Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing from people who have left the region to settle in other parts of the country and the world. We’ve been mapping the migration and documenting the experiences of these Midwestern exiles. We’ve heard from around 200 people. Now that the project is wrapping up, we wanted to know how these stories compare to regional trends.
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Name: Sarah Wells
Midwest Home: Van Wert, OH
New Home: Hollywood, CA
I left my small town in Ohio to become a working actor. It seemed to me the only way to do this was to be in a city where the entertainment industry is in national shape. Four years later, I can see that I was wrong, and I would give anything to have never left at all.
I think everyone who has left the Midwest ought to go home where they belong. We as a nation have created cities where no one knows anyone else outside of their little created circles.
The ideal small town, the one of our collective American dream, is one in which the dentist sings in your church choir and the grocer is the brother of your doctor, and we all work together to help each other out, spending our money amongst ourselves and enriching each other instead of outside, unnamed, faceless corporations. This is what we have in Los Angeles, it’s accidentally been created by people who left what was left of a functioning community.
Frank Gruber
Culture means different things to different people. Whatever it means, the Midwest isn’t known for it. Motown may have changed the face of music forever, but the company also moved to L.A. when it wanted to expand. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a (widely derided) article about how Midwest food culture is so retro it’s still impossible to be a vegetarian here.
People often mentioned a lack of culture as something that sent them packing from the heartland in submissions to our Midwest Migration project.
But we’ve also heard from plenty of people who think the Midwest has culture to celebrate. Here’s a mash-up of those submissions. We’ve created a pretend conversation using the real words of some of the people we heard from.
Chris Molnar: I always wanted to leave the Midwest. Although I was raised in Iowa City, Iowa, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, I identified with the idea of the big coastal city. I knew that I would be accepted there for who I am, someone craving culture and rejecting homogeneous provincialism.
Chris O’Neill: Over the course of my 20 year career in banking, I’ve relocated now eleven times, three of which brought me to the Chicagoland area. The quality of life and the cultural offerings provided by the city is hard to find elsewhere. Not to put down my new home of Dallas, but it’s certainly no Chicago.
Name: Esperanza Rubio Torres
Midwest Home: Lansing, MI
New Home: San Luis Potosi, Mexico
I was making ends meet by working a couple waitressing jobs, the winter was coming, and I think I had gotten depressed and sort of refused to recognize it. My life was in an ugly rut. After much thought, I threw all my cares to the wind. I sold my car and I quit my jobs and got out of Michigan. It was really freeing and scary and amazing.
I can’t give any real reason why I left, exactly, but I just felt like I was done with Michigan and Michigan was done with me. I ended up moving to Mexico with my parents who had decided to retire there.
Is it better here in Mexico than in Michigan? I think it is unfair to compare, it’s apples and oranges. I am happier and healthier than I was in Michigan.
I have no plans to move back to the Midwest, but I miss my friends and the family I left there. I still recall with great joy the beautiful moments I spent there, and the warmness of the people in the city I was born in. Lansing really is a gem, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t really know Lansing. That said, I do not miss the winter–so many grey months where I felt sad and depressed, shoveling, expensive produce, and driving everywhere. I really love where I am now, and the challenges I’m facing. In the event that I did return, I know the Midwest, and Lansing in particular, would welcome me back with arms wide open.
Politics is front of mind here in the Midwest. We’re also thinking about what to wear, watch, and where our friends went. Here’s a roundup of our top Changing Gears stories this week.
WiSCONSIN: Niala Boodhoo went to Madison, where she showed us how union members are still protesting a year after Gov. Scott Walker eliminated public employee collective bargaining rights. She reported on
how they’re faring.
RIGHT TO WORK: Indiana is now the nation’s 23rd Right to Work state, only two months after Gov. Mitch Daniels made the legislation one of his top priorities. Will Michigan be next?
MIDWEST MIGRATION: Our Public Insight team has been tracking the stories of people who’ve left our states. There’s still time for our exiles to call us and leave messages for the folks back home. Meanwhile, read much more on our dedicated page.
T-SHIRTS: If you seek a Midwest t-shirt, look about you. Dustin Dwyer found our states are chock full of small companies making t-shirts that represent our region.
DIY DETROIT: Have you found that all those documentary films about Detroit are starting to look the same? Dustin offers you a how-to kit for making your own Detroit documentary.
Finally, a shout out to Troy “Trombone Shorty,” who sings the Changing Gears theme. He’s been immortalized by the New Orleans Jazz Fest.
Name:Geoffrey Taylor
Midwest Home: Sioux City, IA
New Home: Eddyville, OR
My knowledge of my hatred of and my love of the Midwest is informed by many years spent there.
My high school is now a vacant lot, where scabrous alley cats urinate in the dirt, and the cold wind blows old papers in the same spot where I had to study algebra. Yet my mind goes back to the room where Miss Edith Pollock taught me how to write.
I love Sioux City so much it hurts. I wish to hurt it back.
Would I move back to the Midwest? Not if they made me the governor of Iowa. Not for a million dollars in cash. Not at gunpoint. Not if I got to relive it all, and be a teenager again. But the memories of that place and time are precious.
Name: Stephany Wilkes
Midwest Home: Michigan
New Home: San Francisco, CA
I left Michigan in August 2001 after my employer, Borders.com, sold their online division to Amazon and laid off most of my colleagues. Though I was not among them, the writing was on the wall.
In addition, I didn’t find Midwest work culture particularly friendly or flexible. There is thinking that one should be grateful to have a job, any job, no matter how awful it might be.
I moved to San Francisco in 2007 where I work in data science and software development.
Being in San Francisco and the Bay Area has made me realize that geography does still matter. I am not sure how I would find the number of highly skilled, highly educated engineers I need in Michigan. I wouldn’t be able to conduct frequent meetings with venture capitalists on short notice. I’ve also fallen in love with the Bay Area’s “work to live” culture, its mild weather, the huge diversity of people and lifestyles, and other quality of life aspects.
Everybody who lives in the Midwest knows somebody who moved away — and maybe you’re one of those folks. All this month, Changing Gears has been bringing you the personal stories of that Midwest Migration, here and on our dedicated page.
Now, we want to hear what people who left have to say to the folks back home. That’s the reason for Don’t Forget To Call Us.
All this week, dial in with messages for your family, your friends, your hometown, your school, your buddies at work — anything you feel like sharing. We’ll post your voices here on ChangingGears.info, and we also may put your greeting on the air.
Now through Friday, call (888) YOUR-NPR OR (888) 968-7677. Don’t forget to call us!
Name: Sam Osterhout
Midwest Home: Minneapolis, MN
New Home: New York, NY
I was living in Minneapolis, but had grown up in Kansas. I used words like “I-90” and “3-2 beer” in every day conversation (but not usually in the same sentence). I knew several hot dish recipes. I had owned three snow blowers. I was doing a show in Minneapolis called The Electric Arc Radio Show, and in 2007 we took it to New York City. (It’s now Radio Happy Hour.)
One of the New Yorkers who came out the first night was a woman. She was a friend of a friend and we were smitten from the beginning. After carrying on long distance for a year, I moved to NY in 2008 to be with her and to pursue more writing work. In 2009 I married that audience member, friend-of-a-friend I met at my first show in New York, and last November we had a little girl named Ruby.
Every day I think about how different her childhood will be from mine. She’s a New Yorker, for the love of God! I had my first taxi ride when I was 16. She had her first taxi ride when she was one day old. Will she someday look past New Jersey and only see California? Not if I can help it.
Name: Ben Bradley
Midwest Home: Minneapolis, MN
New Home: Maryland
I graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in May of 2009. I had been applying for jobs in the Twin Cities area and the Midwest in general since the previous October, but hadn’t gotten a single interview.
After I graduated I continued to apply for jobs and ended up spending 9 months unemployed. By that point I had started applying to any engineering job that I was qualified for, and some that I wasn’t.
I eventually got an interview and was offered a job working on flight tests for the Navy in Maryland. The economy is booming where I live now, thanks almost exclusively to defense spending. Economically, I am in a much better position than I was, but I don’t quite fit in with the local culture.
I would love to move back to the Midwest. I grew up there and prefer the culture to that of the east coast. I’m a Midwestern boy at heart, but it seems like there aren’t any jobs for me there right now. It is my hope that once the economy picks up a bit more, I will be able to find a job in the Twin Cities.
Read more Midwest Migration stories on our dedicated page. If you or someone you know has left the Midwest add your own story.
