“You’re from Kansas?”
“Yes.”
This oft-repeated question, always formed by another incredulous member of the student body, has shaped my college experience in ways I never expected when at home among my fellow Kansans. Just as my peers at Georgetown so frequently know the intricacies of nearly every pocket of New Jersey, so too do they seem to collectively dismiss the entirety of the Midwest (minus Chicago) as only a vast cultural wasteland filled with cows and Caucasians.
I’ve heard every possible variation on Wizard of Oz puns and every possible attack on my state’s overwhelmingly conservative electorate. But finally, after more than a year of half-heartedly defending my home state, I’m ready to believe that the Kansas I know is neither backwards nor homogenous.
I have always romanticized the East Coast, visualizing a place of great intellectualism and unparalleled opportunity for those who want to truly make an impact on society. Legendary men and women once walked the brick-lined streets of Washington, Boston and New York, and even as a child I wanted to soak up the history of the region, to witness the imagination that planned such unique cities.
As a resident of eastern Kansas, I never saw any beauty in the cookie-cutter houses of my Kansas City, MO, suburb, nor in the downtown hole-in-the-wall restaurants and independent theatres I now miss. My time in high school, along with that of my three best friends, was spent primarily attempting to “escape” from the hellish fate of staying in state for college.
While I did succeed in leaving, several recent visits to the University of Kansas in Lawrence have taught me that perhaps my obsessive need to get out blinded me to what my home state had to offer. The ideas and the characters I encountered there belong solely to the place I left behind. There is John, a dry intellectual, a product of a watermelon-growing Kansas farm, living in what was once a local grocery store. There is Eric from Wichita laughing at The Big Lebowski, and Mindy from Olathe, one of the most remote Kansas City suburbs, debating the merits of Ayn Rand.
There are my two best friends, practically my sisters, who decided in the end that it wasn’t worth it to pay exorbitant out-of-state tuition. Lawrence may be the most liberal in the state, but several of these individuals lived in even the most isolated parts of Kansas and came out well-rounded and progressive.
Many of the people I know remain bitter at having to continue their lives in a state so often held in such low esteem by the rest of the nation. Perhaps, however, they too simply romanticize the power of the coasts. They do not feel representative of their hometowns and thus want to escape to find their kind among the bigger cities of the world, but most of them will surely leave one day and come to the same conclusions as I have.
Ultimately, despite the attractions and culture of the cities in which I yearn to live, I will never find people more worthwhile than those I know in Kansas. The East, while still a new experience, has lost some of its magic. It too has its strip malls and suburbs, its racism and ignorance. Like every other state, mine is simply conflicted, struggling to reveal depth and tolerance behind what might at first seem only flat and narrow-minded. I can never forget what it has given me, even as I recognize its flaws.
