flame away!
OK. When I get weird posts to my blog, I usually disregard them. However, I couldn't help but argue on this one (simply because I just know that my post will be misconstrued by more than one person and also just because I'm feeling argumentative):
--"I would be careful about categorizing everyone who lives in a college town as MIDWESTERN."
"Categorizing" about what? You are arguing about something that didn't even get mentioned. I didn't categorize "everyone who lives in a college town" as anything. College town didn't come up. You must not know me at all or very well, because if you did, you would know I was born and raised in a college town.
--"First, the majority of them are from a city or suburb like the Chicago area, and most people don't consider that midwestern."
Uhhh, what? What on earth do you mean, "most people don't consider" Chicago Midwestern? It is Midwestern. Ultimately, it sounds like YOU are translating the adjective "Midwestern" as bad or offensive. For me, it's just something quite different from my experience before moving here (the Western states and the East Coast and New York City in particular). My family is from the Midwest--both sides going back about thirteen generations. It's something that's hard to put my finger on, but it's a feeling that I know is not uniquely experienced by me. And I have several friends who were born and raised in Illinois (definitely the Midwest, whether from Chicago or not) who feel the same way about living in the Midwest.
--"And at the grad level, many people are out of state. Categorizing people as all midwestern seems pretty bigoted. Like saying all French people are wimps, or all black people are dumb. More than being offensive, it's just untrue and makes you look unintelligent, which I am sure you are not."
I didn't "categorize" everyone as being Midwestern in any way except that the vast majority of the people in my particular graduate program *are* Midwestern. It's not a wide-sweeping generalization; it happens to be a fact. I also didn't say anything in particular about Midwesterners or use any qualifiers like "all Midwesterners are parochial" or "all Midwesterners are stupid" or anything like that. I only explained that I happen to be different from many of them and they are often different from me. Unfortunately for my program, a good many of them are not from out of state--it would be better if they were. And, incidentally, I can think of quite a few folks in my program who are from out of state, but also are from the Midwest.
And, incidentally, *I* happen to be in-state, even though I am not from the Midwest.
That's it for now. Since this is my blog and I am the Queen, I will only continue to argue about this if I feel like it. No democracy here!
I promise my next posts will be fun again. :)
posted by Doodlebug @ 8:46 AM
8 Comments:
From Wikipedia:
Though definitions vary, any definition of the Midwest would include the Northwest Ordinance "Old Northwest" states and often includes many states that were part of the Louisiana Purchase. The states of the Old Northwest are also known as "Great Lakes states". Many of the Louisiana Purchase states are also known as Great Plains states. The Midwest is defined, by the U.S. Census Bureau as these 12 states:
Illinois: Old Northwest, Ohio River and Great Lakes state
Indiana: Old Northwest, Ohio River and Great Lakes state
Iowa: Louisiana Purchase
Kansas: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state
Michigan: Old Northwest, and Great Lakes state
Minnesota: Old Northwest, and Great Lakes state; western part Louisiana Purchase
Missouri: Louisiana Purchase, Border state
Nebraska: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state
North Dakota: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state
Ohio: Old Northwest (Historic Connecticut Western Reserve), Ohio River and Eastern Great Lakes state. Also a Northeastern Appalachian state in the SE.
South Dakota: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state
Wisconsin: Old Northwest, and Great Lakes state
Chicago is the largest city in the region and the third largest in the nation; other important cities in the regions include Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Des Moines, Toledo, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Small towns and agricultural communities in Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska loom an imaginative description of the traditionally thought-of Midwestern spirit.
Hey, I am from Chicago, and anytime I tell people I am from the Midwest, they ask where, and I tell them and they say "That's not the midwest!"
That's pretty interesting, yo. I have found a lot of similarities between people in Chicago (who are also from Chicagoland) and people in Central Illinois. Interestingly, many members of the young population in Chicago (20s and 30s) is comprised of people who happened to go to school here in C-U.
To me, it's just the Midwest. I have felt like a fish out of water much of the time I've lived here (in the Midwest--both in Chicago and in Urbana). But that's just me. I also knew lots of folks who went to college with me in Mass. or who lived in NYC when I was there who felt out of place in the East. And folks who felt out of place in Colorado. It happens.
I guess I don't know very many people from Central IL, since all the people in CU seem to be suburbanites/Chicagoans/from other places.
I also feel like a fish out of water here, but it's in exactly the same way as it was when I lived in the suburbs. I think it's one thing to feel out of place and another thing to feel out of place because a place happens to be in a gigantic region of the country. I mean I think I would feel equully out of place in suburban NYC, rural Georgia, and Los Angeles, but not because of the regions they are in.
I see your point. However, I feel that an individual cannot avoid some flavors of his or her region. There are very few places in the country where I'm willing to live (very high-maintenance)--I think I'd feel even weirder in the Southern parts of the country. But by and large, I think the regional flavorings of the West and East suit me much better. The particular experiences I've had in the Midwest have been unique to this region. But I won't get into the similarities in behavior I've observed here, so as not to um, gossip. And even if I were to bring up Chicago stories, I would come across as seriously generalizing. Which I've already come across as being, apparently, but I'll just drop it. :)
Yeah I guess my main point was Chicago and Champaign are not at all ;experiencing the midwest" for anyone I know from Chicago or the midwest.
you might like this.
Minnesoooota must be a pretty rockin' state, since it brought us both Al and Garrison Keillor (sp?).
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