In her speech at the GOP convention, Sarah Palin made a comment about being a small town mayor. She seems to believe that small town = better, and she’s not alone. Most Democrats and most Republicans have bought into the notion that small-town America is our country at its best, most pure form.
I humbly disagree.
I was born and raised in a place called Lacey, Washington. It’s a suburb of Olympia, the state capitol, though it’s large enough at this point that Olympia is almost a suburb of Lacey. It was, while I was growing up, a bedroom community for people who worked in Tacoma and soldiers who were stationed at Ft Lewis.
As I grew the town grew, but even now it’s not exactly huge, having a population of only about 38,000 people. True, this is bigger than Wasilla (which I visited for one day back in 1991), the town Palin ran, which has about 8,000 people, but it’s hardly large. I’d say it’s on the upper end of “small” status, and when I was growing up it was smaller by far than it is now. It was entirely possible to walk from the mushroom farm across from Nisqually Middle School at one end of the town, to St Peter’s Hospital at the other end. Not an easy walk, but not that harsh.
Lacey when I was growing up wasn’t exactly a bastion of diversity. I remember there being almost no black kids in the schools I attended (Lacey Elementry, Lakes, Lydia Hawk, Nisqually, Timberline and New Century High School, for the curious), until probably the late 1980’s. I do remember seeing quite a few Asians, especially Vietnamese, but whites dominated back then even more than they do now (with 78.19% of the population, according to Wikipedia).
I also knew no religious diversity. I don’t recall knowing anyone who was Jewish until I was an adult. Even then it wasn’t until I moved to Seattle that I met the first person I knew to be a Jew. Heck, it wasn’t until fairly recently that I found there are names that are typically Jewish. It just escaped my attention. I don’t know the religious statistics for Lacey, but I do know when I was growing up it was quite WASPy.
As for sexual diversity? Pft. I didn’t know anyone who was anything other than straight (ignoring other boys I was experimenting with during my teen years, all of whom ended up straight), until I was about 18 and attending New Century (for those who live in the area, but don’t remember NCHS, think of a high-school version of Evergreen). This certainly made it somewhat harder when I was coming out. It’s not that there weren’t gay or bi people in Lacey, it’s just that it wasn’t a safe place to be out.
Being that it was a small town, we didn’t have access to a lot of things larger towns offer, like sports, theatre, museums, and the like. We had to go to Seattle or Tacoma for those, which is also generally where you had to go if you wanted a job that paid decently.
For a small town, Lacey was reasonably large and had the influence of Seattle and Tacoma to help limit the problems small towns face. I can only imagine growing up in a place like Vinita, Oklahoma, where much of my mom’s side of the family comes from. That’s the prototypical small town, with all the problems you’d expect from a lack of social, political and economic diversity. Full of basically good people, just like you find anywhere, even in large cities, but a place that’s very limited in its outlook.
I spent the summer of 1986 on my family’s farm there, and even though I was from a pretty small place, seeing a place that small was a real eye-opener. Everyone was the same basic color, practiced the same basic religion and voted pretty much the same way. Oh, there were exceptions, and as mentioned a lot of that was the case in Lacey, but Vinita was Lacey set to eleven without the advantage of having a place like Seattle right nearby.
I would say that overall America’s large cities are better than our small towns. Cities are places where you meet lots of people who look, think, act and believe differently. You’ll see people like you, but you’ll also see people who are very different, and you don’t get that in small towns, at least not on any major scale. Plus so many small towns are one factory closing away from being ghost towns, and that’s certainly not healthy.
This isn’t to say that small towns are bad. They aren’t. I’m happy I grew up in Lacey, which was a great place to grow up in the 1970’s and 1980’s. But growing up there limited my view of the world greatly, despite having a mom who did her best to expand that view whenever she could.
No, small towns aren’t anything bad, but they also aren’t that great. They certainly aren’t America at its most pure, and they aren’t anything to romanticize.
September 5, 2008 at 12:31 am
The Wingnuts, in my opinion, appeal to people with the idea that they’ll take us back to the “Glory years” in America, i.e. the 1950’s.
You know, back when anyone of consequence was white, and the Niggers, Jews, Queers, Wetbacks and Broads knew their place.
If you watch the convention, it looks like a 1950’s sitcom, even the way people dress.
The GOP survives because of the disgruntled white male, and his fantasy of “What Used to Be.”
Of course, as we know, it really never was.
September 5, 2008 at 12:33 am
I forgot, thanks for the link.
September 5, 2008 at 1:48 am
I entirely agree. The GOP to a great extent seems to be stuck in some fake Leave it to Beaver universe. Rationally they know the world isn’t like what we see in that show, and never was, but deep in their hearts they don’t care.
And you’re welcome for the link. Always happy to help publicize good work!
September 5, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I would ask for a clearer definition of your idea of “American at its most pure,” purity (like everything else) being a matter of subjective observation.
I grew up in Olympia in the 1960s and 1970s and I had a similar experience to your own vis-a-vis exposure to anyone other than whites. We had less than a dozen African Americans at Olympia High School when I attended, as well (as I recall) as a single Jewish family, plus a smattering of Asians. However, I never observed any racism of any kind and, by and large, those minority members were considered part of the ‘upper crust’ on the social scale at OHS. I even recall seeing one black student intervene while one of the ‘jocks’ was picking on a weaker, smaller boy in front of the gym, inside a circle of jeering onlookers; he grabbed the jock by the forearm cast he had been bouncing off the smaller boy’s head and banged him across his forehead with it, then said “doesn’t feel very good, does it?” This let the air out of the situation, and caused me to admire the character of that black student very much. After all these years, I still do.
What I think I’m trying to say is that I didn’t experience any type of favoritism or racism until I left Olympia after graduation and moved to a larger city in California, then went on to a brief stay in New Orleans. I was taught by my parents (one from a tiny town in Arkansas (yes, Arkansas), the other from a tiny town here in Washington) that no one had any right to think they were better than anyone else just because of the color of their skin, their social standing, or their income. All my friends and my parents’ friends believe that, and I went out into the world believing that too. And I don’t find myself socially or morally crippled or lacking in sensitivity for growing up in a small town. Demonize if you will, but I will always look back fondly on growing up in Olympia, where I was taught lessons of fair play and equality for all people.
September 5, 2008 at 3:39 pm
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post…
When I was at OHS, interracial dating was the norm and caused no problem at all. I didn’t see sneering dislike for interracial dating or relationships until AFTER I left Olympia. So much for one of the advantages of ‘exposure’ to broader culture in larger cities.
September 5, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Off topic: What was OHS’ full name? I remember it was something with a lot of W’s.
Anyhow, I think part of why there wasn’t a lot of racism in Lacey/Olympia was simply because a: there isn’t much of a history of real racism in that area, and b: there weren’t enough minorities around for there to be any racism.
I have no real interest in demonizing small towns, I just don’t think they’re anything special.
September 6, 2008 at 10:53 am
You’re right, lots of W’s – William Winlock Miller Senior High School.
The presence of even one member of a minority will produce racism in some form, if racism is going to occur. My point is that not only were these minority members NOT victims of any overt racism, they were (to all appearances) socially elite. The particular black student athlete to whom I referred in my previous posts was the boyfriend of the white head cheerleader and they were frequently seen around the OHS campus holding hands, arm-in-arm, etc., and it was viewed as completely ordinary and excited no comment whatsoever.
One other point – small-town racism certainly DID exist in southwest Washington, usually against the Chinese. Sadly, we had our own historical brand of geographically-diverse racist views, and violence WAS committed against the Chinese and also against labor organizers (IWWW). This means that we weren’t totally blameless, but I speak for myself only, and having lived in Olympia from 1957 to 1975 (and various periods thereafter), I experienced a town where people actually smiled and waved at one another on the streets and watched out for one another.
As a final point, we also didn’t require groups of imported, out-of-control radical idealists from The Evergreen State College to periodically flock into downtown from the west side to protest, block traffic, commit civil disobedience, mock us, spit on our ’small town’ ideals, and mistakenly believe that it was their mission (before they graduated and, thankfully, blew town for somewhere else) to teach us poor backward bumpkins to have a social conscience. If I am going to be prejudiced against ANYONE in my home town, it will be against the hyper-reactionary crowd from TESC.
September 6, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Yeah, well, liberal though I am, even I roll my eyes at the Greeners more often than not.
As far as the IWW thing goes, I’m glad to see there’s at least one other person out there who’s heard of things like the Wobbly War.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_Massacre_(Washington) for the curious)
September 8, 2008 at 4:30 pm
My childhood in a small community was different from anything written about here because of the unique aspect of also being on an island, Vashon. Small towns have their own psychological boundaries but in my case they were also physical and that made for some interesting societal consequences.
I grew up in the late ’50s and ’60s, graduating in the class of ‘71, an era that found females caught in a weird time warp between Betty Crocker and Women’s Lib. I had a taste of both. Interestingly enough, one day as a teenager I made a comment to my mother about the ’50s being such a nice era. She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, eyes wide, and informed me that it was NOT such a great time. She pointed out things like the Korean War, McCarthyism, and prejudice. Another thing a lot of people don’t “get” is that it was a time of oppression for American women who had been in the work force during WWII. When the soldiers returned real political and societal forces booted those women right back into the kitchen, so men could have those jobs. The ’50s sitcoms you mention were actually propaganda, idealizing the small town, stay-at-home, aproned Mom, glorying in her domestic bliss. When politicians idealize that era they are being unrealistic and misleading. But even with it’s tough realities that time in history did have it’s good points and many were related to small town life.
I remember my childhood on Vashon with great affection, and write about it frequently on my blog. Those stories are among my most popular posts. I can relate to what Bryan has written concerning race relations. Vashon’s minority population consisted of only two black families I knew of, a few Native Americans and a few Japanese families. Before WWII a large number of Japanese people lived on the island but fewer returned. Before the war they were totally integrated into island life, accepted and well respected. Sadly, during the hysteria of war, a few Caucasian individuals showed an ugly side, but there was very little of that compared with on the mainland. An excellent book on the Japanese American’s experience, by someone who lived it, is “Looking Like the Enemy” by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. Her family lived across the road from mine and all seven kids in my family grew up picking strawberries on their farm.
Small town life brings both pluses and minuses. To me it felt safe and secure, almost an extended family. That strong sense of belonging helped to shape my identity and sense of self, both on the plus side. I saw the way people cooperated for the common good and helped each other out whenever needed.
On the other hand, as a teenager on Vashon, I couldn’t wait to get off “the Rock” and get out into what I saw as the “real” world, a place where, for one thing, there were some young men I hadn’t been sitting next to in class my entire life. The flip side of that cozy everyone-knows-everyone feeling that sounds so cozy is gossip and scrutiny. The lack of opportunities for cultural enrichment doesn’t really exist there any more but things were pretty quiet on the island during my childhood. Fortunately my parents saw to it that we ventured into the city to aid our education and took us to many wonderful events, like hearing the Vienna Choir Boys, seeing exhibits, etc.
Rather than dwelling on the question of whether or not small town life should be held up as perfection we should be concerned about the telling of the truth. Perfection itself is a myth and myths carry great danger. Intelligent people need to watch out for this danger. Our country faces a host of major challenges that cannot be dealt with through myths. Let’s encourage all citizen to keep their heads on straight and not buy into a twisted version of history or of present day life in America.
September 8, 2008 at 4:33 pm
How did I end up with that strange avatar?
September 8, 2008 at 6:02 pm
The avatars are assigned randomly to people who don’t have pics set up. It is rather odd looking.
I’ve been to Vashon, actually. My grandfather had some friends there and one summer when I was staying with him after my grandmother died, we went and visited them for a couple days. It struck me as the standard “nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”, kind of place. Even back when I was 12, I knew I was a city kind of person.