This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
What does it mean to be a Midwesterner? We ask our Dakota Political Junkies how the Midwestern identity can transcend borders.
Plus, we look at South Dakota's efforts to find a spot for a new prison.
Mike Card, Ph.D., is a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota. Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.
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Lori Walsh:
Well, just before the break, Jon Lauck was talking with us about what it means to be a Midwesterner according to a new poll.
We're going to keep that conversation going, expand on it and take it wherever it leads us with our Dakota Political Junkies conversation today.
Mike Card and Jon Hunter are both in the studio. Dr. Card is a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota in Vermilion. And Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader. He was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2022.
Dr. Card, welcome, thanks for being here.
Mike Card:
Thanks for having me.
Lori Walsh:
Jon Hunter, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks for the invitation, Lori.
Lori Walsh:
All right, are you a Midwesterner, Jon?
Jon Hunter:
Absolutely.
Lori Walsh:
And you live in the Midwest, both of those things-
Jon Hunter:
Both of them. There's no gap between my perception and reality.
Lori Walsh:
What do you make of the study? Because I think what Jon Lauck was trying to get at is there's always some kind of clickbait online with people saying, "Where does the Midwest begin or end?"
But this is the largest scientific data or polling — help me with my language — or launch, that we've seen, where people can really look at how they identify themselves.
Does this matter? What do you think it adds to the conversation?
Jon Hunter:
Well you know, I believe the term Midwesterner is really a cultural thing. It's not even a geographic thing. I think there are people in Los Angeles who consider themselves Midwesterners.
Lori Walsh:
Because they're transplants or because they have a point of view?
Jon Hunter:
I think mostly because they're transplants, but yes, there is a point-of-view element in there. There really is. And some people might even say, "I've never lived in the Midwest, but I feel like a Midwesterner."
So, I think very much it's a cultural thing or an attitude. And I think it's a very positive one when people say, kind of, hardworking, virtuous, ethical, whatever those kinds of things are. I think it's a very positive term. I don't picture at all as backward or flyover or any of that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Mike, what do you think about the poll?
Mike Card:
Well, it had some interesting aspects because there were lots of studies that Emerson College has done, based off of that, but certainly looking at, "Do you feel like a Midwesterner," and I think Jon captured that greatly.
I certainly experienced that with my five years living in Ohio. That people who were from Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus — if they were from there, they viewed themselves not so much as Midwesterners. Cincinnati viewed themselves as Southerners. Cleveland viewed themselves as Easterners, but those who were transplanted from rural areas who'd moved into Columbus for economic opportunity, they were clearly Midwesterners. I mean you couldn't tell the difference between them. They didn't notice that I was from South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
Okay. There you go. Yeah.
Mike Card:
Blended in.
Lori Walsh:
I've not spent any time in the great state of Ohio, so I don't have any relevant experience to add to whether Ohio was in the Midwest, but clearly, it is.
Mike Card:
Yeah, I noticed the same thing when I lived in California, and I think, Jon and I were conversing before we came in, the basic same thing holds. Well, how do we deal with transplants? And I think one of the things we may want to think about is with the relatively small sample size, even though it was done really well from their description, meets contemporary polling standards, what do we do with the immigrants to South Dakota?
What do we do with, as Jon noted, the Somalians? What do we do with the Native Americans? Do they view themselves? Where are our tribal identities, I think?
Lori Walsh:
You should be able to dive in, depending on the questions that they asked, you should be able to dive into that open-source research and find out if somebody who has come from Guatemala self-identified as a Midwesterner.
Mike Card:
Right, should be able to, again, I haven't looked at the data.
Lori Walsh:
Depending on the data. I haven't looked at what questions they asked yet.
Mike Card:
And the sample size. If you get a large enough percentage that you can generalize from it.
Lori Walsh:
Right, OK.
Mike Card:
And that's one of the challenges, but, again, it was done pretty well for a large sample survey over several states in the Midwest and those bordering the Midwest.
Lori Walsh:
I'm curious to dive into the data about age and generation. Because I think we've talked about that before in another context, which is slipping my mind right now, but just like people of different generations identifying in different ways. Where are those distinctions fading? Is the importance of that fading?
Jon Hunter:
Well, I think we're in a shift, frankly. Because I think there are a lot of people who associated themselves as Norwegians or Germans or Scandinavians, or wherever. I mean, for the first century, let's say half-century, maybe, since South Dakota was founded, people identified themselves as Irish or wherever their parents or their grandparents came from. And now I don't think that's quite as much now.
I mean there are Sons of Norway chapters in South Dakota that are still active that hold onto that, but I think now, maybe because we've been here long enough, I think Midwestern is the new. The tie to our ancestors, maybe third- or fourth-generation farm families now think, "I'm really from the Midwest, and that's my heritage," rather than it's from Oslo or Bergen or someplace.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, likewise it'll be interesting to see tribal affiliation and self-identity. If you are Lakota do you also say, "Yeah I'm a Midwesterner," or do you not say that? Are you less likely to say that than somebody with German ancestry? I'm just curious. I don't know.
Jon Hunter:
Right. And again, new immigrants to Sioux Falls or to South Dakota, if they're coming here for work and kind of permanently, you know, working in agriculture or whatever field. Will they identify themselves as where they came from, or where they are now? And that I think is an age-old challenge. I mean I think it takes time to assimilate.
Lori Walsh:
So Mike, with Middle West Review being in partnership with the University of South Dakota, talk more broadly about just the study of us, the study of Midwestern studies, Midwestern history, understanding Midwestern political science. In your experience as a professor over the decades, did you find that students were coming in interested in pursuing those kinds of fields, that kind of study?
Mike Card:
Not so much Midwestern, but many were interested even in South Dakota's own history. And it's been in the educational standards for quite some time that fourth, eighth and eleventh grade at least, there were standards that required exposure to South Dakota history. Not much on the government, but you know, I never taught history so I can't speak to that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, just with your colleagues and student interest. Yeah.
Mike Card:
You know certainly, there's interest in South Dakota's historical background, that exists everywhere, but we find, again, many of the students, probably a third of the students at USD are from Nebraska or Iowa. And I think those numbers are increasing as we're finding South Dakota's population of younger students declining, the high school graduates are declining, so the board of regents has expanded the in-state tuition to neighboring states and beyond. And it's interesting to see some of the different political cultures arise. You know, especially if they're from Lincoln or Omaha or Des Moines, they're much more tolerant of what we would say is deviant behavior than those of us that grew up in towns of 400 people.
Lori Walsh:
What do you mean deviant behavior? As in dyeing your hair pink or do you mean...?
Mike Card:
Well I mean that's one, I think another one...
Lori Walsh:
Not that I think that's deviant, to be clear, but what do you mean?
Mike Card:
No. There are strong norms about what acceptable forms of behavior are. You don't stand out. You don't speak highly of yourself. You don't criticize people in public.
You know, I think that many of those norms are fading, largely because — or they're either fading or becoming stronger — based on whether you're tolerant of those people that might be displaying behavior that you don't think belongs here.
Lori Walsh:
Interesting. I always notice when I travel to New York to see my daughter, that I put my smile back on the closer I get to the Minneapolis area. I think when you're in New York nobody cares if you're smiling. Like, in fact, I get asked — every time I'm in New York I get asked for directions. I cannot possibly look like I know where anything is, but, you know, I've got that Midwestern smile, that openness. And then when I get closer and closer flying west, I'm like, you've got to smile now.
Jon Hunter:
Do you strike up conversations with people on the subway?
Lori Walsh:
I've been instructed not to. We'll leave it there. Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
OK.
Mike Card:
Yes, my Bostonian wife would elbow me if I spoke to someone on the subway in Chicago.
Jon Hunter:
I still do.
Lori Walsh:
I also had to learn — this is my number one flaw, like I'll stop in the middle of the sidewalk and talk to whoever I'm with or look at my phone or try to figure out directions. And my daughter's like, "You really need to get out of the way. Step aside."
Jon Hunter:
It's a thoroughfare.
Lori Walsh:
So, and I'm like, "Hey, I'm a Midwesterner, this is what we do."
I want to weave in this other article that Mike, you brought our attention to, which is from the New Yorker, published on Oct. 16, just on Monday. "Beyond the Myth of Rural America." It's a biting look at what the rural-urban divide looks like right now and how we talk about it. Tell me a little bit about — other than the extended metaphor of American Gothic, the painting. There's a whole lot of that in there.
Mike Card:
Yeah, yes, there is.
Lori Walsh:
What's at the heart of this piece in your mind? This work?
Mike Card:
Well, I think what's at the heart of the piece is that to a large extent, we favor the Midwest. That generally people would view the Midwest as having good people. That we view ourselves as being low-government, low-taxes, low-services, great amounts of self...
Jon Hunter:
Reliance.
Mike Card:
Thank you. That's the work I was trying to find.
Jon Hunter:
I could tell.
Mike Card:
See, I'm reliant on you for this.
And I think what the author was trying to do is to say that's not so true. And you know, it was where I was coming from from the normative behavior and expectation of how others are supposed to behave. And I think that's one thing that separates us from the rest of the world. If you get into a city, you have to be tolerant of behavior that doesn't fit your personal norms. There are just so many people.
On another aspect and what the author brought up is, well, we like to believe in low-government. Well, we really don't. We love the federal government money, you know, even to the point where over the past couple of years we've decided not to put limits, overall expenditure limits, in our budget on how much can be spent. But not where that money comes from or what it can be used for as long as it's federal money. That's the authority that's being granted.
But what we've also seen is that the business and industry, in order to get profits, our small town packing plants have largely closed. There are fewer of them and even the individual meat market, there are fewer of those, you know, found in a market, so we don't see very many butcher shops in our groceries anymore. We see boxed beef. We see Tyson chicken. And not that these are bad, but in order to make their profit margins, they had to bring in workers from other countries who were willing to do the work for lower wages.
That displaced a large number of Midwestern men and women who are now angry, and I think that's the other part of this is the anger toward the both globalization of the economy and anger toward those immigrants. You know, the author mentioned the "Rich Men North of Richmond," which I think was largely misplaced anger, but some of it was rightly placed. It's the corporate business world from larger places have been focused on profits and that meant that they're cutting local business out and having to bring people in who will do the work that they want for the wages that they can afford to pay and largely dismissed and fought against unionized labor, and that's certainly still a fight that we see going on with the auto industry in terms of should people collectively organize for higher wages.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, so this is Daniel Immerwahr, I don't know if I'm saying his name right, it's called "Beyond the Myth of Rural America." It came out in the New Yorker Magazine on Monday, and I'll just quote from him, "'Although we tend to equate rural with farm,'" and he's actually, to be fair, he's actually quoting a book by Steven Conn here, "Small, general farms 'disappeared more than half a century ago at least.' Agriculture's become a capital-intensive, high-tech pursuit belying the 'left behind' story of rural life. Fields resemble factories where automation reigns, and more than two-thirds of the hired workforce is foreign-born." So this is a book that he's talking about, written by Steven Conn, the author.
Jon, as you look at the myth of rural America and this conversation, what comes to mind? What rises to the top for you?
Jon Hunter:
I think that last quote that you just had is an exaggeration. I don't see rural farms in South Dakota as being some big, corporate factory that are highly automated. There are still people who get their hands dirty in South Dakota farms. And I've always appreciated diversified farms in South Dakota that have some chickens here, and some cattle here, and some crops and so forth, and so I think it's a big exaggeration. But you know, they have changed. Certainly, we don't have four families on a section anymore, and there are fewer — there's been a dis-employment in agriculture in South Dakota. It just takes fewer people to produce more, and they have moved into towns like Madison and Sioux Falls and others and sought employment in other industries.
Lori Walsh:
This is not something I can back up, but nothing in this piece would indicate to me that anyone's been here.
Jon Hunter:
Yeah, I know.
Lori Walsh:
I mean he hasn't said that he has or hasn't, but when I read it I do get that feeling that you get when you read that someone has written something about you, and not necessarily on your behalf, if that makes sense?
Jon Hunter:
It feels a little like the New Yorker. I mean, sometimes they do that. It does feel like they are making observations about us from afar.
Lori Walsh:
This piece does.
Mike Card:
We have become a them. We're a them to them.
Lori Walsh:
In this piece we have become a them to them. Yeah.
Mike Card:
Just as we consider them a them to us. You know, who would want to live in a city?
Lori Walsh:
I don't love all the themming things, so I don't like to be themmed.
Mike Card:
No, and we shouldn't.
Lori Walsh:
The othering, I should say. A better word would be. Like yeah, I don't necessarily think of New Yorkers as other.
Mike Card:
No, but you have a daughter who lives there, and I have a son who lives there.
Lori Walsh:
And they don't think of me as other because they ask me for directions, fairly reliably. That is true, I have a personal connection to the city. So yeah.
Mike Card:
I think those of us who have lived in cities are probably less likely to view them as others, the people that live there. But that's, again, another gross generalization about treating others, and what I think everybody agrees with is, is we would like to be known by the quality of our character rather than the color of our skin or where we're from.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
I want to wrap up with an editorial that Jon Hunter wrote in the Madison Daily Leader about the location of a new prison in South Dakota. Because if anybody gets pushed into an us-and-them category, incarcerated people are often a big, quiet them that you don't want in your backyard. And you wrote a thoughtful piece about the location of a new prison, and you think that they're on the right track with this just south of Sioux Falls idea.
Jon Hunter:
Well, there's a paradox at least that people don't want prisons in their backyard, and I understand that, at least from a safety expectation, even though it may not face reality. But also there are 400 people that work at the South Dakota Penitentiary here, and they have to come from somewhere, so you can't put it in an extremely remote area because you don't have any people to help. So you need to be kind of rural, kind of urban, and I think south of Sioux Falls does fit that. And I think there's a real opportunity, and I wrote about this too, that you can design a new prison with a much better expectation of success than the 120-year-old prison that we have here.
Lori Walsh:
Define success.
Jon Hunter:
Success to me is reduced recidivism, improved rehabilitation, improved educational opportunities, mental health counseling, all the things that will help people who have, at least by our laws, have gone astray. I mean I'm not saying those are my law. They're our collective laws.
That they can return to society and be great citizens again. I mean I think, to me, that's success. Recidivism, returning to communities and committing new crimes is not success. That's the failure to me.
Lori Walsh:
And safety, for those employees.
Jon Hunter:
Very much.
Lori Walsh:
Because this is a really tough job, and we've heard a lot about mandatory overtime, and they've just had an exodus of staff members there.
Jon Hunter:
Absolutely.
Lori Walsh:
From the state penitentiary.
Jon Hunter:
Not only staff but neighbors and prisoners themselves, right? You shouldn't be subjected to an unsafe environment even if you've committed crimes.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Mike, what are your thoughts about the new prison and location that you want to throw in here?
Mike Card:
Well, I guess the first one is I'm more excited for the Rapid City prison because you know, to reduce recidivism, almost everyone who's incarcerated will eventually leave. Will they have skills and abilities to re-enter society in a productive manner? And there are many things that contribute to that, one of which is not truly caging people up because they will act like people in a cage. If we can get family to visit them and have safe environments to visit, the more likely they are to look at the life they're currently leading while incarcerated, and the life outside, and decided, "I want to be outside," and make choices consistent with that.
So the more likely people are to be able to visit people while their relatives and friends are incarcerated. They're doing their time, but they're going to come out, so the more likely they are to be visited and to be reintroduced into society on a regular basis, that's a good thing. Colorado has one of their maximum security prisons in Sterling, which is three hours outside of Denver, and they're not going to get very many visits. The one concern I have about the 15 miles south of Sioux Falls is for relatively low-income people, can they get there to visit their friend or relative to produce that very benefit. We've decided as a legislature and as a state that we're going to hold people for longer sentences, to serve their full sentence, you know. The warden has indicated that she wants to be able to provide the services that will help people re-enter society in a productive and safe manner.
Lori Walsh:
Jon, wrap us up.
Jon Hunter:
I think two big elements of successful prisons are one, prison design, that's the architecture and how you set that up, and programming, and that's the rehabilitation element, and I'm hoping that both those elements will be in the new facility.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. All right, we'll leave it there for now. Jon Hunter, Mike Card, thank you so much for being here with us. Always great to see you.
Jon Hunter:
Thank you, Lori.
Mike Card:
Thanks for having us.
