Among coastal residents in the United States, the Midwest is commonly labeled as a “flyover country.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it simply means that this region is often passed over during flights from the East to the West coast, and vice versa.
But for someone who moved there, like author and University of Michigan lecturer Phil Christman, the Midwest has a lot more to offer than just cornfields and factories.
“Especially in a period when some of the more interesting art and music consists of similar procedures repeated on a massive canvas, you’d think we could learn to truly see Midwestern flatness as something richer than mindless repetition.” Christman wrote in an essay for The Hedgehog Review.
Christman, who moved to Michigan from Texas with his wife, recognizes the Midwest’s identity, tied to labor and industry. He pointed out that outsiders may have described it as “America’s breadbasket” in the late 19th and 20th centuries and “America’s foundry” during the Second World War.
But one thing Christman also brought up is how the Midwest “suffers from a burden of normality.”
“But even used and battered landscapes have their particularity. Detroit’s blight isn’t Cleveland’s blight, any more than Manchester’s is Birmingham’s. Nor are any two cornfields truly exactly alike,” Christman wrote.
Ultimately, Christman’s essay is more about encouraging people to look past stereotypes about the Midwest. As he implies, most people simply fail to pay close attention, encouraging them to notice the subtleties in ordinary life.
“We should ask instead whether our story of the Midwest—this undifferentiated human place—contains any lovelier, more useful, or more radical possibilities. At the very least, we should try to name what there is in us for it to appeal to,” he wrote.
