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| The short lived TV series Buckwild's stereotypical rural young people. |
My facebook page is constantly
flooded with articles about millennials, that ubiquitous generation I was born
into, just barely. About the people we call “young people.” Some of these articles are witty and
humorous, most cater to our elders seeking to understand us and to our churches
seeking to woo us. The picture that these articles paint is pretty uniform.
Millennials are technologically savvy, they love tattoos, they are social
justice minded, they are skeptical of religion, they are hip, they like indie
music—and the list goes on. From the pictures and the articles and the
interviews, we are led to believe that millennials are a very uniform
generation and that most of them are white, middle class, college educated, and
urban. In other words, they are hipsters.
These are the millennials we like
to talk about. No offence to my hipster or my urban friends—all amazing people
I am honored to know—but they are not
the only millennials. Statistics are vague because of our age, but maybe 30%,
maybe 40% of millennials are getting college degrees. The rest are trying to
get a job at Burger King. Now, I’m a first generation college student, and a
lot of us are struggling to get jobs too. And, lest we forget,with high rates of immigration
into this country, 30% of millennials are young people of color.
I can’t speak for all young people—and
I am occasionally annoyed when I am asked to do so in settings that are
majority over the age 50. But I can say something about the young people I know
and meet here in rural and small town America. The kids whose parents could
afford to send them off to a fancy college have left, yes. But the young people
(20-30) who remain comprise roughly 20% of the population (another 25% are are under 20).
A lot of young people here do not
have stable housing. They live with their parents, they live with their boyfriend’s
parents, or they crash with friends. Or they live on the flats, in crumbling apartment
buildings with three or four kids in tow. They, like their urban and middle
class counterparts, tend to be unmarried. They also tend to have several kids
and many have broken homes.
They work at Wal Mart and fast food
joints and hair salons and feed stores. Or they work odd jobs, gardening or
housecleaning or picking mushrooms. If they are lucky, they found a decent job
fishing in Alaska over the summer or fracking in North Dakota for a year or
two, traveling more than they are home. If they are unlucky, they camp out in
the woods or stay in a shelter. A few may go to community college, searching
for a bit better luck and an elusive but persistent dream.
They sometimes struggle with drug
or alcohol addiction, often as a way to cope with the stress of their lives or
to self-medicate for mental illness. I find some of them under the bridges,
hopelessly addicted to heroin or meth, powerless but desperate to stop.
They are not particularly cool or
hip, even if they can navigate technology ok. They wear jeans and tshirts and
dirty boots.They might listen to indie music and they likely have tattoos, but are just as likely to listen to country and drink cheep bear.
They are also not particularly
attracted to church, having felt the searing judgment heaped on them in one
church or another, but they are by and large religious people who believe in
God and some higher power at work for good. For many of them, AA or NA may be their
church. In this community, they are white, they are poor and they are working
class, they are Latino and immigrant.
They are the products of a culture
run wild with greed, leaving little for future generations, for their
generation; the products of a culture that will not give them a break but is
happy to label them wild, unruly, or lazy.
I should say, because I speak about
my friends, my co-workers, my neighbors, that they are good and brave and
courageous people. They are the young woman who raises her little girl with
love and devotion, even if she can barely afford to put gas in the car and is
in constant conflict with her ex. They are the young guy with a bright smile
who has overcome an addiction and insists on being there for his kids. They are
the kids who go dancing and laughing with music in their souls even when times
are tough. They are the sisters who raise their several broods of kids together
and scrape together enough for them to all have Halloween costumes.
These millennials may not make the
high profile articles and may not drink coffee and smoke hookah at high end
pubs, but they too live and breathe on this earth. Next time you read about
millennials and American young people, think of us.
