“Examining Rust Belt narratives: Race, rural representation, and everyday experiences”

Abstract

Media coverage of the rural Rust Belt has featured mainly white perspectives. Since the 1970s manufacturing decline, the Rust Belt has been characterized as home to the “white working class.” The “white working-class” trope, ubiquitous in political, social, and academic commentary, upholds settler colonial narratives and colonial ideas of race that erase the experiences and histories of people of color in Rust Belt areas. While according to the US Census, a large portion of the area is white, many people of color in rural areas are not counted in official Census data. Additionally, the Rust Belt contains some of the fastest-growing ‘minority’ populations in the country. Dominant Rust Belt narratives fail to account for the experiences of many people of color who live and work in the rural Rust Belt. Drawing from in-depth interviews and landscape analysis in Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, this article examines perspectives that challenge settler colonial discourses, providing a more inclusive narrative of the rural Rust Belt.