English Major's Narrative

I’m going to try very hard to write nice, controlled post about Stephen Bloom’s article, Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life, in The Atlantic. I can’t make too many promises though.

For those of you who don’t know, Stephen Bloom wrote an article about Iowa, musing on the question of Iowa being a caucus state. He was a professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism & Mass Communication, the author of a few books about rural Iowa, and he’s lived in Iowa for twenty years. He, apparently, thinks this makes him an expert on Iowa. While I don’t disagree with what he says in his essay (illegal immigration is an issue in Iowa, as is a depleting population) but I do completely, totally, one hundred percent disagree with is portrayal of our state in the people in it.

This response is not only from a native Iowan, but from someone who grew up on a farm in rural Iowa, also from someone who lived in the suburbs of Des Moines, someone who currently lives in the fifth largest city and the state, and someone who has traveled widely outside the state of Iowa. It’s also written from someone who fully plans on staying in Iowa after I graduate and someone who is uncommonly proud of where she comes from. Although, according to Mr. Bloom, a person like me doesn’t exist in the state of Iowa. Neither do the members of my family, or my friends.

Because, of course, Iowa is a state full of uneducated hick farmers who say things like pop, sucker, and sack and refer to any boy under the age of 16 as “Bud.” Obviously “Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom” and pig shit is “the smell of money.”

Most of this quite curious to me, since I don’t know anyone with a mudroom, everyone I know just leaves their shoes by the door, the only Bud I know is Jason’s uncle who is well over fifty, and most people I know plug their noses at the smell of pig shit because, well, pigs smell.

But we spend all of our weekend at “Friday fish fries at the American Legion hall; grocery and clothing shopping at Wal-Mart” driving in our “ve-HICK-uls” (nice emphasis on the hick there Mr. Bloom), which are mostly trucks.

But I’ve never been to a fish fry, I went to a spaghetti dinner a few times growing up, but those are mostly for special occasions. County fairs, homecoming parades, that sort of thing. Grocery and clothing shopping at Wal-Mart… maybe, if the town you’re in doesn’t have a Hy-Vee (our grocery store), although it’s pretty rare to find a town without a Hy-Vee that has a Wal-Mart. If you live in a town like that the closest thing you have to a store is a gas station. I call cars cars, not “ve-HICK-uls,” but then maybe that’s just me. And yeah, my dad drives a truck, but that’s because he’s a farmer. My mom drives a Mercedes-Benz and I drive a Volkswagen. They actually do sell those kinds of cars here.

And then the men here. They all wear hats, and if you’re over fifty you “don’t leave home without a penknife in their pocket.” And all farmers “live with missing digits or limbs.”

Well my dad farms and he did have bit of a run in once and lost a bit of his thumb, but they sewed it back on and you’d never know. My uncle farms alongside him and is still fully intact, as is my grandfather. Oh, they’re all over fifty. I think my grandpa might still have penknife in his pocket for when he goes out to the Co-op to talk with his friends, but I usually see him at restaurants or family fathers, in which case he wears a shirt a pants.

We like to eat deer here and something called “Red Waldorf Cake,” although I must admit I haven’t had either thing in my almost twenty-two years as an Iowa resident. We do eat a lot of Jell-O salads, I’ll admit that Mr. Bloom got that one right.

Oh and then there’s this one: “Religion is the glue that binds everyone, whether they’re Catholic, Lutheran, or Presbyterian. You can’t drive too far without seeing a sign for JESUS or ABORTION IS LEGALIZED MURDER.”

I know of a couple of those abortion is murder signs, usually along I-80, but I’ve seen those in other states as well. And as far religion being that glue that binds everyone, my grandparents are religious and my parents consider themselves Christian, yet I didn’t go to Sunday school and have barely stepped inside a church in my whole life. As far as I’m concerned I grew up in a fairly non-religious household. I’ve been to synagogues, mosques, and Buddhist temples–all in one state. Iowa.

And there is his point towards the end. All the youth in Iowa want to leave. But I can tell you for someone on the ground, this isn’t completely true. Sure, there are people who leave after college–but a lot of them come back. And Des Moines, the center of Iowa, is growing and booming like you wouldn’t believe. A lot of educated, alternative young people (or do we call them folks here? it’s so easy to forget) are making Iowa their home.

So, as far as I can tell, in his twenty years in Iowa Stephen Bloom might have learned a little about the problems in Iowa, but he sure as hell didn’t learn much about the culture. He still views us all as the white trash, uneducated, hicks he thought we were and thanks to him, so does everyone else in this country.

Read my favorite response to Bloom’s essay here.