what the hell is a local?

some reflections on being from a place, on transience, and on tourism

A brief note on language: I talk a little bit in this essay about a native tribe in my area. The proper name of the tribe is Odawa. To talk about indigeneity I use words that I have heard native people here use, and those words include “native” and “Indian”. Unless you are literally Odawa, please do not roll up into my DMs telling me to use the word “indigenous” or “Anishinaabe” or whatever you heard. I’m open to native people’s preferences. I’m not open to the woke-scold rulebook.

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I have always lived mostly among tourists.

I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a town of about 100,000. In Ann Arbor there is a little school called University of Michigan, a school which enrolls about 50,000 students at all levels. Most of the kids I grew up with had at least one parent who was affiliated with the university in some way: if mom wasn’t a PhD candidate or a professor, then dad was a doctor or a nurse or a phlebotomy technologist. My own mother and father did not work for the university when I was growing up, but it was what brought them to town before my time.

Most of the kids I grew up with left town when they came of age, left for Detroit or Chicago or New York or some REAL city. I still live in Ann Arbor. Now in my late 20s, most of my peers, statistically speaking, are graduate students. I don’t have much in common with most grad students, but I am friends with some of the good ones. In fact, my partner is a PhD candidate.

But the thing about university is that you go and then you leave.

As a more permanent resident in such a transitory, transitional place, I am always getting a new influx of friends (and enemies!). And I am always having to say goodbye. Some of the best friends I have ever had have long since left me behind of such far flung places as Fort Collins and Lexington and Philly and Tulsa and Toronto and even Aarhus and Reykjavík. They were always on their way to such places. They were always only ever passing through. What a blessing to have loved ones in so many places. And what heartbreak to not be able to keep them.

It is pretty rare among Americans in my age group to have a strong sense of place, to really know where home is. I consider myself fortunate and strange among my compatriots in that I know my homeland and love my homeland—not in the abstract, dogmatic way of the self-styled patriot, at least not quite. I don’t have a strong identity as an American¹. Instead, I love the land of Michigan. Michigan made me and continues to make me. My parents were born here and they met here, as were both sets of grandparents and at least two sets of great grandparents. My family hails from such auspicious places as Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Detroit, East Lansing, Grosse Pointe, Mount Clemens, and Port Austin; and the list continues. If I get outside 100 miles of any of the Great Lakes I feel ill at ease. If I am more than 25 miles away from a corn field I get sick to my stomach.

There is a part of me that want to wax lyrical here about how awesome and gorgeous Michigan is. But a bigger part of me wants to protect it. If you have never been here, don’t bother, especially if you are from California, New York, or the Boston suburbs. We want you here in flyover country as much as you want to be here. It’s always Californians who come to U of M and talk mad shit. You know, you can always go back to the coast! There is yet a third part of me that wants you to know that I know that Ann Arbor in particular has a lot of problems, some of which I’ve written about elsewhere—the effect of sheltered privilege on young people, the ills of utopianism, the absolute noxiousness of academic striver culture on the developing mind, the stark and increasing disparity between the rich and poor, and so on. But that’s never what Californians say; they’re used to all that stuff. They always say things like “it’s so boring here” and “the food is terrible” and such, to which I would say, no one is forcing you to be here!