Peoria, Illinois, is sometimes referred to as the most average city in America. It is home to Caterpillar Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of heavy equipment in the world, which employs over 15,000 of the city’s 120,000 residents. A test for new products and services used to be, “will it play in Peoria?” Peoria is nearly 70 percent white, with African-Americans accounting for almost all the rest of the city’s population.
According to the 2010 census, the median income for a household in Peoria was $36,397, and incomes there have undoubtedly been hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, 51 percent of voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama, and 47 percent voted for Mitt Romney, closely mirroring the nation’s margin. Peoria is heartland America, incredibly average by most standards.
Here at Bowdoin, we often speak of our commitment to diversity and how we want to be representative of America. In October, the chairwoman of our Board of Trustees went so far as to say that Bowdoin now looks a lot like America. While that may be true compared to Bowdoin 20 or 30 years ago, it is dangerous to foster the idea that Bowdoin is a particularly diverse place or that Bowdoin is a cross-section of America.
Seventy-six percent of respondents to an Orient poll last year reported voting for Barack Obama. Bowdoin is actually slightly more racially diverse than America—32 percent of the class of 2016 identified as a racial minority, while only about 28 percent of America does (disclaimer: the makeup of that 32 percent is absolutely not the same as America’s 28 percent). Forty-six percent of the class of 2017 receives some financial aid, which means the median member of the class of 2017 did not receive any financial aid and ponied up all of Bowdoin’s $59,900 sticker price, nearly double the median annual household income in Peoria. In a nutshell, Bowdoin is a very urbane place.
I will diverge from most liberal critics by refraining from saying that Bowdoin’s relative lack of ideological or socioeconomic diversity necessarily needs to change. However, we should recognize that we do not look like America, and must never lose sight of the fact that we, as a collective, have more education, money, connections, and opportunities than most of the nation.
As soon as we start to believe that America is reflected in Bowdoin College, we disregard the immense privilege afforded to us and the fact that most people in America right now are on a much lower rung of society than any of us are, by virtue of being here. This will in turn lead to ignorance of the inequalities of opportunity present in our country and the fact that for many people, it is nearly impossible to get ahead.
My hometown in Idaho is fairly well-off and is home to a university, agricultural businesses, and an environmental engineering firm, among others. Venturing outside my town, however, there is poverty in most directions. To the east, there are communities of loggers, many of whom are out of work. To the north, there are Native American communities that are long on issues and short on resources.
I cannot pretend that I walk around with my eyes wide open or that I do not have the knee-jerk thought that if someone is lacking something, they should just work harder. But I have seen enough to be able to catch myself and to remind myself of the down-and-out communities no more than 20 miles from my front door back in Idaho that have no tax base, bad education systems and little opportunity. For them, there are few resources that facilitate advancement.
All too often, we associate poverty and lack of opportunity with third-world countries. “Not in America,” we think. Here, people can get by. After all, that’s why people leave desperate situations in Mexico, for the land of milk and honey north of the border. But we cannot forget that acute poverty exists in America, not just in inner cities but in small towns and rural areas. Each of us should go to a place where there is no opportunity, not necessarily on a quixotic quest but to understand another part of America. Don’t go to Africa, South America, or Southeast Asia looking for problems. Go to rural Idaho. Go to the mountains of West Virginia. Go to agricultural California, where farm workers toil for almost nothing. Go see the other side of America.
Average America does not look quite like down-and-out Appalachia, but nor does average America look like Bowdoin. The student population of Brunswick, Maine does not look like a cross-section of Peoria, Illinois or of America as a whole. The more we understand that, the more conscientious citizens we will be and the more we will understand ourselves and our nation. Poverty and lack of opportunity are not confined to instantaneous tragedies. These phenomena are everywhere and account for a significant part of our generally well-off nation. As kind as America is to us, the winners, it is equally unkind to the losers. As Bowdoin students and future leaders, we should not forget that.