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Yeah, I can see hushpuppies as street cred for Southern and Soul food, for sure.  In Texas, BBQ isn't really considered to be in the same category, it's really its own thing, with its own set of expectations for style of service, sides, desserts, etc.

I've only been to Arizona a handful of times, did one 6-week-long work trip to the Phoenix area many years ago, so I certainly don't know as much a out it as you do, or DevilFroggy.  But from my observations it seems to be a place where folks move to, and not a lot of people are FROM, so it didn't have much of its own culture.  I would guess there is some traditional Mexican food and Native American influences, but it seemed there were a lot more places that were trying to service and/or appeal to the places where people had come FROM.  Just an observation that may be completely wrong, of course.

sweet tea is a staple for certain.  and no, you can't just drop packets of sugar in it and expect it to work out for you.   it has to be dissolved when the tea is brewing and completely emulsified into it.... I've seen some places add a friggin' five pound bag of sugar to a two gallon pitcher of tea... that's a no go, ghost rider.  that is why sweet tea has a bad rap.  again, we're talking about moderation.  

I'll drink sweet tea in a heartbeat, but i prefer unsweet tea.  

hush puppies are also a staple... their name derives from cooking in times past and giving the dog something to get them to go away- we're talking depression era times when deep frying just about anything came to be- and as intent to kill bacteria on food that had to last a long time or may not have been in the best condition- aka 'cheap'... folks came up with interesting things to do with food out of necessity, and it bled into culture, and brought us crispy fried chicken and country (chicken) fried flank steak... heavy gravies to swamp the sometimes borderline spoiled flavor even more, and on and on.  the ladies throwing food out of the pan to the dogs and sayinng 'hush puppy!' ought to give you some insight into what 'they' thought of those things- expendable, and when nothing or hardly anything was expendable... i'm sure they are amused they became such a staple at southern bbq joints and southern coastal deep fried fish joints. 

mexican food or food from warmer climates (such as Arab, Moroccan, Southern Indian, ect) is often doused in very hot spices for the same reason wasabi (Japanese horseradish) is served with raw fish- to kill bacteria in both the fish and your guts from eating the fish. 

it's to the point now where these things can't be separated.  the sugar in tea?  Gramma didn't have straight black tea leaves, y'all... she made it go as far as she could, and then hid the off-flavor with sugar (readily and easily available) or molasses (off product of refining sugar and super cheap if not free for folks with a refinery nearby) and added lemon when she could get her hands on it- so you wouldn't have to taste the re-used tea leaves or the additions from her garden.  

these things become embedded in culture and define it in some instances... from Tabasco peppers to white mill gravy, short grain rice to cornbread... its fascinating to me to ask why instead of just take it at face value and nothing more. 

these things become embedded in culture and define it in some instances... from Tabasco peppers to white mill gravy, short grain rice to cornbread... its fascinating to me to ask why instead of just take it at face value and nothing more.

Absolutely.

Heck, the popularity of BBQ in the southern part of the country is one direct result of the need to perform a lot of cooking OUTDOORS, to avoid heating up the interior of the home.  That, and slow-smoking was a good method of rendering really cheap, undesirable cuts of meat, as edible.

Now of course, its popularity has resulted in some of those cuts being just as expensive as steak, but what are you gonna do?  Skirt steak is another example of that, I used to buy it for $.79/lb.  Now it can run anywhere from $4-$8/lb.  I blame Chili's for the increased national popularity of fajita tacos. (no really, I do)

(incidentally, there's no such thing as shrimp fajitas or chicken fajitas or even sirloin steak fajitas, since the word "fajita" refers specifically to the cut of meat, which is the inside skirt.  All of those other things are simply tacos al carbon de pollo, or tacos al carbon de camarones, etc.)

That's definitely true.  Plenty of really good mexican joints with actual messicans back in the kitchen.  I'm amazed there are so many Taco Bells here, honestly.

A lot of Pho places, too.  You can tell the legit chinese restaurants by who's in the kitchen - if it's mexicans, it'll be okay, if it's chinese ppl, it'll be legit.  I found one chinese joint that was too legit for me.  I prefer an americanized chinese cuisine, I guess.

I'm the opposite. I can't really stand most American Chinese food. Too much sauce, usually too much sweetness. I've been to China and I can tell you the food there is SO much better than what you get here as "American" Chinese food.
If I'm going to get Chinese, I almost won't do it unless I drive up to Irvine. It's pretty much Irvine for Orange County, or the towns of the San Gabriel Valley up in LA County. There's a huge Chinese population there and you can get legit Chinese. Even so, I'm really partial to the Sichuan and Hunan regional cuisine. Sichuan is easier to find, but Hunan is a lot harder. Still, *good* Sichuan isn't easy to find--it's a lot different than what most people get when they order "Szechuan Chicken" on an American Chinese food menu. Most Chinese that you get in the US is derived more from Cantonese. I don't mind it, it's more bland. I like the pop of good Sichuan/Hunan dishes. I've also had Shanghainese, which isn't a big draw for me, except for all their good dumplings. 
The thing to remember with Chinese food, just as with American food, is that both are really big countries. There's a big difference between the regional cuisine of Maryland, vs South Carolina, vs New Orleans, vs Texas, vs AZ, vs California, vs Wisconsin, etc. If you think you don't like "legit" Chinese, it's entirely possible you haven't been exposed to *good* legit Chinese. Especially if you've lived most of your life in places like FL or AZ.
If you're interested in the history, check out The Search for General Tso on Netflix. 

There are Americanized Chinese food dishes that I like, as well as authentic.  Honestly I just think of them as two different cuisines. And, as you state, even authentic Hunan and Sichuan and Cantonese are all very different, even though they're all "Chinese", so just adding another region to the lexicon (the "American" region of China, I suppose   ) doesn't bother me all that much.

I do really enjoy the authentic Chinese foods though, quite a bit.  The very large computer manufacturer headquartered in the Austin area, that I work for, often has native Chinese vendors coming into town.  So around our headquarters, there are quite a few very good, authentic Chinese restaurants.  Typically my vendors would rather go out and eat steak and BBQ and occasionally Tex-Mex, but sometimes I make them take me to the authentic Chinese restaurants, and order their favorites.  Fantastic, for sure.

stands to reason that if there are very good, authentic Chinese restaurants in Texas.......

then there are probably very good, authentic Texas BBQ restaurants in China

Wouldn't shock me one bit, actually.
In Shanghai I wanted to check out a place called Boxing Cat Brewery. They bill their restaurant as "food from the I-10 corridor", i.e. everything from Florida, to New Orleans, to Texas, to the Southwest, to California. I reviewed it here. 
They don't have Texas BBQ on the menu, unfortunately, but I had some damn fine deep fried mac & cheese balls, followed by a completely solid pulled pork sandwich. I'd have been plenty happy getting that food anywhere throughout the Southeast where pulled pork is religion.
So I'm going to say that if I can find that, there is *somewhere* in China that you can find authentic Texas BBQ. Likely cooked by a Texan ex-pat. In a country of 1.3B people, I'm sure there's at least one restaurant that does it right. 

Isn't China more chicken and pig and less beef?  

Legit Chinese food to me always has the fish sauce taste within it, which I'm not fond of.  Americanized doesn't have it at all.  It's either teriyaki or General Tso or whatever.  I'm not a big fan of orange chicken.  I keep my citrus separate from my meats. 

Yeah, it's more chicken/pork. That's changing somewhat as the country gets richer. 
Didn't you reference pho above? Pho has a bunch of fish sauce in it... 
But other than that, I'd say try cooking that Hunan Cumin Spare Rib recipe I posted. Not a bit of fish sauce taste in there at all. There's soy sauce in the marinade, but the spice rub is what really drives the flavor.