"Small town America is the 'real' America"
Example: "While people around the world have an image of New York City or San Francisco or LA, those cities are no more America than Paris is France or Bangkok is Thailand. The real America is the heartland, away from the big cities and away from the interstate highways." -- Forum, Vol. 34 No. 2, April - June 1996.
Example: "This year's theme was 'Exploring America's Heartland' and it provided an opportunity for diplomats to get out of the nation's capital to see the real America. The tour started with a visit to the Iowa State Fair and included visits to a wide variety of communities, farms, corporations, educational institutions and even a few museums!" --"Ambassadors Explore America's Heartland", The Hoover Institute.
Example: "I think we're witnessing a transformation in America, a return to those values that we all learned here in this heartland. The roots of the new patriotism are right here, and it is the heartland of America." -- Ronald Reagan, Campaign Speech, Decatur Illinois, 9/20/84.
Example: "America's heartland is the real America. The two coastal regions have large unassimilated minorities, whose loyalty to America may be shallow. This is especially true of Mexican Americans, who naturally feel the pull of their motherland next door. Conflict of loyalties could become a problem, depending on developments in Mexico." --"The ebb and flow of migration", Ronald Hilton, Stanford University, 2/14/02.
Anecdote: Multiple amazon.com reader reviews of William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, stressing the author's journey "to see the real United States using only the small roads."
Purpose: Mobilize popular consciousness in support of "traditional" values, where these "traditions" are as mythological as the "values" they encapsulate.
Effect: Makes invisible the fact that 80% of Americans live in large cities.
Contradiction: Real data. Note that the link summarizes 1990 census data; urbanization figures from the 2000 census are higher. In 1990 75% of Americans lived in urban areas; 50% of Americans lived in the largest metropolitan areas.
Comment: The "heartland" narrative undercuts democracy by insinuating that 20% of Americans count, while 80% don't. If democracy is to be taken seriously, then New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, Portland, Oakland, Boston, Washington DC, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Houston, and America's other large cities must be understood to be the "real" America. America is not Mayberry. The cities are our heartland.
