Yeah, I’m originally from New Mexico. The state magazine used to (might still) have a section in the back with incidents where people think it’s part of Mexico. One I remember was one of the ivy-league schools denying a kid’s college application because “we aren’t taking foreign students at this time.”
When we moved to VA when I was a kid I used to get comments from kids, and a couple of teachers, that my English was really excellent. Uh. Yeah… So’s yours?
When my family moved from Oklahoma to New Jersey classmates at my new high school had no clue where OK is located or that it is even a state. In an effort to make it simple I said OK is immediately north of Texas. They didn’t know where TX is. Sigh. But then friends back in OK thought NJ is part of New York City. And that was fifty years ago when most schools taught at least some geography.
Even in college I was stunned to find how few students had ever really looked at a simple road atlas of the U.S. Made me wonder how those from out of state managed to drive their cars from their home state to college.