Feature
Where You From?
by Tammy A. Schwartz
Where you from?
Where you from, girl?
Where do you live?
What part of town?
Where you from?
Um, up there I say as I point to the hill in the west.
Oh,
I hear laughs and
poor, white trash jokes.
The worst--I see them walk away
And my adolescent membrane stings with embarrassment.
Where you from?
I'm from government-aided housing where three in the morning trips to the kitchen
for a glass of water means scaring scores of roaches on the counters and floor.
I'm from welfare, food stamps, endless bus rides to wherever I need to go, lots
of transfers.
Where you from?
I am from a place where a mother holds on to every ounce of dignity she has left
as she sits on the sidewalk with all her family's belongings displayed like a dark
closet for the rest of us to see.
And I am from a place where we hear white men in suits yell, "Get your damn
stuff out of here, lady. Next time you'll pay your rent won't you?...
Damn hillbillies."
Where you from?
I'm from my single mom's worry over our own rent money--is there enough this month?
And from adolescent concerns caught up in wondering whether or not the contents
of my bedroom will be the next on the sidewalk of humiliation.
Where you from?
I'm from thrift store clothes and rolls of toilet paper purchased at the last minute
with coins found under couch cushions.
"I found three nickels!!! Do we have enough yet?"
And I'm from corner Laundromats that never have enough hot water.
I am from the place that social workers enter bringing bags of groceries
and lists of services that will provide but may stripmine us of some pride.
Where you from?
I'm from the place you like to ridicule.
I'm from the place that makes you feel better because you're over there and not
here.
I'm from one of your city's districts of shame
Now replacing your "white trash" and "city hillbilly" labels
with those of my own.
WHERE YOU FROM?
I'm from hardship,
hard work,
strong women,
Appalachia,
urban Appalachia,
neighborhood of those who endure,
streets of "I will give you my last dollar,"
I'm from family,
stick through it thick and thin times,
laughs and love and
I'll never let you down people.
Where you from?
I'm from the intersection of poor and white and urban and Appalachian,
―and damned proud of it.
Now what I want to know is...
Where you from?
This poem is modeled after/inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem, "Where I'm
From." Copyright � 2004. Please do not reprint without permission from the
author.
Tammy Schwartz is an assistant professor at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
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