It's very interesting that it's considered socially normal to openly state a stereotypical opinion about the place where one is from. When I moved to Tennessee from my lifelong home of Oregon, I noticed that people would "ooh and aah" when they asked where I was from. I learned to anticipate that reaction and dare I say, I even smugly bathe in it. I love my home state. People in Spain react the same way and I often wonder what responses I'd receive if I said anywhere else.
From this experience, I've learned to let people tell me about what it's like to live wherever they're from, rather than spitting out my first reaction about a place I've never visited. It certainly makes for better conversation rather than leading with an awkward, unbased comment.
Enjoyed this article and can relate. Michigander, left for 20 years, lived overseas twice and in NYC, returned to the Mitten be a farmer and raise my kids. Experienced mild doses of what you describe and saw a lot of the self-righteous cosmopolitanism. I don’t know much about rural areas in the rest of our country. But in the upper Midwest, the rednecks and hicks are some of the nicest darn people anywhere. It took me 40 years to realize that they are my people.
Well, all I can say is that I’m from Northern Maine, now live in rural Florida, and can say with some confidence that the contempt goes both ways, that our contempt for them is probably greater and better earned. These sorts of stories always amuse me greatly.. They think we care what they think? Goodness, goodness.. Bless their hearts, as folks say around here..
North Carolina native here. In the mid-1980s I spent two years in Yankeeland in grad school, one of very few Southerners in a program with about a third international mid-career, a third foreign service brats and the like, and a third snotty "elite" college grads. And when I say three of the four other Southerners were from Texas or Oklahoma and went to those snotty schools, I mean *one* other unmitigated Southerner besides me (military, naturally), out of maybe 500, 600 students passing through in that time.
Everyone was focused on international work, diplomacy, business; we still called it the third world and the PC phrase of the day was cultural sensitivity - uh, yeah. These oh so sensitive globalists-to-be had no shame asking me if roads in the South were paved, if we had phone service or electricity, and how people in the South celebrated Thanksgiving. Always the ever-popular, "Oh, say anything, your accent!!!" Very cosmopolitan.
I'd gone to a small liberal arts college in rural NC, the second-poorest county in the state, and recall a Psychology professor newly arrived from New Jersey who gave a talk to the freshman class, 95% locals, and told us she was very enlightened because she realized that not everyone with a drawl was a retard. Still, it was immersion in this refined [sic] atmosphere that really activated my redneck gene (™ Doug Marlette), which until then I did not even know I had. My dad was a lawyer, we grew up in one of the nicest suburbs, I'd never listened to country music - but started in Boston.
Heading into retirement on a farm after several decades of intermittently overseas work, I want to deport everyone from NC whose grandparents weren't born here. In this exact state, I mean, not America generally.
Obligatory: It sucks here, no one should move here, you'll die in a hurricane and/or become a racist, be forced to read the Bible, hate bagels and eat grits & liver pudding. Flee north south or west, whichever border is closest.
There's Unacceptable Bigotry, and Acceptable Bigotry.
I remember commenting on some Identity Politics-related story in Salon about 15 years ago with a suggestion to replace the campaign against "Racism/Sexism/Homophobia" with a social effort directed against the real enemy, which is Cruelty.
Got no traction at all with that idea. Just another comment post that disappeared into the void.
Being from Iowa, and going to college in New York, I still remember the most common responses: Ohio?, Oh yeah, They grow potatoes there. , Were you safe from Indians? And (rarely but actually accurate), they have some good wrestlers.
I’m from Chicago where plenty of people from Iowa live—I never thought much of it until I moved to California. I deeply connect with fellow Midwesterners out here. Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin—they are my people.
I grew up in West Virginia, where I also went to undergraduate school and medical school. After my residency I had passed my rigorous board exams and was doing some side-work helping prep other physicians to take their board exams, on the day of the test. A young man sat across from me. I don't recall where he went to school but I think it was a name. He asked me where I went to school. "West Virginia University," I replied. He closed his eyes, leaned back, sighed and then said "let's get this over with." It was incredibly condescending. But not surprising. Appalachians are always treated with a sort of sneering disdain. And yet, a friend of mine is a residency director and always loves medical students from WV due to what he describes as their strong blue collar work ethic. I'll take that over pedigree any day. I hear what you're saying. Keep up the great writing!
I have no doubt that a lot of students at places like Harvard or Stanford are very bright and worked hard to get there. But there is something about the work ethic and humility of people from more humble beginnings…
By the way, I think West Virginia is one of the most beautiful parts of the United States.
Absolutely! There are some great minds that come from those schools. But sometimes they lack perspective about the rest of the country. And that’s a big part of the political schism we have here right now.
Thanks! I agree. Despite its struggles, West Virginia is a magnificent place.
I’m from a small town in northern New Mexico, which is a state that many don’t even know is an actual state in the Union (#47, admitted in 1912 just a few minutes before Arizona, whose statehood is never in doubt). I’ve been at bars with friends back East who have shown a New Mexico drivers license and were told they couldn’t be served because they were international. So much for good education in other supposedly more enlightened and edu-macated parts of the country.
And I remember reading a review about a restaurant in my hometown, and the writer, who I think was from somewhere back east, which to all of us mountain westerners is everything east of us, and said that the food at this restaurant would be described by the locals as “good eats.” I have never in my life heard anyone in my little hometown, a coal mining and ranching town, refer to good food as “good eats.” I think I snarked off a little letter to her that said as much.
The title of your article reminded me of an episode of “Designing Women,” which was my mom‘s favorite show at the time it was on. And this was exactly the punch line made when a woman from Georgia asked a “Yankee” where she was from. I thought maybe it was a reference to that. Great article.
It's very interesting that it's considered socially normal to openly state a stereotypical opinion about the place where one is from. When I moved to Tennessee from my lifelong home of Oregon, I noticed that people would "ooh and aah" when they asked where I was from. I learned to anticipate that reaction and dare I say, I even smugly bathe in it. I love my home state. People in Spain react the same way and I often wonder what responses I'd receive if I said anywhere else.
From this experience, I've learned to let people tell me about what it's like to live wherever they're from, rather than spitting out my first reaction about a place I've never visited. It certainly makes for better conversation rather than leading with an awkward, unbased comment.
Thanks for writing about this.
I can’t believe people are still saying stuff like this. What a limited worldview and approach to life.
Enjoyed this article and can relate. Michigander, left for 20 years, lived overseas twice and in NYC, returned to the Mitten be a farmer and raise my kids. Experienced mild doses of what you describe and saw a lot of the self-righteous cosmopolitanism. I don’t know much about rural areas in the rest of our country. But in the upper Midwest, the rednecks and hicks are some of the nicest darn people anywhere. It took me 40 years to realize that they are my people.
Well, all I can say is that I’m from Northern Maine, now live in rural Florida, and can say with some confidence that the contempt goes both ways, that our contempt for them is probably greater and better earned. These sorts of stories always amuse me greatly.. They think we care what they think? Goodness, goodness.. Bless their hearts, as folks say around here..
My son spent some time at the University of Iowa, I loved the place.
North Carolina native here. In the mid-1980s I spent two years in Yankeeland in grad school, one of very few Southerners in a program with about a third international mid-career, a third foreign service brats and the like, and a third snotty "elite" college grads. And when I say three of the four other Southerners were from Texas or Oklahoma and went to those snotty schools, I mean *one* other unmitigated Southerner besides me (military, naturally), out of maybe 500, 600 students passing through in that time.
Everyone was focused on international work, diplomacy, business; we still called it the third world and the PC phrase of the day was cultural sensitivity - uh, yeah. These oh so sensitive globalists-to-be had no shame asking me if roads in the South were paved, if we had phone service or electricity, and how people in the South celebrated Thanksgiving. Always the ever-popular, "Oh, say anything, your accent!!!" Very cosmopolitan.
I'd gone to a small liberal arts college in rural NC, the second-poorest county in the state, and recall a Psychology professor newly arrived from New Jersey who gave a talk to the freshman class, 95% locals, and told us she was very enlightened because she realized that not everyone with a drawl was a retard. Still, it was immersion in this refined [sic] atmosphere that really activated my redneck gene (™ Doug Marlette), which until then I did not even know I had. My dad was a lawyer, we grew up in one of the nicest suburbs, I'd never listened to country music - but started in Boston.
Heading into retirement on a farm after several decades of intermittently overseas work, I want to deport everyone from NC whose grandparents weren't born here. In this exact state, I mean, not America generally.
Obligatory: It sucks here, no one should move here, you'll die in a hurricane and/or become a racist, be forced to read the Bible, hate bagels and eat grits & liver pudding. Flee north south or west, whichever border is closest.
Perfect ending.
There's Unacceptable Bigotry, and Acceptable Bigotry.
I remember commenting on some Identity Politics-related story in Salon about 15 years ago with a suggestion to replace the campaign against "Racism/Sexism/Homophobia" with a social effort directed against the real enemy, which is Cruelty.
Got no traction at all with that idea. Just another comment post that disappeared into the void.
Being from Iowa, and going to college in New York, I still remember the most common responses: Ohio?, Oh yeah, They grow potatoes there. , Were you safe from Indians? And (rarely but actually accurate), they have some good wrestlers.
Safe from Indians - now, *that's* a good one.
I am a Christian conservative real estate developer. People think it is important to insult me socially.
I’m from Chicago where plenty of people from Iowa live—I never thought much of it until I moved to California. I deeply connect with fellow Midwesterners out here. Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin—they are my people.
Are you referring to Baja Minnesota?
Captain James Tiberius Kirk is from Iowa… so… you know…. Fuck the lot of them?
Right in the ear.
Class is putting others at their ease. A lesson too many haven’t had slapped into them. I blame the parents. And the parent’s parents at this point.
I grew up in West Virginia, where I also went to undergraduate school and medical school. After my residency I had passed my rigorous board exams and was doing some side-work helping prep other physicians to take their board exams, on the day of the test. A young man sat across from me. I don't recall where he went to school but I think it was a name. He asked me where I went to school. "West Virginia University," I replied. He closed his eyes, leaned back, sighed and then said "let's get this over with." It was incredibly condescending. But not surprising. Appalachians are always treated with a sort of sneering disdain. And yet, a friend of mine is a residency director and always loves medical students from WV due to what he describes as their strong blue collar work ethic. I'll take that over pedigree any day. I hear what you're saying. Keep up the great writing!
I’m shocked, but not surprised.
I have no doubt that a lot of students at places like Harvard or Stanford are very bright and worked hard to get there. But there is something about the work ethic and humility of people from more humble beginnings…
By the way, I think West Virginia is one of the most beautiful parts of the United States.
Absolutely! There are some great minds that come from those schools. But sometimes they lack perspective about the rest of the country. And that’s a big part of the political schism we have here right now.
Thanks! I agree. Despite its struggles, West Virginia is a magnificent place.
Have a great day!
Being from Mizzourah,I refer to Iowans as our polite,educated neighbors to the north!
I’m from a small town in northern New Mexico, which is a state that many don’t even know is an actual state in the Union (#47, admitted in 1912 just a few minutes before Arizona, whose statehood is never in doubt). I’ve been at bars with friends back East who have shown a New Mexico drivers license and were told they couldn’t be served because they were international. So much for good education in other supposedly more enlightened and edu-macated parts of the country.
And I remember reading a review about a restaurant in my hometown, and the writer, who I think was from somewhere back east, which to all of us mountain westerners is everything east of us, and said that the food at this restaurant would be described by the locals as “good eats.” I have never in my life heard anyone in my little hometown, a coal mining and ranching town, refer to good food as “good eats.” I think I snarked off a little letter to her that said as much.
The title of your article reminded me of an episode of “Designing Women,” which was my mom‘s favorite show at the time it was on. And this was exactly the punch line made when a woman from Georgia asked a “Yankee” where she was from. I thought maybe it was a reference to that. Great article.
Someone else mentioned designing women too!