Quote:
Originally Posted by Capsicum
I wonder where or how far from the Canadian border people start to think about the Canadian border less than the Mexican one.
I'd imagine that in on the west coast, for instance, people in Seattle might feel like Canada is nearby, but how about further south, say Portland? By the time you get to California, even towards NorCal, the Mexican influence is probably much larger.
On the east coast, Maine, Vermont, NH, and upstate New York probably think about Canada, but once you get around the Bos-Wash corridor on the eastern seaboard, the fact that nationally, Mexico, and Mexican-Americans are on the radar (and say, Canadians living in Boston or NYC or wherever aren't going to be that salient, and probably can "pass" for an average American often times anyways if they have a typical North American English accent) much more probably means that more people will pay attention to the southern than northern border.
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It seems to me that a large part of the U.S. and its population probably doesn't have much of a "border consciousness" at all. Obviously it exists in places right along the border (though sometimes even Americans living in close border areas can be astonishingly oblivious to Canada), but in my experience and my corner of the continent, border consciousness on the U.S. is reasonably high in places like Watertown, NY, Plattsburgh, NY, Burlington, VT, etc.
It's not super-high but somewhat on the radar in places a bit further away like Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.
But by the time you get to places like Scranton, Harrisburg, Allentown in PA one doesn't get the impression that there is a generalized awareness of a "border" of any kind, or even that there's a place in their midst where everything functions in French and that's only a half day's drive away.
If people in these cities, and indeed in much of the U.S.'s territory that's geographically quite a bit closer to Canada than to Mexico, any marginal border consciousness is probably related to the southern border due to chatter about Trump's wall, TLC or Lifetime shows that follow the border patrol looking for illegals, or movies and TV shows like The Border and The Bridge.
In my travels I've actually found that American "metropolitans" living in the big NE cities like NYC, Boston and DC are actually more aware of the border and of Canada than the people living in the inland industrial cities. For all their cockiness and self-absorption, the "metropolitans" to their credit can also often have a more global perspective on things.