I come from the Midwest, from the suburbs - growing up hanging out at the mall and looking at the corn fields across the street. I kind of was embarrassed by it for a long time. Then I decided, 'Hey, if everyone else can embrace their homeland and where they're from, I can do the same!'
Growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet.
I don't think the real America is in New York or on the Pacific Coast; personally, I like the Middle West much better, places like North and South Dakota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. There, I think, are the true Americans
We will never recreate 'Iowa.'
I'm a normal kid from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
I grew up in Illinois, went out east to school, and went back to Illinois to teach... Illinois is a great state for ethics.
Starting at 11, I was a movie-theater popcorn girl, a babysitter, a sales clerk - in the Midwest, they start them early!
I grew up in the Midwest and had a lot of exposure to big religion. I went to church every Sunday - my mother even sang in the choir - and most families I knew where practicing Christians.
My wife and I grew up in the Northeast but my daughters are sort of small-town girls, from the Midwest.
I'm a weensy-government conservative from the Midwest, Christian, mother of two, homeschooler, and my hobby, profession, and passion is news.
People in the Midwest, there's a lot of regional pride and a lot more, like, fake positivity - 'That's great - you're awesome!'
I'm a sportsman, you know, and I shoot skeet, and I grew up in the Midwest, so that's a part of my culture.
My roots really instilled Chicago values in me.
The true America is the Middle West, and Columbus discovered nothing at all except another Europe.
My parents are from the Midwest. They're from Evanston, Illinois. They moved out to Los Angeles right before I was born.
I'm from the Midwest. We like to know who our neighbors are.
The love in the Midwest is way different from New York - people accepted me like one of their own, and they showed me a bunch of love, so I did a big song dedicated to them.
If you told people you were moving to Ohio, they wouldn't congratulate you. They'd say "OH WHY would you move there?" as if that was something that happened to you and you had to deal with.
There is a strong feeling in the Middle West that the artist is not pulling his own weight no matter how hard he may work, that the other people are doing the real stuff.
Chicago - it's the Midwest, and the people are not as tough or not as edgy as they are in New York.
Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.
I think there's a down-to-earthness with Midwesterners and with people from the Midlands - which is where my family is from - in Ireland.
I was enamored of New York City intellectual life and was really into Philip Roth because I was raised by self-loathing Midwesterners who were from southern Illinois, who felt like fish out of water when they came to the East Coast when I was a kid.
There are good people here in the Midwest. That's for sure.
You need to make a trip to Des Moines in August, because the Iowa State Fair really is a sight to see. The Iowa Fairgrounds are usually packed for those 11 days, and you get a real sense of what a classic Midwest fair is all about.
