Okay...I'm guessing that THIS isn't a
list that people are proud to be on.
You know how Marquette and Marquette
County are always featured on those lists of things like “10 Best
Places To Retire” or “15 Places to Visit Before You Die”?
Well, in case you haven't heard, a Marquette County community made
another list, and to Ishpeming goes this “honor”--
One of the “10 Most White Trash Towns
in Michigan”. Ouch.
As far as I can tell, the article is serious; they even explain the methodology behind how they figured
it out, everything from percent of people who are white to the number
of Meth arrests in the past year. Ishpeming, at number eight, was
the only U.P. town that made the list (Warren was number one),
although the people who put the list together did point out that they
only used places with over 5,000 people, because data from the U.S.
Census Bureau is only available for communities over that size.
Now, I worked in Ishpeming for 14
years, and I know a lot of people who live there. They're great
people, and while I know a lot of them are joking about the “honor”
the town has just received, I have a feeling that the list is a huge
irritant to them. No place is perfect, and to play upon stereotypes,
even if people in community joke about those stereotypes themselves,
isn't fair. Ishpeming has a lot to offer—affordable housing, and
schools that people say are above average—and being on a list like
this, while a list meant in fun, might cause people to just drive
past the town as quickly as possible.
So hopefully Ishpeming will soon make
another list, a list that shows Ishpeming to be something other than,
to quote the authors of the article, a place with a “high number of
mullets” and “more tattoos than teeth”. Because it is. And if
you don't believe me, take a trip out there Saturday and visit the
Italian Fest at Al Quaal. You know those great people I mentioned
earlier? You'll meet a lot of them there, and they'll show you that
Ishpeming is anything but the way the list described it.
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