.

There is no greater financial mystery than Harvard’s endowment. However, conversations surrounding the endowments of elite institutions so far have been housed within the bounds of that institution — is it moral for a university to have that much money, what are they doing with that money? But this focus on the internal distorts the dialogue surrounding endowment, college rankings, and privilege, a much more complex conversation that involves deconstructing the supposed binary of the North having exceptional institutions of higher education and the South lacking them.

Harvard's endowment has increased from $41.9 billion to $53.2 billion in the span of a single year. Yale, MIT, Duke, and other wealthy universities announced similar to even greater returns on their own endowments. These values are so large that we grow desensitized to their financial scope; but, one look at the endowments of other universities, like historically Black colleges and universities (which are primarily concentrated in the South), brings to light the larger, cyclical theme of privilege and wealth disparities in higher education.

This concept of financial disparities in higher education between the North and South is beautifully explicated in the podcasts “Lord of the Rankings” and “Project Dillard” from Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History.

Driving in Texas is a way of life more so than a means of transportation. Massive parking garages are attached to every high-rise building. Drivers avoid the rush-hour-infected roads of 4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. like the plague. Cruising down the 26-lane stretch of Interstate 10 in Houston at midnight is a rite of passage.

Driving through Texas also comes with an interesting bonus: a front-row seat to America’s political spectrum.

In big cities, Beto and Biden bumper stickers on Subarus drive alongside Blue Lives Matter ones on Ford F-150s. Rural areas just outside the city are dotted with flags boasting the bold letters “TRUMP WON,” while urban areas display rainbow ones to show their support of the BGLTQ community. Colorful murals that celebrate ethnic diversity and the stories of immigrants decorate the sides of buildings in El Paso. Over 180 Confederate statues and other symbols dot the Texas landscape.

Growing up in Texas, I only wanted to leave. This desire is a rite of passage for all high school students from the South who end up in the Northeast. We all want to flee the close-minded and traditionalist coffin of the former confederacy and find refuge among the revered Northern progressives. And I think it's a good tradition to have, for in the South, going against the political and social grain triggers an energetic bout of critical thinking.

But then I actually left.

I made the long trek from Houston to Boston, toting my naïve optimism that the North had figured it out and was the place people told me it would be. But Houston and Boston are more alike than people realize — broken cities full of broken people who often let their brokenness get the best of them. Yes, the states of Texas and Massachusetts may be different colors on the electoral college map, but the people of the North are not better than the people of the South. They are more of the same.