What it's like to be poor in rural America

Backwards, ill-informed, self-destructive, socially conservative, gun-loving, prone to addiction and teen pregnancy. These are just a few of the ways members of the rural poor are often stereotyped. 

Author Sarah Smarsh grew up poor in rural Kansas. Her family, like many others, had to fight hard to get by. 

What causes poverty is being born poor.- Sarah Smarsh, author

Smarsh told The Sunday Edition's guest host Peter Armstrong poverty is too pervasive for people to pull themselves out of it with willpower and grit alone.

"Contrary to a lot of the stories we tell ourselves here in America about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps and individual merit and hard work paying off, we are actually all profoundly shaped by our environments," she said. "It goes round and round in terms of cause and effect. What causes poverty is being born poor."

The divide between classes in America — one marked by misunderstanding and judgement — has grown deeper in the country's current political climate, she said. 

Smarsh analyses this inequality through both data and lived experience in her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, which was a finalist for a 2018 National Book Award.

Becoming a mother makes being poor harder, and being poor makes being a mother harder.- Sarah Smarsh, author

The book outlines the cyclical nature of poverty, and Smarsh recounts the very deliberate effort she put in to avoid becoming a stereotype. For example, she recognized that teen pregnancy in rural America was a stereotype based in truth, and worked to prevent this to prevent many of the ripple effects that would likely follow. 

"Yes, teen pregnancy is higher as a rate among poor folks. But there's a reason for that. And it has to do with forces that are that are much larger than any individual's spirit or dreams or plans or hopes to contend with," she said. 

"I knew that it would make it so much harder for me to accomplish my academic and professional goals in a way that is much more keenly felt among the poor. So becoming a mother makes being poor harder, and being poor makes being a mother harder."

Click "listen" above to hear the full conversation with author Sarah Smarsh.