Putting the “Heart” in Heartland

My spring break plans for this year: go home to see the family who, at an alarming rate, seem to be forgetting that I ever existed, and to hang out with the old friends whom I now encounter only through Facebook notifications and the occasional drunk dial. Also: eat Mom’s cooking, catch up on sleep, and think about catching up on course reading before deciding to catch up on TV instead. Pretty standard.

Of course, that’s before I fly out to Wichita, Kansas, drive around for a day, and then fly back—all by myself.

Now before you raise an eyebrow, did you know that Kansas is home to the Flint Hills, the last expanse of real tallgrass prairie in the whole country—a landscape that, according to one YouTube video, brings grown men to tears when they see it at sunrise? And did you know that it costs $35 a day to rent a Chevy Aveo out of Wichita, which is cheaper than in Kansas City or even Topeka? And last but not least, did you know that I have a free roundtrip ticket sitting around from this one time I gave up my seat on an overbooked flight, and that the week after spring break, it’ll expire forever?

But I should probably backtrack just a little further to explain how I got the idea of flying to flyover country in the first place.

Recently, my family was notified that we were allowed to apply for permanent residency in the United States. It’s a bit of news that we find both welcome and funny, considering that we came to this country in 1992. We first lived in New York City, in one of those neighborhoods in Queens where playing with the Greek and Puerto Rican kids often meant that no one had any idea what anyone else was saying.

We moved shortly thereafter to western Michigan. I learned how to spell during those elementary school years, thanks to the last names of my classmates—they were either Bosnian refugees (the humanitarian-minded evangelicals of the Upper Midwest had lobbied at the time to accept those fleeing the conflict in the Balkans) or the blonde-haired, blue-eyed descendants of Dutch settlers.

And then we moved again to the suburbs of Philadelphia, and we now reside in the same county that gave birth to Harry Elkins Widener, Kobe Bryant, and that guy who did the “I Love College” song. The malls are sleek, and the riche are nouveau. It’s a great place to pick up mild disaffection.

During all that, I’ve also been to both coasts, the Deep South, the no-longer-real-because-they-voted-for-Obama South, and to Louisville. I’ve seen both ends of the Mississippi River and four out of five Great Lakes (I’m missing Ontario, in case you’re wondering). I’ve also been to Alaska, although only for the layover at Anchorage. And during all that, my family had to remember that we were still strangers in a strange land.

But I’ve never been to the Great Plains, although it seems to be important for you Americans (if there’s anything to regret, it’s that I won’t be able to talk like this anymore). A lot of history happened there, a lot of food is grown there, and a lot of the better college football and basketball teams play there. It’s the Heartland. So instead of Cancún or the Keys or even godless New York, it feels appropriate to make a pilgrimage out to Kansas.

The process of naturalization is all about questions: Do you know when the Declaration was signed? Do you habla inglés? Did you, by any chance, stuff a balloon in your rectum before boarding that flight back from Bangkok? But if they’re going to ask questions like that, they should also ask: What have you bothered to see, and whom did you get to know? In fact, they should ask that of everyone—immigrant, student, citizen, presidential candidate—because what could be more important to living in a country than knowing what’s out there?

And when I tell people my spring break plans and they give me the “he must think he’s quirky” look, I say that I don’t have enough time to be doing much else with a free plane ticket, or that it’s tough finding companions for a $600 day trip, or that, you know, it’s been really hard this semester and I need to go out there and find myself.

But to be honest, it’s just that after 18 years, I’m facing the prospect of staying here for good, and now I’d love to see the prairie.

-Hyung W. Kim ’11 is a Government concentrator in Leverett House. He keeps his eyes on the prize.