Laura Miller

"Midwestern Culture"

No, my house is not made of corn, but yes, there is a cornfield in my back yard. It’s true, as I once explained to a bewildered lady in Florida, that my house is in fact not made out of corn and I do not live on a farm, regardless of the fact that I live in Iowa. Another well-meaning man in Hawaii asked me whether I was comfortable speaking English after I told him that I was from Iowa. I continued to speak English to him so that I did not further an already embarrassing situation. I have encountered a lot of stereotypes about the Midwest, some of which are accurate, and others that are so wrong that I laugh when I think about them. Growing up in Iowa, I was unaware that I had been living in a place that many other people considered to be uninhabitable, because of the extreme weather conditions and boredom, due to a lack of city life. I was a perfectly happy person, despite the fact that I was in a small town. When I meet people from large, coastal cities, they are always more than happy to tell me what is wrong with Midwest, and I remain poised to counter their argument with the good qualities of Midwestern life.

The Midwest can be classified by city dwellers as “fly over country,” which means that it is not a place that they want to visit, though it is necessary to fly over it in order to get from coast to coast. People from large cities often sum up what the Midwest means to them: flat, farms, and nothing to do. There are many farms with row upon row of corn fields in the Midwest, especially spread throughout Iowa. On occasion, people who have not experienced the Midwest characterize Midwesterners to be as bland as their landscape, without anything extraordinary to boast. I remember watching a reality television show, where an heiress explains to her friends that while she buys cargo pants because they are fashionable, people in Iowa buy them because they have to use the many pockets of the pants to store tools when they work in the fields. My first thought was that none of the tools which one might take out to the fields would fit into the pockets of cargo pants. Then a surge of anger and disgust rose up from within me. That girl did not know what she was talking about. At least she knew that Iowa existed, which meant that she was more aware of the Midwest than some. Midwesterners are considered to be average people, thus they are perceived as being uninteresting.

There are some stereotypes that are more prevalent in the smaller towns of Iowa. People sometimes drive their tractor to school as a last resort. There are towns that have only one stop light, others that do not have a stop light at all. There are people who do live on farms in Iowa, but there are also several people who live in cities. Those of us who live in small Midwestern cities often do not perceive living in a small town to be a damaging quality until someone else tells us. In his blog, a man from Chippewa Valley, Wisconsin admitted that he had “never had an inferiority complex about [his] Midwestern residence until [he] lived in Boston for a summer.” People in Boston apparently asked him to regurgitate expert knowledge about cheese and tell stories about his cow, which they figured was his only source of entertainment. This experience is common for people from the Midwest who branch out into bigger cities. Another blogger explains that for a long time she was ashamed about being brought up in the Midwest because people disregarded her once they realized where she was from. She took the criticism and learned to turn it into a learning experience for the other person, and now she is proud of where she came from.

I had a humbling experience when I came to college. The first thing that one of my suite mates said to me was “You know what Iowa stands for, right? Idiots Out Walking Around.” Another friend from a big city asked me if I wanted to see the skyline of Des Moines, Iowa. Then she held up her middle finger and explained that there was only one tall building in Des Moines. These comments surely did not boost my self esteem, and during at least one orientation gathering I told my group that I was from Chicago. I realize that jokes about Iowa are all in fun, but I do not want to be stereotyped as a backwards hick from a place far less sophisticated than everywhere else. Certainly, I am a product of a small Midwestern town, but while that makes me different from city dwellers, I am not less capable of living a meaningful life.

Though there are many outrageously false stereotypes about the Midwest, sometimes, the tamer stereotypes are true. In Iowa, most of the small towns host quaint festivals named after fruits and vegetables. I can annually expect to go to Solon Beef Days, Atkins Watermelon Days, and the St. Jude’s Sweet Corn Festival. There are also larger festivals, such as the Freedom Festival and All Iowa Fair. The music groups that the festivals bring in are at least ten years past their prime, but I’d rather listen to the Beach Boys or Styx than Fat Joe anyway. But the quality of music at to the festivals is not why people attend them. People go in order to relax, talk with friends, and eat good food. It does not matter that the same carnival company brings the same rides to every festival or that the main attraction is the Bingo Tent. What matters to me is sharing a bag of cotton candy with my little sister, watching my little brother squeal as crashes his bumper car, and resting my head on the shoulder of a good friend as the evening music dances in the air.

Because of the lack of travel to the Midwest, stereotypes are easily perpetuated about Midwesterners. In order to break these stereotypes, Midwesterners need to convince the inexperienced to visit the Midwest and understand its culture. The problem is that there are not many large scale attractions to attract tourists into the Midwest. My hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been struggling for the past several years to build a city that is attractive to tourists. The City Manager wants to bring more money into Cedar Rapids. First, the city planners tried creating a boardwalk type atmosphere along the Cedar River with a gambling boat as the main attraction. This idea evoked outrage among the religious community because they did not want the evils of gambling to be promoted in their city. The progressive leaders of Cedar Rapids pushed for a grand attraction, but long-term residence of my town clung to their values, and kept the gambling boat from being created. Then the city proposed building an indoor rainforest. The rainforest idea was nixed because Cedar Rapidians largely believed that constructing a rainforest would bankrupt the city and most likely not attract tourists at all. Several cities in the Midwest are facing the same difficulties as Cedar Rapids is with tourism. There is no reason why people from the outskirts of the United States shouldn’t just fly over the Midwest.
Casting aside the negative stereotypes, there are also positive generalizations about Midwestern people that I find to be accurate. In many small towns, as is true in my home town, people wave to each other as they pass by, whether they are walking or driving. People wave to be friendly and do not always know the person on the receiving end of their wave. That is just what we do. I did not realize that this was different from any other place until my high school choir took a trip to New York City. Our director told us many times that we were not to greet anyone that we passed, or even look them in the eye. The girls were especially to keep their eyes on the ground, and we were all to stay in groups with at least one male. I told myself not to smile at people as I passed them, because I was used to making a connection with people I passed. I enjoy the momentary association with strangers whom I pass by because it makes me feel like I am part of a community that cares about me.

Without the buzz of a big city, many people consider small towns to be boring. I argue that people find creative ways to spend their time. For a countless number of summer evenings, my neighborhood gathered all of the children, which was between fifteen and twenty-five children, and we played outdoor games. Kick the Can and Ball Tag were our favorites. Other evenings, we packed everyone up in the Mini Van and drove a block and a half to the neighborhood swimming pool, where we dove for pennies that our fathers threw to the bottom of the pool. When we became older, the games changed, but they continued to reflect our creativity. A favorite past time of many high school students was going to Wal-Mart and getting kicked out for playing in the aisles. When teenagers are old enough to drive, they play hide and seek in their cars, which is exactly the way that it sounds. Students like to toilet-paper, plastic wrap, or egg the houses of their friends and enemies. These activities are not the most constructive way to be spending time, but neither is clubbing, shopping at designer boutiques, or lounging on the beach, and those things can be a lot more expensive.

I have heard it said that Midwesterners are nicer than people in big cities. Though I cannot vouch for whether this statement is true or not, I think that from the perspective of a city dweller, Midwestern culture may seem more comforting. Because big cities foster both a concentrated and diverse population, the crime rate tends to be higher than in small Midwestern towns. High crime rate could cause a person in the city to become suspect of everyone else, which would raise tension and paranoia between the people. In Cedar Rapids, the crime rate is rather low. There are some small towns where almost everyone has a personal relationship or connection, so people are much more at ease with one another. I consider anyone to be a friend until they prove to be otherwise. Cedar Rapidians trust one another, and do not fully understand why anyone would want to do them harm. For several years, the lock on the front door to my house did not work, so my house was left unlocked all of the time. Not once did it cause us any trouble, and we only fixed the lock when we wanted to sell our house. Midwesterners are often comfortable with their community, which creates an eagerness to share what they have with other people, even people from big cities. It is important to Midwestern culture to forge bonds with people who you care about and who you know care about you.

I know that my neighbors in my community care about me because of several instances in which they have gone out of their way to craft a relationship with me and my family. I remember moving to three different houses within Cedar Rapids, and each time my new neighbors welcomed my family with baked goods, such as cookies or fruit salad. When my family took a vacation to Colorado, my father wore a University of Iowa tee shirt one day. Another family who was also vacationing in Colorado came up to us and struck up a conversation. The family was from Fort Dodge, Iowa, where my father was born. Though he moved away as a child, many of his family members still lived there, and the other family knew our family. We had an instant connection and were able to converse about our lives comfortably with each other as though we had been old friends.

The strongest example of Midwestern hospitality that I have encountered occurred about a year ago. My little sister suddenly contracted Ulcerative Colitis, which gave her ulcers in her large intestine. She spent a month and a half in the hospital, and went through three long surgeries. During that time, my mother skipped work to stay with her during the day and my father did not come home from work in order to stay with her at night. My family was devastated and we literally separated during this time. Our plight was made worse because the doctors could not give my sister a clear diagnosis as she deteriorated before our eyes.

Many neighbors and community members pitched in to help my family through our rough time. As the word spread that my sister was sick, acquaintances called our house and asked us if they could pray for her safe return to health. We always accepted their offers. Neighbors brought homemade dishes to my house for dinner so that my mother did not have to cook every night. I was allowed to skip classes sometimes to go to the hospital and visit with my sister. A further act of kindness came from a single person who worked in the same building as my father. Though he did not know this woman very well, she walked up to him and gave him a hundred dollars to help pay for extra expenses, such as gasoline or a parking pass so that my dad could stay with my sister all night. She said that she did this because another person had helped her family when she was younger. My mother has already perpetuated the favor to a family whose young son was diagnosed with cancer.

Beyond stereotypes, the Midwest has many qualities that are considered by many as a drawback. The biggest difficulty about living in the Midwest is the weather. In the summer, the temperature is hot with a blast of humidity by August. School is cancelled when it is too humid to comfortably sit in a classroom because the schools do not have air conditioning. The humidity uncomfortable to breathe and I dislike when my clothes stick to my body even though I am doing no real physical activity. In the winter months, Midwesterners experience sub-zero temperatures and have to suffer through snow and ice. Car accidents intensify when the roads get icy and school is cancelled when it is too cold for the school busses to start. The weather is often unpredictable and goes from warm to cold quickly in the fall and spring, but Midwesterners have learned to live with that. Even though many people often complain about the weather not being nice, they stay in the Midwest year after year, knowing the way that the weather is. If the weather was truly unbearable, everyone would move to Florida.

Many people in the Midwest see themselves as a reflection of what they are not because television has enhanced the enchantment of big coastal cities for Midwesterners. I have seen television shows where people spend their free time at the beach or going out to clubs, and I long to be there with them. The closest beach to me is a man made, yellow sand beach in Palo, Iowa, which is usually infested with dead Minos, and it takes half an hour to get there. I want to go to clubs and be able to dance, but given the opportunity at any high school homecoming, almost everybody stands around as rap music blares, waiting for one of the three slow songs of the night to be played. Overall, television programs are set in all of the places surrounding the Midwest, and they make city life seem glamorous.

Midwesterners sometimes feel trapped by their circumstances because the Midwest can be a black hole for creative success. There is not a thriving theater or movie industry in the Midwest. Multi-million dollar companies often find themselves located in comfortable coastal cities. Though my history teachers told me that the nation’s capitol was once located in the middle of the nation, it is nowhere near the middle now. Because successful businesses are located far away from the Midwest, so is the network of successful people that one would need to know in order to make a significant accomplishment. Iowa has bred some very successful people, including Herbert Hoover, Elijah Wood, and the most recent winner of the Masters Golf Tournament, Zach Johnson. On a side note, two days after the Masters, Cedar Rapids declared it to be Zach Johnson Day, because he grew up there, and that is just the kind of city it is.

Midwestern culture is the way it is because of its past. My family has lived in Iowa for generations, mostly farming the land. My grandparents tell me about their life on the farm, and none of them were particularly prosperous, especially during the Great Depression. My grandmother tells me about the one doll that she and her sister got to share for Christmas one year. My other grandmother tells me about how her family was bumped from farm to farm because they were tenant farmers, and their landlord wanted their land back. Her friends gave her a charm bracelet when she left town, and I still have that bracelet. Life on a farm lacked luxury for my grandparents. They went to school, completed their chores, and did not think twice about the weather conditions or shopping malls that they were missing out on. Their parents encouraged them work hard so that they could go to college and have a profession besides farming. There was not much visible affection between the members of my grandparents’ families, though my grandparents knew how to make their parents proud. My grandparents worked hard in order to feel pride in themselves, and they were happy, thus successful in life.

Though I do not have the experience of living on a farm, I consider myself to be hard working, like the generations of family members who preceded me. One of my grandmothers is a staunch feminist and constantly reminds me about how lucky I am to have the right to express myself as a woman. She was a teacher because when she was young, there were only three professions that she could go in to: nursing, secretarial work, or teaching. She challenges me to work hard in order to prove that I, a woman, can do whatever I want. I want to please my elders, and myself, so I do work hard, and am content when they recognize that. One time my great-grandmother, who was under heavy medication at the time, told her nurse, whom she rarely ever spoke to, that I was in the special education class at school. What she meant was that I had been accepted into an advanced class, but the compliment was still well received. Some people say that working hard is a trait of the Midwest. I am sure that many people in large cities have a similar work ethic, but in the Midwest hard work is a product of what the early settlers of our land went through in order to successfully survive.

Those who have lived in small Midwestern towns know that the Midwestern culture is a separate and personal catalogue of experiences that mold into who become. To people from large cities, Midwestern culture is a shadow of ignorant nostalgia. Regardless of whether one is from the Midwest or not, the existence of the small town way of life that is substantially different from city life. The Midwest has a heritage that is unique and a culture that is special. There are no words to define the feeling. Words are too complicated for such a simple gesture. Midwestern culture is.