“‘Normal America’ Is Not A Small Town Of White People”
“that sense that the normal America is out there somewhere in a hamlet where they can’t pronounce “Acela” is misplaced. In fact, it’s not in a small town at all.
I calculated how demographically similar each U.S. metropolitan area is to the U.S. overall, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity.1 The index equals 100 if a metro’s demographic mix were identical to that of the U.S. overall.2
By this measure, the metropolitan area that looks most like the U.S. is New Haven, Connecticut, followed by Tampa, Florida, and Hartford, Connecticut. All of the 10 large metros that are demographically most similar to the U.S. overall are in the Northeast, Midwest or center of the country, with the exception of Tampa. Two of them — New Haven and Philadelphia — are even on Amtrak’s Acela (that’s “uh-SELL-ah”) line. None is in the West, though Sacramento, California, comes close at No. 12…
If your image of the real America is a small town, you might be thinking of an America that no longer exists. I used the same method to measure which places in America today are most similar demographically to America in 1950, when the country was much whiter, younger and less-educated than today… the places that look today most like 1950 America are not large metros but rather smaller metros and rural areas. Looking across all of America, including the rural areas, the regions that today look most demographically similar to 1950 America are the portion of eastern Ohio around the towns of Cambridge and Coshocton and the Cumberland Valley district in southeastern Kentucky.”
There is something very disorienting about the 4th of July for me — it’s a day that brings into sharp relief the contradictions in my American identity. I have never been read as properly American; people are always trying to figure out “where I am from” (like, strangers from Lyft drivers to nurses). And with such a tight definition of normal America, as described above, I’ve never felt capable to identifying as a proper American.
Part of the 4th of July is celebrating this genuinely heroic history of the 1770s-1780s, part of it is just getting a day off to enjoy the summer and free entertainment provided by the city, part of it is an impressive degree of accessibility where even tourists are embraced as acceptable celebrants.
But… I watched the prideful exuberance of groups of white 20-somethings who were uncomplicatedly celebrating their own identities and adopted heritage and I could only be aware of what I was missing.
Related: “Whiteness Is Still a Proxy for Being American”; this facebook post by an Asian-American that includes this quote that felt like a perfect summation:
I feel like a guest at my best friend’s grandma’s house. I’m welcome into her home, I can sit on the plastic covered sofa, and walk into the dining room to pour myself a glass of fruit punch from an antique crystal bowl, but I don’t feel welcome.
