An Introspective Look at Hillbilly Elegy

After reading multiple reviews of JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, I knew that I had to read the book. I grew up in the northeastern suburbs of Cincinnati about a half hour away from JD’s Middletown, but yet our childhoods could not have been more different even though we are fairly close in age (funny enough as our live trajectories have somewhat converged we have a number of mutual friends on Facebook, including a law school classmate he accurately as an extremely progressive lesbian with a fantastic sense of humor). Working in and with urban schools in Las Vegas and San Antonio for the past few years has made me acutely aware of the differences between my urban-middle class suburban childhood and the mostly African-American and Latino youth that grew up in poverty. However, I frankly had not focused on the differences between my childhood and the rural/rustbelt poverty that also existed around me in Southern Ohio.

While I would occasionally travel to and through Appalachia, my family more marveled about the beauty of the region (going whitewater rafting in West Virginia is amazing but you’ll learn more talking to the locals) rather than interacting with the local population. In 2008, I was interning on a congressional campaign stretching from the Cincinnati suburbs out to Portsmouth and other rural areas of Southern Ohio. The candidate, a Democrat, had nearly pulled off an upset in a R+13 district in 2006 but it was widely believed she lost the race due to a radio ad in the eastern part of her district supporting the closure of a nuclear waste facility (she still won Pike and Scioto counties by a good margin but there were just enough votes that either stayed home or flipped to cost her the election). As someone who cares about the environment, I initially could not understand why anyone would want this facility in their backyard. If you just read stories in the media, it’s easy to understand that point of view.

But talking to voters at the doors in Piketon, a different reality emerged. The plant was the only source of well-paying jobs in the community. This community like the ones Vance describes in the book had been full of reliable Democratic voters for decades. However, they were unwilling to support an “East Coast Liberal” who didn’t understand their proud values and traditions in Pike County.

The term “East Coast Liberal” is a fascinating one. The candidate I had worked for in that race was born, raised, and still currently lives in Ohio. However, she has two degrees from Harvard, and she carried herself in a way that many folks saw as pretentious and inauthentic. There is some truth there, but that perception was the reality in the rural portions of the district. And that reality is frankly the only things that matters, regardless if it’s true or not. Needless to say, this woman has never been elected to Congress. It also proves that you can be an “East Coast Liberal” way outside the bubble of the Acela Corridor. “East Coast Liberal” is just a synonym for out of touch in most of America.

So where do I fit into this story? When most people down here in Texas meet me, they instantly think I am from the East Coast since I talk way faster than the average Texan. There is no denying that I have strong roots on the east coast. My dad grew up in New Jersey and most of his extended family is still on the East Coast but most of my mom’s extended family is scattered all over the country but with large Midwest pockets back in Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, among other places. Geography matters but family and then education matter more. Just because most of my mother’s family lives in the Midwest does not mean we are not incredibly well educated. The amount of degrees from prestigious universities on both of my family is almost too many to count. I grew up with the expectation that I would go to an elite institution, because almost everyone around me had, even though I grew up a full day’s drive from the East Coast. My life was about preparing to follow in the footsteps of the family, and I was properly prepared for that reality.

Compared to JD’s childhood, my childhood was utopian. I had a stable childhood and even when my father lost his job due to the Asian financial crisis, my life was fine. My parents have stayed together and they were always able to provide what my brother and I needed. Of course, I had gripes here and there, but I am sure that every kid in the world had those. My family attended our synagogue slightly more than JD’s mother-side attended their church, but you would have believed we practiced Judaism far more than we actually did based on our family’s actions. That’s partially a factor of growing up in Southern Ohio where everyone pretends to be more religious than they actually are (the pride that locals have in giant Jesus in Monroe is telling even though far fewer people are actual members of that church). In reality though, it’s more emblematic of my family’s culture where the actual practice of religion is less important than its values. Judaism and our subsequent differences from most of our neighbors gave us our culture and values of trying to actively make the world a better place. That mission is still at the center of my work to this day.

Currently, I work for a public school district in San Antonio that many people view as failing and currently we are not yet doing enough to support our students’ futures. In the book, there is a strong emphasis that institutions are not the answer to solving poverty but personal responsibility is. I am emphatic to that viewpoint to an extent. However, working inside of a public school system where 92% of our kids qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch, I know we can do far more both instructionally and in providing community supports to give more students a fighting chance out of poverty.

I struggle with my role as an outsider in this system. As someone who is clearly not from San Antonio and would not be in this role without extensive connections, I occasionally question whether it’s my responsibility to make these changes. But for someone who grew up as fortunate as I did, I have come to believe that I would not be fulfilling my commitment to make the world a better place if I did not actively practice that somewhere. Due to my network and previous experience, I have found San Antonio to be the perfect place to work with the community to find ways to improve students lives. It is our job to connect families with additional resources, so their needs can be met and they can make decisions that will allow them to escape the cycle of poverty. The government alone cannot achieve this mission (especially without understanding the needs of each and every community), but I believe that it must be part of the solution.

One of the last chapters of the book covering trauma hit me particularly hard. As you can guess from reading above, I experienced a trauma-free childhood (of course there were wayward family members and the like but compared to most, it was smooth). Even teaching in Las Vegas, I was aware of the trauma of my students, but I did not fully comprehend it. While I spend plenty of time in schools in San Antonio talking to students experiencing all sort of trauma, I will never be able to fully understand what they are going through even if they live down the street from my gentrifying neighborhood. Just because I do not understand the depths of that reality, my job should be to connect the students and their families with people who can support them. One of my strengths lies in being a connector. While I cannot and should not try to solve every problem in the district (much less in the country/world), if I can connect people to others who can provide solutions, I am doing my part to make this world a better place.

No one person or organization (not even the government) can fundamentally make every kid grow up in a loving family. It is simply not possible. However, I do believe it is our obligation, as a society (both public and private sectors), to do whatever we can to set up the conditions so that people are not forced into making awful decisions that will harm their lives on a block by block basis. Whether it’s creating more integrated communities, investing in new school models, and/or finding an outside the box solution to remedy a social service that is not working, we need to keep researching, exploring, and testing ideas in policy and practice that will give kids the opportunity to escape poverty, no matter where they grew up or what they look like.

We simply cannot accept the status quo of increasing poverty in this country. We are going to have come together at a local level in each community to refocus our efforts to find solutions that help people achieve the American Dream like so many have achieved in previous generations. This message isn’t supposed to be a clarion call to support a specific candidate or policy but rather a call to look closely at our communities in poverty and see what solutions we can find so the next generation has a better life than ours.