Middle America
I just spent the last few days in conservative Middle America — but it's more than that.
LISTENING: to airport chatter
FEELING: re-energized to jump back into work
SEEING: rolling carry-ons, galore
I spent the morning walking through the Parkville Nature Sanctuary, a 115-acre wildlife reserve in the Kansas City area of Missouri. My best friend, Faeqa, and I stumbled on a deer grazing in the brush. We took in the sight of a tiny waterfall, marveling at the intricate water systems that feed the wider Missouri River watershed.
The river is the country's longest. The Missouri plays a fundamental role in this country — whether we're talking about history, food, culture, or transport. Six dams disrupt the river's flow of sediment and water. These lands are the historic homelands of Indigenous tribes like the Osage, Kansa, Wichita, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and others.
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You wouldn't exactly know that driving through the heart of the U.S. I saw mostly white folks during my few days here. Oh, and Trump signs. So many Trump signs. This is a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1964. I shouldn't have been so surprised.
Welcome to Possibilities, a creative climate newsletter on the possibilities that lie where crisis meets community. I’m Yessenia Funes, and I just spent the last few days in Kansas.
Perhaps, again, unsurprisingly, the only Democrat representing Kansas in the House of Representatives is an Indigenous woman: Rep. Sharice Davids, who is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. She's also lesbian. She's my kind of people. I still remember when she first launched her congressional campaign in 2016. It was exciting — she was running alongside Sec. Deb Haaland, who was not yet a presidential cabinet secretary. Those were different times. Together, the pair became the first Native American women elected to Congress.