Rural America Rage and Missing Teeth
I have been wanting to talk to author Sarah Smarsh for years because she is one of the few people on the national stage who can explain, with authenticity, about a part of America that is often overlooked and undervalued. Sarah grew up in a poor, white rural area of Kansas. Her mom gave birth to her when she was seventeen and she was raised by her grandparents on their farm. Her latest book is called Bone on Bone; Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class.
Donald Trump won over poor, white, working class folk in rural America because he has been able to channel their anger. Sarah and her family are not Trump voters - “Can’t stand the guy” - but she is also critical of Democratic Party which she believes ignored the pleas of large chunks of ordinary Americans who were struggling with the effects of globalization and the challenges of small-town life.
Sarah writes with empathy about her grandmother’s dentures (all her teeth were removed in her twenties because she had no dental healthcare) and helping her grandparents harvest wheat or butcher their livestock.
Poor teeth rural Voters
Sarah Smarsh (Part 1)
Sarah Smarsh's grandmother had dentures in her twenties, after her teeth were pulled out due to poverty. Robyn Curnow asks why good or bad teeth explain whether America is a meritocracy?
Robyn wanted to talk to Sarah because she's rare commodity in America - a whisperer or translator of two Americas; rural, white, poor middle America and the educated, urbane newsrooms of the coasts. As one of the few people in a newsroom who have worked in a wheat field, Smarsh says she takes the stereotypes of middle America personally because they can get her people so wrong.
Not all white, poor Americans in rural areas are Trump supporters, in the same way not all New Yorkers are walking around with Black Lives Matter t-shirts. Sarah blames a fractured media and the Democrat Party ignoring large chunks of America where people have felt ignored, and to whom Donald Trump speak to.
How to bring divided Americans together? Dolly Parton, the Patron Saint of the American Working Class.
Texas two-Step and Bourbon
Sarah Smarsh (Part 2)
Even though her family says American politicians 'are all crooks,' Sarah Smarsh was asked to run for Senate after she became a rare voice of an ignored part of America; the white, poor, rural working class. She choose not to go to run for office but instead wrote another book about her life in Kansas while working to save the prairies and fight against the stereotypes that paint her people as backwards.
The solution to American polarization? More honky-tonks, dancing and bourbon.
Her favorite landscape? The American prairie where she lives.
American movie? Wizard of Oz (even though everyone always says to her, 'You're not in Kansas anymore.")
Where would you go if you could time travel in american history & other bonus questions
Three words to describe America?
Stressed
Empire
Militarized
If you could time travel, which era in American history would you like to visit?
The early or mid- 20th Century, simply for the purpose of dancing. I grew up doing the Texas two-step at rodeos and in honky tonks and later got into the swing-dance revival. While that era is not be romanticized and involved more injustice on many fronts, we're a less celebratory and communal culture than we used to be. Television and the Internet has made many Americans isolated and kind of lame. I once moved to Texas for their dance halls, which are still hanging on.
Where did you grow up?
Kansas
Iconic American landscape that means something to you?
The American prairie. I'm writing a book about it now.
Dream dinner party guests? Which Americans would you invite to your Thanksgiving celebration (dead or alive?)
Dolores Huerta, Elizabeth Warren, Jodie Foster and Toni Morrison.
Is there a piece of American art or music that sums up your America?
"I'm No Stranger to the Rain," by Keith Whitley
Which books or movies explain America?
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
When did your family arrive in the USA? Where are they from originally?
Paternal side arrived from central / western Europe in the late 19th century. Maternal side unknown.
When was the last time you cried?
Today
What's your motto?
Don't have one
Why is America so divided?
Economic conditions, for one
Have you lost friends or family because of politics?
No
What issues are driving you to vote? Or not?
All of them
An American president you admire?
Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, in an alternate universe where they won the nomination
An American president you don't admire?
Most of them
Sports team?
Kansas City Chiefs since 1980!
What were your parents' careers?
Construction worker / farmer
Real estate agent