My dad grew up in Sioux Falls, SD, his dad grew up in Sioux City, IA, and *his* dad grew up in Chavusy, Belarus. We're Jews, and my dad and his siblings were the only Jews in every school they ever attended until college. I always thought it was so weird that my great grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, looked around at the enormous Jewish community in New York, and thought, "Eh, let's just keep going." A couple years ago my dad went back to Chavusy just to see it. I didn't go with him, but he sent a lot of pictures -- the area looks essentially identical to Sioux City. My great grandfather clearly thought that was what "home" was supposed to look like, so he kept moving west until he found it.
I think about this a lot. When I was growing up I couldn't wait to get out of Iowa. Now I consider it home even though I feel very much at home in Connecticut and intend to stay. There are many similarities between the two states despite the stark contrasts in how they are currently governed.
But if the politics of these places were reversed...what would I want my friends and family in Iowa to do for me?
I'd want them to support me in my decision to stay or go. I'd want them to let me know that they aren't leaving me behind. I'd expect them to understand that there are people just like them who live in every nook and cranny of Connecticut.
As a non US resident or citizen I find the Midwest fascinating - I always think for the most part it’s the most conservative and racist part of the US purely because so many people never leave!
My best friend is married to a man from Indiana. His parents had never left the US until they took them to the UK about 7 years ago. I flew over for the weekend of their wedding - they were fascinated by me and my attitude to transatlantic travel.
Given I’m from the UK I found that really funny! I grew up on a small island, I travelled as much as a could in my 20s/30s because I wanted to know what else was out there.
But if you live somewhere where the nearest coast is 2000 miles away and the nearest foreign country is Canada it’s an entirely different experience and mindset as a result.
I moved to France. Not far from the UK but there is still a bit of friction because they are also a nation who don’t like immigrants, lots of France is rural and relatively isolated like the Midwest. They did research before Macron’s 2017 presidential run - the further you live from a major rail line (TGV line) the more likely you are to vote far right...
I feel this so much, grateful to have read it this morning. I'm constantly thinking about how we can claim homes in places that were taken from others. How unmooring our own sense of home can be when we leave childhood homes, try to create some sense of home for ourselves. The history we've been handed is the only way I've figured out to find some sense of home--to know the reality of place, commit to its care.
Whew. My parents moved us around a lot, too. I always thought it was my dad who was searching for something new at the next place. But after he died, my mom kept moving and moving and moving. I appreciate your insights on all this.
This x1000. I’m in Tennessee for reasons of finance and family, a native Californian who was moved here at the age of 17 by my dad’s GM job and stayed mainly because I have older parents who need help and I’m an only child. I will be ok, I’m a middle-aged white woman past child-bearing ability. I worry on the daily for my son and my daughter and tell them to leave as soon as they can. But they are 9 and 8, and 10 years from now may be too late. The rise of authoritarianism in this country is frightening, but not surprising.
An excellent piece today, Lyz - and one I'm sure you know hits home for me.
It's hitting home even more these days, as my mom & stepdad are preparing to move out of the home they've lived in for forty years. My youngest brother, ten years younger than I am, and 13 years younger than our older sister, has never known another home for our mom.
I'm preparing to go back and visit, and that will probably be the last time I see that house, at least from the inside.
The older I get, the more I'm reminded of a story from a book my father - dead now more than two years - gave me when I was young. It was an old paperback, a book that he'd had when he was young, and had found a copy at the Mile High Flea Market. It was one of the early editions and Rod Serling's 'The Twilight Zone' stories. And when I lost the copy he'd given me in that horrible fire in 2008, I went online and found a bookseller who had the same edition that sits on my bookshelf now.
The short version of the story, for those who've never read or seen it, is that a busy businessman who hasn't been to his hometown in years ends up in his car broken down a short walk from his small hometown. While that little town could have been many places, I've always imagined it to be a bit like so many midwest towns. The businessman tells the mechanic he'll talk a walk while the car is being worked on - after all, it's just walking distance.
When the businessman gets to the town, he finds it somehow exactly like it was when he was a child. Because through some strange bit of - call it magic - he has in fact ended up not only in the town he grew up in, but the time he grew up there.
He ends up running into himself as a child, and his parents. It's one of my all-time favorite stories - one I don't recommend reading without tissues handy.
Without spoiling the story, the key to it is that the businessman, who has many regrets, learns that home really isn't walking distance. It's a place AND a time. And while we can't go home, there's always lessons and pieces of home we carry with us.
That doesn't mean we don't still feel connected to the places and people we once called home.
I still look up 110 Sand Lane, NW in Cedar Rapids every once in a while - the last home my family lived in before we moved back to Nebraska, and all the things that led to my parent's divorce, and everything since happened.
And while I have deep issues with Iowa and Nebraska, and so many places like them, I do what I do because I fight for the good people who remain there.
Because I can never go home.
But it is their home.
And there are good people there, who deserve a better home than the one they're currently surrounded by.
Thanks as always Lyz for your writing. And thanks this time for reminding me that the good things from home, like a carousel when we were kids, are still with us today, if we're just willing to open or eyes & our hearts.
I read what you write and share. And then I read it again. And I think about it a lot. And I usually go back and Re-read. One day I’ll invent something and become rich. I’ll help my southwest Iowa 5 generations of Czech farmers, I’ll invest to revive my small hometown, I’ll start a community theater and a food pantry. I’ll send money to support you and your writing. And I’ll invest so much effing money into Iowa democratic politics it will make your effing head spin. There. I said it. Universe, bring it on.
Holy crap this is good, Lyz. "Midwestern identity is built on nostalgia for an imagined past, not a past truly remembered. If we did remember our past, we wouldn’t ask “What happened?” We’d be asking better questions of ourselves. Which compromises were we willing to make? What small (or large) violences were we willing to ignore? What did we trade for peace?"
The good news is that we're always home. We all crawled out of the ocean at the same time. Sometime later, we all walked out of Africa. The rest it migration history...and it never stops.
It is so so so important to always keep in mind that we are on stolen land. A scholar I really love who has been incredibly important in any kind of improvements we have had in creating inclusive and equitable K-college curriculum wrote a critical family history, and in the process of her research found out that an inheritance she received came from family members who benefited directly from stolen Ute land in Colorado, she decided to give the money to the tribe as a way to pay it back. Her work influenced my dissertation where I also did a critical family history, which in part dealt with how colonizers, settlers, and immigrants have benefited from really awful practices that continue today. Her name is Christine Sleeter, and her work on critical multicultural education is excellent. I really love digging into this notion of belonging and place, especially since I rarely feel like I belong anywhere.
Once again you've found the root of the root and the bud of the bud. Thank you-
The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. – T.S. Eliot ... though I often think of it as know ourselves for the first time.
I appreciate you sharing your journey in connecting with your ancestors even when you have little to go on. It's so common for white Americans (and Canadians) to claim there is nothing for them to connect to or learn because it's been so long since their ancestors came over as either colonizers or settlers (or both, as is more often the case given the waves of immigration over centuries) and they don't think it would be meaningful. Yet so many folks of African descent, who know even less about their ancestors because of the violence of the Atlantic slave trade, are fully capable of doing this reconnecting. It's a key part of anti-racist work to find out who our people were before whiteness as part of divesting from whiteness.
The Truth About Going Home
My dad grew up in Sioux Falls, SD, his dad grew up in Sioux City, IA, and *his* dad grew up in Chavusy, Belarus. We're Jews, and my dad and his siblings were the only Jews in every school they ever attended until college. I always thought it was so weird that my great grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, looked around at the enormous Jewish community in New York, and thought, "Eh, let's just keep going." A couple years ago my dad went back to Chavusy just to see it. I didn't go with him, but he sent a lot of pictures -- the area looks essentially identical to Sioux City. My great grandfather clearly thought that was what "home" was supposed to look like, so he kept moving west until he found it.
I think about this a lot. When I was growing up I couldn't wait to get out of Iowa. Now I consider it home even though I feel very much at home in Connecticut and intend to stay. There are many similarities between the two states despite the stark contrasts in how they are currently governed.
But if the politics of these places were reversed...what would I want my friends and family in Iowa to do for me?
I'd want them to support me in my decision to stay or go. I'd want them to let me know that they aren't leaving me behind. I'd expect them to understand that there are people just like them who live in every nook and cranny of Connecticut.
As a non US resident or citizen I find the Midwest fascinating - I always think for the most part it’s the most conservative and racist part of the US purely because so many people never leave!
My best friend is married to a man from Indiana. His parents had never left the US until they took them to the UK about 7 years ago. I flew over for the weekend of their wedding - they were fascinated by me and my attitude to transatlantic travel.
Given I’m from the UK I found that really funny! I grew up on a small island, I travelled as much as a could in my 20s/30s because I wanted to know what else was out there.
But if you live somewhere where the nearest coast is 2000 miles away and the nearest foreign country is Canada it’s an entirely different experience and mindset as a result.
I moved to France. Not far from the UK but there is still a bit of friction because they are also a nation who don’t like immigrants, lots of France is rural and relatively isolated like the Midwest. They did research before Macron’s 2017 presidential run - the further you live from a major rail line (TGV line) the more likely you are to vote far right...
I feel this so much, grateful to have read it this morning. I'm constantly thinking about how we can claim homes in places that were taken from others. How unmooring our own sense of home can be when we leave childhood homes, try to create some sense of home for ourselves. The history we've been handed is the only way I've figured out to find some sense of home--to know the reality of place, commit to its care.
Whew. My parents moved us around a lot, too. I always thought it was my dad who was searching for something new at the next place. But after he died, my mom kept moving and moving and moving. I appreciate your insights on all this.
This x1000. I’m in Tennessee for reasons of finance and family, a native Californian who was moved here at the age of 17 by my dad’s GM job and stayed mainly because I have older parents who need help and I’m an only child. I will be ok, I’m a middle-aged white woman past child-bearing ability. I worry on the daily for my son and my daughter and tell them to leave as soon as they can. But they are 9 and 8, and 10 years from now may be too late. The rise of authoritarianism in this country is frightening, but not surprising.
Thank you, Lyz, for this thoughtful and challenging perspective.
An excellent piece today, Lyz - and one I'm sure you know hits home for me.
It's hitting home even more these days, as my mom & stepdad are preparing to move out of the home they've lived in for forty years. My youngest brother, ten years younger than I am, and 13 years younger than our older sister, has never known another home for our mom.
I'm preparing to go back and visit, and that will probably be the last time I see that house, at least from the inside.
The older I get, the more I'm reminded of a story from a book my father - dead now more than two years - gave me when I was young. It was an old paperback, a book that he'd had when he was young, and had found a copy at the Mile High Flea Market. It was one of the early editions and Rod Serling's 'The Twilight Zone' stories. And when I lost the copy he'd given me in that horrible fire in 2008, I went online and found a bookseller who had the same edition that sits on my bookshelf now.
While it was made into one of the episodes of the TV show in 1959, I prefer the written version, which can be found used, or if you're into screenplays, right here: ( http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/The_Twilight_Zone/The_Twilight_Zone_1x05_-_Walking_Distance.pdf )
The short version of the story, for those who've never read or seen it, is that a busy businessman who hasn't been to his hometown in years ends up in his car broken down a short walk from his small hometown. While that little town could have been many places, I've always imagined it to be a bit like so many midwest towns. The businessman tells the mechanic he'll talk a walk while the car is being worked on - after all, it's just walking distance.
When the businessman gets to the town, he finds it somehow exactly like it was when he was a child. Because through some strange bit of - call it magic - he has in fact ended up not only in the town he grew up in, but the time he grew up there.
He ends up running into himself as a child, and his parents. It's one of my all-time favorite stories - one I don't recommend reading without tissues handy.
Without spoiling the story, the key to it is that the businessman, who has many regrets, learns that home really isn't walking distance. It's a place AND a time. And while we can't go home, there's always lessons and pieces of home we carry with us.
That doesn't mean we don't still feel connected to the places and people we once called home.
I still look up 110 Sand Lane, NW in Cedar Rapids every once in a while - the last home my family lived in before we moved back to Nebraska, and all the things that led to my parent's divorce, and everything since happened.
And while I have deep issues with Iowa and Nebraska, and so many places like them, I do what I do because I fight for the good people who remain there.
Because I can never go home.
But it is their home.
And there are good people there, who deserve a better home than the one they're currently surrounded by.
Thanks as always Lyz for your writing. And thanks this time for reminding me that the good things from home, like a carousel when we were kids, are still with us today, if we're just willing to open or eyes & our hearts.
"But I do know that the people who are the most vulnerable should not be the ones tasked with the fight."
Fuck. Yes. ✊🏽
I read what you write and share. And then I read it again. And I think about it a lot. And I usually go back and Re-read. One day I’ll invent something and become rich. I’ll help my southwest Iowa 5 generations of Czech farmers, I’ll invest to revive my small hometown, I’ll start a community theater and a food pantry. I’ll send money to support you and your writing. And I’ll invest so much effing money into Iowa democratic politics it will make your effing head spin. There. I said it. Universe, bring it on.
Holy crap this is good, Lyz. "Midwestern identity is built on nostalgia for an imagined past, not a past truly remembered. If we did remember our past, we wouldn’t ask “What happened?” We’d be asking better questions of ourselves. Which compromises were we willing to make? What small (or large) violences were we willing to ignore? What did we trade for peace?"
The good news is that we're always home. We all crawled out of the ocean at the same time. Sometime later, we all walked out of Africa. The rest it migration history...and it never stops.
It is so so so important to always keep in mind that we are on stolen land. A scholar I really love who has been incredibly important in any kind of improvements we have had in creating inclusive and equitable K-college curriculum wrote a critical family history, and in the process of her research found out that an inheritance she received came from family members who benefited directly from stolen Ute land in Colorado, she decided to give the money to the tribe as a way to pay it back. Her work influenced my dissertation where I also did a critical family history, which in part dealt with how colonizers, settlers, and immigrants have benefited from really awful practices that continue today. Her name is Christine Sleeter, and her work on critical multicultural education is excellent. I really love digging into this notion of belonging and place, especially since I rarely feel like I belong anywhere.
Once again you've found the root of the root and the bud of the bud. Thank you-
The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. – T.S. Eliot ... though I often think of it as know ourselves for the first time.
I appreciate you sharing your journey in connecting with your ancestors even when you have little to go on. It's so common for white Americans (and Canadians) to claim there is nothing for them to connect to or learn because it's been so long since their ancestors came over as either colonizers or settlers (or both, as is more often the case given the waves of immigration over centuries) and they don't think it would be meaningful. Yet so many folks of African descent, who know even less about their ancestors because of the violence of the Atlantic slave trade, are fully capable of doing this reconnecting. It's a key part of anti-racist work to find out who our people were before whiteness as part of divesting from whiteness.
I didn’t leave Idaho until I was 26. Some days I still feel like I abandoned it, left it to the wolves.