New Westers

These "New Westers", Johnson reveals, line-dance and two-step, listen to Garth Brooks and George Strait, drink beer from long-neck bottles, wear clothes ordered from Sheplers, watch rodeo on ESPN, play Wild West arcade games, eat fajitas and tacos in stuccoed Mexican cafes, collect Western art and Native American crafts, and vacation in and move to… These "New Westers", Johnson reveals, line-dance and two-step, listen to Garth Brooks and George Strait, drink beer from long-neck bottles, wear clothes ordered from Sheplers, watch rodeo on ESPN, play Wild West arcade games, eat fajitas and tacos in stuccoed Mexican cafes, collect Western art and Native American crafts, and vacation in and move to the West. "New Westers" rewrite the history and biography of the West. They reimagine the West in Cowboy sagas and poetry, Native American novels, Mexican-American drama, nature writing, revisionist films, eclectic visual artwork, and neo-traditional music. They flock to movies like Thelma and Louise, Unforgiven, and Dances with Wolves, watch mini-series like Lonesome Dove, and read bestsellers like The Crossing and All The Pretty Horses. "New Westers" are men and women who may or may not have ever hitched up a horse but who crave connection with the West. At the end of a century of urbanization, technological change, and cultural confusion, they seek a more natural home, a fuller and wider sense of place, and a deeper and more colorful personal identity. They also want to revive the dream of the mythic West - but on different terms. They overrun the Old West and yet strive to preserve it, raising troubling new concerns about the differences between the mythic and the real, between traditional and contemporary cultural influences.