The SAVE Act

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (“SAVE Act”) has returned to Congress and sits before the Senate after passing the House. This bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by requiring every eligible voter to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote or updating a registration.

The bill would require individuals to appear in person at an election and present approved documentation even for routine updates. These updates can include address changes, name changes, or party affiliation adjustments. Each federal election cycle, approximately 80 million people either register to vote for the first time or update their voter registration information. This bill would impose new logistical hurdles on all of them. Acceptable documentation would include a valid U.S. passport, a certified birth certificate paired with a photo ID, or a naturalization certificate. If a person’s legal name does not match their birth certificate, they must also provide additional legal documents to prove the change.

Supporters of the bill, including many Republican lawmakers, argue that stricter verification requirements will prevent non-citizen voting. Arguing that Joe Biden’s “reckless open-border policies” necessitate this bill as without it we can’t be sure that Americans are the only ones voting in federal elections.

What does the White House say about the SAVE Act? The official White House website refers to it as a “common sense, bipartisan bill,” emphasizing that all it “simply” requires is a valid ID to register to vote in a federal election, proof of citizenship, and no mail-in ballots. The website then goes on to list other countries that enforce stricter voter identification laws.

The SAVE Act is not new. Last year it passed the House but failed to advance in the Senate due to nationwide public opposition. It was reintroduced this January. Critics, previously and this time, argue that the SAVE Act solves nothing. Numerous studies and audits have shown that non-citizen voting occurs at extremely low rates. In fact, many view this bill as a way for Republicans to hammer Trump’s narrative of widespread election fraud.

Additionally, the act will determinately impact rural America, which particularly relies on mail-in and online methods for voter registration. Rural Americans already face long travel distances and fewer government service offices. A Center for American Progress analysis found that in some cases rural Americans would need to drive hours to an election office in order to meet the requirements of the act. In states like Alaska, the burden will be even more pronounced. Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski is one of the only Republicans to join in opposition of this bill arguing that it will disenfranchise thousands of Alaskans and their ability to vote.

Credit: Center for American Progress, 2025

Furthermore, while the act imposes no direct fee to vote it requires Americans to provide documentation that can only be obtained by paying a fee. Obtaining documentation that requires payment will discourage low-income rural residents from even participating. Under this act, rural voters will face longer travel time, higher costs, and fewer alternatives. These barriers will not just inconvenience voters but will prevent participation in the voting process.

Broad nosed faces

My Grandfather and I in Castro Valley, California, 1996

Photo Credit: Veija Kusama

“広い鼻” (hiroi hana) he would tell me, tapping the slope of my nose with the calloused pad of his forefinger.

“アイヌ” (Ainu).

His tone was always reticent. Rooted in the belly of history, in the timbre of family and tradition. Laced with something bitter, a tinge darker. Not quite manifested as shame, never quite asserted as pride. I did not know what Ainu was. What it meant for me and my broad nose. Nor did I ask. Somehow, I knew not to.

Ainu Chieftan

Photo Credit: Midnight Believer

A human being

The name Ainu literally translates to ‘a human being’, traditionally contrasted with kamuy, or ‘divine beings'. Historically residing primarily in the Hokkaidō, Sakhalin, and Kuril Islands, the Ainu are believed to be descendants of the ancient Jōmon culture, which dates back over 10,000 years. Beginning in the 9th Century, Ainu communities began to fall to Japanese subjugation and by the 18th Century they were the target of concerted forced assimilation policies.

Throughout the Meiji Restoration of the 19th Century, Emperor Mutsuhito forced the Ainu peoples off their land, disrupting their relationships with their spiritual heartlands, and terminating their traditional ways of life. As Bri Lambright of Ursinus University notes:

"Ainu land was stolen, and small plots were returned with the express purpose of farming. With traditional hunting practices banned in order to allow Japanese manufacturers to capitalize on exporting deer meat and hides to the mainland, the Ainu were left with little option but to adhere to the government’s plans, lest they face starvation and burial beneath the waves of Japanese settlers who could readily take the community’s place."

Faced with an impossible choice, the Ainu were blamed for the predicament in which they found themselves, as evidenced by letters exchanged between the Nemuro and Naimushō Prefectures dated November of 1882:

“They have brought this difficulty upon themselves since they lack the spirit of activity and progress. In their society in the past there was nothing they needed to record through writing, no stimulus to develop their knowledge through learning; when thirsty they drank, when hungry they ate. They are a purely primitive people.”

Google Translation Screenshot - Ainu

Barbarian, savage, vandal

As the hallowed halls of Edo were devising the extinction of the living, a rising consortium of scientists began to covet the currency of the dead. As Noah Oskaw writes in his piece for Unseen Japan:

"The impetus for the veritable grave plundering of Ainu bones was ostensibly scientific: the desire by Japanese researchers to learn more about the physical and, later, genetic make-up of the indigenous ethnic minorities native to Japan’s northern borders… In both 1864 and 1865, mere years before the fall of the Tokugawa dynasty, the British consul in Hakodate led a group of foreigners interested in uncovering the mystery of the Ainu’s 'Caucasian' features to secretly raid Ainu gravesites… Most infamous of the grave robbers was Hokkaido University Professor Kodama Sakuzaemon, who led various state-sanctioned raids into local boneyards throughout the 1920s to 1970s – all against Ainu protests - sometimes police were called in to help hold off Ainu from physically preventing the unearthing of their ancestors."

Final resting places rendered temporary. Ancestors dragged to lay upon steel tables. Loved ones etched by the scalpels of foreign hands. For nearly one hundred years, the people of Ainu waited.

Interior of an Ainu Home in Yezo, 1906

Photo Credit: Snapshots of the Past

Homecoming

In 2012, a cohort of Ainu elders banded together to achieve the return of their ancestors. Banding together under the slogan, ‘Return the Ainu Remains to the Soil of the Ainu Kotan’, they brought suit against Hokkaidō University demanding repatriation. Mounting political pressures, further exacerbated by Japan’s recent ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes a provision requiring governments to work for the return of indigenous people's remains, resulted in a historic 2016 settlement. The case was the first legal domino of its kind, and a chain reaction of “small but significant” repatriations have followed.

In July of 2007 the Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie returned a skull stolen from an Ainu cemetery in Sapporo by a German tourist in 1879. In May of 2023, a set of four skulls were returned from Melbourne, following their 1911 exploitation by a pair of anthropological pen-pals: a prewar exchange by which the National Museum of Australia sent Aboriginal skeletal remains to the University of Tokyo in return for Ainu skeletal material. And next month, officials from the Japanese government will travel to Britain to receive the remains of five Ainu previously housed at the National History Museum in London and the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomical Museum.

Ainu Woman Playing the Mukkuri

Photo Credit: Midnight Believer

Locating the lost 

While the ten sets of returned remains mark a promising trend, the number of stolen Ainu is estimated to be in the thousands, and for a culture on the brink of extinction, preservation has begun to equate survival. Today, only a few isolated pockets of Ainu people remain scattered across rural Hokkaido, with most of the estimated 20,000 Ainu assimilating into cities and towns around the island. After decades of government proscription, the Hokkaido Ainu language is likely extinct, as there remain no known native speakers, and many individuals of Ainu descent have no knowledge of their ancestry or tradition. To state it quite starkly, the Ainu are disappearing.

My Grandfather and I in Hakodate, Hokkaido, 2025

Photo Credit: Veija Kusama

Good for breathing 

My grandfather is now 82 and his tone regarding our Ainu heritage has shifted in recent years. What was once coated in a glaze of indignity has come to be considered with a degree of quiet contentment. Now, when he regards the nose his genes placed upon my face, he adds a simple but emblematic qualifier. “広い鼻” (broad nose), “呼吸に良い” (good for breathing). Perhaps, the repatriation movement is not only about reclaiming the skulls of our ancestors, but rather about reclaiming the faces they gave us.

Public lands and rural economies

Over spring break, I took a short trip to Yosemite National Park and hiked the Upper Falls trail. As I made my way up the trail I was struck by the natural beauty of the park and also a sense of gratitude that our society has undertaken the difficult task of facilitating access to these places.

Half Dome and Yosemite Falls from Upper Falls Trail. Source: Chris Hayward (2026)

Something about a well maintained trail thousands of feet up the side of a cliff-face feels just as impressive as massive public works projects like dams and highways, and for good reason. Maintenance of the type of tourism economy generated by our National Parks is a staggering task that is largely undertaken by rural communities surrounding them.

The economic benefits of public lands

The National Park Service manages 17,000 miles of trails across the nation, along with 5,500 miles of paved road, and 25,000 buildings that are in need of constant maintenance and repair. This effort provides massive returns for the U.S. economy that have grown in recent years, as has interest in outdoor recreational activities. In 2024, outdoor recreation activities accounted for 2.4% of GDP. As a proportion of America’s GDP, outdoor recreation is now three times larger than air transport or auto manufacturing, twice as large as agriculture, and larger than oil and gas development. This revenue is especially important in rural states like Montana, Wyoming, and Vermont, where outdoor recreation accounts for at least 4.7% of GDP. In 2024, national parks alone accounted for $56.3 billion in output, 340,000 jobs, and $29 billion for local gateway regions.

The economic benefits of a National Park are nearly immediately apparent in local communities. One study estimated that designation of a National Park causes a 4% increase in employment and a 5% increase in income in communities near national parks within four years of a park being designated. Public lands attract high-wage job opportunities in areas like forestry management and infrastructure maintenance, while generating investment and revenue for local businesses.

Snow, a resident of Priest, CA, relies on tourism to Yosemite for attention. Source: Chris Hayward (2026)

Another study by Headwaters Economics examined the effect of public lands (not limited to the National Park Service) on surrounding communities and found that it provided massive benefits. The study compared the population growth, employment, personal income, and per capita income in western non-metro counties with the top 25th and bottom 25th percentiles of proportion of federal land. Headwaters found that these economic indicators grew two times faster or more in non-metro counties with the highest share of federal lands, though there was a smaller increase in per capita income.

 

Graphic courtesy of Megan Lawson, Ph.D., at Headwater Economics (2017)

The Trump administration and national parks

Despite longstanding bipartisan support for the National Park System, the Trump administration has launched an attack on the Park Service in very classically Trump manner; by slashing funding while politicizing National Parks however possible.

The Trump administration recently cancelled free admission to national parks on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and on Juneteenth, while instead instituting free admission on his own birthday. As an additional insertion of “culture war” politics into national parks, the Trump administration has removed or censored exhibits discussing slavery, LGBTQ history, Native American expulsion from national narks, and climate change. Further, the Trump administration implemented a $100 per person additional fee for non-residents on top of existing fees for 11 popular national parks, including Yosemite.

Bridalveil Falls Source: Chris Hayward (2026)

In addition to these “culture war” style attacks on national parks, the Trump administration has made a series of more concrete attempts to gut the National Park System. In the first half of 2025 alone, 24% of National Park Service employees were fired, resigned, or otherwise departed the agency. The Trump administration has significantly increased logging, oil drilling, and coal mining on federal land, while ignoring National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) requirements.

Continued support for national parks

While national parks are under attack by the Trump administration, public support for the national parks remains strong. The National Park Service is the most popular agency in the federal government, with 78% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats viewing it favorably. There has even been bipartisan pushback on the Trump administration’s attempts to gut the National Park System.

In the summer of 2025, a Trump backed provision intended to sell off large portions of public land introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) as part of the “Big Beautiful Bill” was withdrawn after it drew strong backlash, even from other Republican members of Congress. Similarly, the Trump administration’s proposed 37% reduction in the National Park Service’s 2026 budget was rejected by the Senate.

Conclusions

While public support for our national parks remains strong, the Trump administration has still managed to do significant harm. Many are concerned that the extreme volatility of the administration may have irreversibly damaged the institutional knowledge of the National Park Service. Rebuilding the expertise of our federal agencies will be an extremely long and difficult task, but so was the effort to protect and maintain these places in the first place. It takes much more effort to repair than to destroy, but our parks are well worth that effort.

Recent reports identify rural public health interventions, some with potential to mitigate Medicaid cuts

U.S. Department of Public Health Building.
Image courtesy of Boston Public Library. 

Healthcare in rural America finds itself a topic of much discussion lately, with mainstream media coverage of the crisis unfolding after Medicaid cuts by the Trump administration's 2025 budget reconciliation bill, which was signed into law July 2025. By some estimates, the new law will increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million in 2034. Other coverage concerns the fate of a $50 billion rural health slush fund that is yet to pay out in the communities who need it most and the recent slew of hospital closures in rural communities.

While the new restrictions on Medicaid eligibility and reduced federal spending will be felt across the nation, rural communities will be hit especially hard, due to the higher rates of people on Medicaid in nonmetropolitan areas. Sarah Jane Tribble, reporting for KFF Health News, writes: "[p]eople who live in the nation’s rural expanses have more chronic diseases, die younger, and make less money. Those compounding factors have financially pummeled rural health infrastructure, triggering hospital closures and widespread discontinuation of critical health services." 

Hospital closures (online tool showing a map of recent closures) exacerbate the present struggle to meet rural healthcare needs, where people are generally more vulnerable and less likely to utilize primary care services due to structural barriers like cost and provider shortages. "Rural adults are less likely to be insured, less likely to use healthcare, and more likely to delay seeking care than urban residents," Caldwell et al., 2016. To put it plainly, access to acute care is bleak in much of rural America right now, and reductions in Medicaid spending and eligibility are poised to make things worse. 

Rural hospital closures, 2005-2010 (in blue) and 2010-present (in yellow).
Graphic courtesy of Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC. 

There is, however, another dimension of the rural health conversation that is gaining traction in public discourse – rural public health. Where the trends in healthcare are alarming, improvement in public health feels tractable. This post focuses on insights from two recent reports – this one from the Aspen Institute (Feb. 2026) and this one from California's Department of Public Health (Feb. 2026) – to highlight opportunities for high-impact rural public health intervention amid the ongoing healthcare crisis. 

Public Health: Rurality in Focus

In general, the healthcare industry aims to treat people who are sick or injured, whereas public health seeks to keep people from getting sick or injured in the first place. Healthcare focuses on individualized care; public health focuses on entire populations. Because a key responsibility of public health is to collect, analyze, and interpret health data to inform timely public health interventions, policies, and resource planning, it is more likely to analyze and include the axes of identity and experience that inform vulnerability. In fact, rurality has been an axis of analysis in public health research for decades. "Place," meaning where people live, work, and play, is widely understood by experts in the field as a fundamental social determinant of health.

In February 2026, the Aspen Institute and the California Department of Public Health each published reports that examine, in significant detail, the state of rural public health. The Aspen Institute Report is titled "Meeting the Health Needs of Rural America," and represents the tenth installment in the Aspen Health Strategy Group's mission to tackle a single health issue annually through year-long, in-depth study. The California Department of Public Health Report, the State's second-ever "California State of Public Health Report," ("Cal. DPH Report") carves out tens of pages devoted to risks, trends, and interventions specific to rural children, adolescents, and adults.

All-Cause Mortality Rate by Race and Ethnicity in Urban/Rural
Areas, California 2022-2024 (Cal. DPH Rep., p. 32)

This post focuses on one paper from the Aspen Institute Report titled Population Health in Rural America: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities, authored by rural demographer Shannon M. Monnat and sociologist Tim Slack. Their paper tees up several useful policy proposals, which provide a path to remedying the so-called "rural mortality penalty" – the name for a widening disparity where rural U.S. residents experience higher age-adjusted mortality rates than urban counterparts. The authors suggest that the relative recency of the rural mortality penalty, which emerged in the data only four decades ago, "provides reason to believe it can be reversed." (Aspen Inst. Rep., p. 5). 

Systemic Risks and Opportunities 

Each report does a thorough inventory of factors driving mortality rates across the lifespan, from infants to working-age adults to the elderly. Unsurprisingly, barriers like lack of access to healthcare, transportation, healthy food, broadband internet, and other social services are central to their findings. But each goes a step further to do some accounting of recent social and economic trends driving the numbers: substance abuse and misuse; growing gaps in educational attainment; and persistent economic disinvestment that has hollowed out local institutions and workforce pipelines. Environmental risks (including climate change) and exposures also explain recent losses in resilience and increases in mortality rates. These overlapping stressors compound, reinforcing cycles of poor health outcomes that are difficult to interrupt through healthcare access alone. 

Adult Mortality Rates in Nonmetropolitan (Rural) Counties,
2000-2022 (Aspen Inst. Rep.)

Writing for the Aspen Institute, Monnat & Slack characterize "rural economic and human health" as "intertwined." The data in both studies bears this out. Lower income, wealth, and levels of educational attainment correlate strongly with shorter lifespans and fewer years lived in good health. Importantly, both reports frame these outcomes not as inevitable features of rural life, but as the product of policy choices and disinvestment patterns that can be changed. The California report, in particular, emphasizes that upstream interventions–those that target education, early childhood development, and economic stability–offer some of the highest returns for improving long-term health outcomes (Cal. DPH Report). 

The reports identify education policy reform as a major inroad for uplifting rural communities struggling with economic disinvestment and population decline. 

Education, particularly possessing a bachelor’s degree, has become an increasingly important determinant of health and longevity in the United States. Higher education confers economic, social, and lifestyle advantages that manifest as a “personal firewall” that protects health, even in the face of external and unpredictable threats, such as pandemics, recessions, and natural disasters.

(Aspen Inst. Rep., p. 76). Investments in vocational programs, community colleges, and early childhood education programs like Head Start not only improve education and employment outcomes, but also provide measurable health benefits over time. Many health outcomes and disparities in adulthood are rooted in childhood conditions such as family and community health, neighborhood safety, policies, and systems" (Cal. DPH Report, p. 58). By strengthening local economies and expanding opportunities, these interventions address root causes of poor health, rather than treating symptoms as they occur. In this way, rural public health policy begins to function as a cross-sector strategy for community resilience. 

Conclusion 

The current crisis in rural healthcare access underscores the need for action, but it also highlights the limits of a healthcare-only response. As the reports analyzed in this post make clear, improving rural public health outcomes requires sustained investment in the social and economic conditions that shape health, long before a person ever becomes a patient. Public health offers a framework for identifying upstream opportunities and making interventions where they can have the greatest impact. In the face of hospital closures and shrinking coverage, this broader approach might provide a path forward: one that treats rural health not only as a medical issue but as a function of place, policy, and long-term community investment.

A modest proposal: Leaving

Torn down building in Shiloh Mountain area, Arkansas
© Lisa R. Pruitt, 2011

The Washington Post's 2017 article "Disabled and Disdained" tells the story of the McGlothlins, residents of Grundy, Virginia, who have fallen on hard times. The patriarch of the family is in jail after struggling with addiction. One of his sons shared the same fate. Sheila, the matriarch, lives on $500 a month in disability payments. Tyler, her 19-year-old son, lives in the household with his wife Morgan. Neither works. Tyler panhandles to supplement his mother's income. The article wants the readers (or at least that it is my impression) to feel sympathy for Tyler. Tyler did things right. He graduated high school, stayed clean, avoided unwanted pregnancies, got financial aid, enrolled in community college, and bought a car. Then, he lost his license as the result of a car accident, and as a result was unable to keep going to school. The article also describes a man named David Hess. Hess is an almost absurd character. He crossed paths with the McGlothlins when Tyler's father was out on the streets panhandling. Hess offered McGlothlin a job, but the McGlothlin patriarch refused on account of his work injuries. Outraged, Hess proceeded to chastise him (both in person and online) for his idleness. And yet, by the end of the article, I found myself sympathizing with Hess more than I did with Tyler.

Being 19 years old

In 2018, I was 19 years old, just like Tyler. I had been in the country for a couple of years by then. I rented the living room floor of a relative's apartment for $350 a month. I say floor because I slept on the floor. I did not have to, but doing so was more comfortable than sleeping on the couch, and so that's what I did. In those days, I worked full time as a shift leader at Carl's Jr. (although, due to my coworkers' chronic absenteeism, I often worked overtime), and I was simultaneously enrolled full time at Sacramento City College. I took the bus to both, spending several hours a day on it. I met a lot of curious characters on those buses (e.g. a man, who by my best guess was from Panama, who had made it routine to tell me he was going to kill me). I thought life was pretty good. One of my classes that semester was English Composition II. The class was taught by a professor whose name I have unfortunately long forgotten. The professor was a South African woman, advanced in years, and clearly well read. She taught us how to make proper use of the English language. She taught us about how we were not supposed to say "terrorist," since "freedom fighter" was the correct term. When asked whether Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist or a freedom fighter, she said he was a terrorist. English is a complicated language. The overarching assignment for the semester was an essay on a book titled Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Shepard's job of choice in Scratch Beginnings
© Aim 2 Please Moving

Ehrenreich and Shepard

Nickel and Dimed follows journalist Barbara Ehrenreich as she goes undercover working a variety of minimum-wage jobs. In the book, Ehrenreich describes her experience in those jobs as difficult, injury-inducing, and soul-crushing. The wages she earned were not enough to cover her basic needs, and Ehrenreich, despite her best efforts, ate into the modest amount of savings she set aside for the experiment. The book's conclusion is grim: the American working poor are trapped, with very little-to-no hope of escaping despite their best efforts.

I was not convinced. My task that semester was to write a four- or five-page essay on the book. On account of a flare up of chronic contrarianism, I set out to find a book which was the antithesis to Nickel and Dimed, one which I could wield as a club against it in my essay writing process. I did not have to look for very long. Scratch Beginnings, by Adam Shepard (who, according to his LinkedIn page, is the co-founder of a brand named "Practice Empathy"), is a direct response to Ehrenreich. Shepard, a 23-year-old recent college graduate, started from scratch in Charleston, SC (a city he was unfamiliar with) with nothing but $25 in his pocket. He deliberately avoided using his degree, his connections, or any advantage not available to the general public. Ten months later, he had bought a truck, saved over $5,000, and by his account made friends and even gotten physically stronger. I echoed Shepard's criticisms of Ehrenreich in my essay and got a B. Curiously, I was not docked for the blatant contrarianism or lack of effort, but for using male pronouns a bit too much (such as when saying "if he did so..." instead of "if she did so..."). I explained to the professor that I only wrote that way because my own inner voice was male, and that was being reflected in my writing, but such an explanation was not sufficient. My core criticism of Ehrenreich, then and now, is that her experiment was unrealistic. Sixty-year-old women do not spawn into the world with nothing. In sixty years, a person accumulates skills, connections, and at least the opportunity to save. Her starting point was not a true starting point. Almost every story is a tragedy when the only thing you write is the final chapter. 

Who keeps Tyler home?

Tyler is the opposite of a 60-year-old woman. His story has really just begun; at 19, he has just entered the "agency" part of the human experience. And yet, throughout the article, I couldn't avoid the feeling like I was reading the last chapter of a story, not the first. What exactly could be the reason for that? My main suspect is the town of Grundy itself. Grundy has a population of 875 residents, distributed among 300 households and a bit under 200 families. Of these households, only about one-fifth have children at home. In the last decade, Grundy lost almost 15% of its population. With such conditions, it is not entirely unexpected that there is a lack of good jobs there. Explaining why there are no good jobs is harder. It certainly is at least partially caused by a variety of policy choices made by people far away from the McGlothlins (deindustrialization, climate policy, trade, and many more). Maybe it's just bad luck.

But a lack of good jobs cannot be the end of the inquiry. Tyler's life was more or less on rails before a few events derailed it. He lost his job at McDonald's after missing a shift due to a snowstorm, and he lost his ability to go to school after losing his license as the result of a car accident. Perhaps I am being a bit too cynical, but I doubt that a simple snowstorm and a "car accident" is all that happened. To be clear, I am not accusing Tyler of anything. However, these descriptions do not match at all with my lived experience. What kind of employer fires an employee over missing work once because of a snowstorm? I have worked a variety of jobs in food and retail, and I cannot remember even a single instance of someone being fired due to one episode of (justified) absenteeism. In all the jobs that I have had, when a person missed work due to other commitments, forgetfulness, or just being too busy doing drugs, nothing happened. At worst, they got a write-up. Businesses generally don't like to get rid of  good (or even mediocre) employees for minor absences or tardiness. Training new employees is a cost that most businesses would rather not bear too frequently. Similarly, it seems unusually harsh to take away a person's license over an accident in which they had little fault. Virginia is perhaps harsher than California in this regard, but this is still suspect. Here we come to two policies that could help a person such as Tyler, but which I am unconvinced would do the trick: (1) more stringent laws against wrongful termination, and (2) more lenient penalties for traffic infractions that result in accidents.

But even the lack of any jobs and a driver's license cannot be the end of the inquiry either. If the idea is that rural areas have a high density of acquaintanceship, was there truly not a single person in Tyler or his family's entire social network who could get him closer to a bus, or to school, or a place with jobs? Is Grundy really so far from everything? A quick search reveals that the closest metro area to Grundy is Kingsport, TN (population ~55,000), about a 2-hour-drive. This is a significant (but not insurmountable) distance, and it may explain the lack of opportunities. There are seemingly no public transportation options that would cover that trip either. Here we arrive at yet another policy that could help Tyler's situation: more extensive public transportation options. Admittedly, I have not seen a "commuter" route that stretches as far as the one Tyler would need, so its feasibility is debatable.

Rural people, immigrants, and subsidies

Venezuelan immigrants in Ecuador.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there isn't a single job available in Grundy; and, assuming also, that Grundy is simply so remote that it is literally impossible to commute by any means (whether public or private) to any other place where a job might be found, that raises the final question: why not move? How could things be worse anywhere else? I have looked for a satisfying answer to why people in economically depressed areas resist moving, and I have not found one.

As an immigrant, I find the resistance to moving genuinely difficult to understand. If life is so bad where you are and economic prospects are better elsewhere, why stay? I understand loving a place. Most immigrants from my country to the United States that I have met have expressed that they would like to go back some day. Many have expressed that, even if not possible during their lives, they would like to at least be buried back at home (it almost never happens, but it is a really nice sentiment). However, even with attachment considered, isn't leaving and returning with more resources a more productive approach? From my perspective, the McGlothlins' situation resembles something close to the natural, baseline state of things. What historically propels families out of such circumstances is a willingness to take risk, usually when things cannot get any worse. Usually, one member, often male, ventures somewhere harder and less comfortable, lives cheaply, saves aggressively, and slowly creates a foothold for others to follow. It is usually not pretty, but it's also a practice not unique to international migrants.

What I cannot relate to, in terms of my own lived experience, is the $500 in disability payments. Sheila's disability payment is also a policy choice. So is every other federal and state subsidy or program that flows into a place like Grundy. I want to be careful with my words, lest the spirit of David Hess fully take over me. I am not arguing that the government should abandon people in hard circumstances in order to force a sink-or-swim outcome. If the government did, a lot of people would undoubtedly just sink. I am asking whether support sometimes functions as an anchor. Tyler is not facing a choice between certain misery (staying) and possible misery (leaving). He is facing a choice between possible misery (leaving) and a small, predictable share of $500 (staying). There is a Spanish refrain which roughly translates to: "A bird in your hands is worth more than 100 in the sky."

Conclusion

Which brings me to a question that has loitered in my mind for the entire time I spent writing this post: at what point does subsidizing rural and remote areas just become subsidizing misery? Maybe the "death" of places like Grundy (or in less scary terms, their transformation) would benefit everyone, especially the people who live there. And maybe, what is slowing that transformation down is the accumulated weight of everyone's personal share of $500. I did not mean for this post to sound so negative. I do not think the McGlothlins are contemptible people. But perhaps there is something to the contempt that the David Hesses of the world display.

Back-to-the-land has come...back?

Barn in Benton County, AK. Credit: Lisa Pruitt (2011)

If you're a young woman on TikTok, the algorithm likely feeds you some flavor of "tradwife" content. Names like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman have become household names among twenty-somethings in the last few years. These women use their online platforms to play out a fictional reality of subservience to their husbands on gorgeous rural acreages, all while raking in millions from sponsorships and $70 bone broth powders. They espouse live simple, pared-down lives, cooking everything from scratch for a big, happy family, while finding time to spend their afternoons barefoot in the grass. They want you to believe that their life is good, and that more young women should aspire to be homemakers and homesteaders. 

These young women are the most visible group of young people promoting a modern "back-to-the-land" movement. They often root their desire in religion and "traditional" roles of men and women. Many scholars and commentators criticize the tradwife movement, saying it is regressive and uninformed. You can read excerpts of an New York Times article about modern "rural" aesthetics centered in patriarchy here. While some of the criticism rings true, this practice isn't new. Americans have demonized processed foods and dreamt of homesteading for decades. Back-to-the-land movements have drawn people's attention since their inception, inspiring families with traditional values as well as environmentalists and counterculturalists. 

The origins of back-to-the-land

America began its foray into the homesteading movement with the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered full title to government lands taken from Indigenous tribes to any settler who lived on and improved the land for five years. The back-to-the-land movement, however, originated in the 1900s. 

Many scholars cite Bolton Hall, an American lawyer and activist, as the origin of the back-to-the-land movement. In the early 1900s, he formed the Little Land League, which wanted to make land ownership and homegrown food a reality for low-income New Yorkers. This organization existed to "assist in the acquisition of land and show how to make the best use of it." He allegedly planned a $70,000 endowment for a program that would teach people how to farm and help them purchase the land. His book, A Little Land and Living, extolled the virtues of rural living and explained how to begin to make a living for yourself off the land. 

John Korvola's Homestead in Valley County, ID from the early 1900s. Credit: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

A group of reformists picked up Bolton Hall's work, arguing that subsistence farming could help white Americans survive during the Great Depression and avoid the dangers of urbanization. Their writings sparked a the "third wave" of back-to-the-land in the 1960s and 70s. The third wave originated from the protest movements of that era, and grew into a "rural antimodern counterculture". As Jinny A. Turman-Deal's article We Were an Oddity: A Look at the Back to the Land Movement in Appalachia identifies, many third-wave participants were driven by non-economic factors: a desire to "leave the rat race" or political and social turmoil in the city. Their migration created a 4.5% increase in West Virginia's population. 

A New York Times article from 1975 posits that these new, young farmers desired hard work and an escape from American capitalism. They generally eschewed tractors and other "labor-saving devices." This movement reached across the country, with people from Maine to Oregon allegedly growing up to 75% of their food in their backyard. While this article states that most farmers relied on their families' middle-class incomes to make this a reality, a 1991 article states that about 48% of participants came from a middle-class background. 

Modern takes on back-to-the-land

Homesteading, a popular part of the back-to-the-land movement, has picked up considerable steam in the last 10 years. A November 2024 report from Fannie Mae shows that interest in rural mortgages has increased almost 80% since the start of COVID-19. Homesteaders of America, a conservative, Christian-adjacent homesteading advocacy group, conducted a poll in 2022 to assess the state of homesteading in America. They found that approximately 50% of their respondents were under 40 years old, and about 50% identified as conservative. Most were employed full-time, making at least 50,000 a year. Over 80% were married.

These findings align with the prevailing modern conception of homesteading. Conservative, young families with enough capital to secure property are the ones moving out to a subsistence farm. While I used the example of tradwives as the group most visible in mainstream media, queer and trans homesteaders utilize social media to share their experiences of living off the land, too. A recent CNN article highlighted some of these influencers, who stated they didn't see homesteading as a "conservative, separatist" movement, but rather a community-centered endeavor to build something they're proud of. 

Regardless of politics, many young aspiring farmers and homesteaders take up homesteading for similar reasons: increased health and well-being, an escape from tumultuous politics, and a desire to be more in touch with nature. These groups face a common challenge: a daunting rural real estate market. A 2022 Study from the National Young Farmers Coalition, however, found that 59% of young farmers stated that finding the land to farm was their biggest hurdle. Young farmers are being outbid by more established farmers, as well as large agricultural corporations. This statistic has been true for decades (as this 2012 blog post explains in an analysis between the United States and Greece). In some communities, leasing from community members or land trusts makes homesteading more accessible. In major cities, organizations exist to help low-income residents urban homestead in community co-ops. 

Homesteading and back-to-the-land movements draw new converts every day. While the media continues to criticize the tradwives from a feminist perspective, we should recognize that their lives resonate with so many young people. So many of the political pressures of the late 60s and 70s exist today: high inflation, declining trust in politics, and foreign wars impacting oil.

Back-to-the-land has come and gone as a desirable life path for over a century. It seems as if proponents, for decades, have thought  it is the cure to all of societies Interestingly, the draws are the same, regardless of politics, though each group seems to try and fit their politics to their reasons. At the end of the day, tradwife or drag queen, some people want to put their hands in the dirt.

Rastafari roots of plant-based eating

An Ital meal of rice, ackee, callaloo, and veggie chunks.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (2009)

In considering a vegan diet, I imagine a young, progressive urban consumer motivated by environmental or animal welfare concerns. In other words, someone who likely shops at a Whole Foods. In the West, veganism is packaged as something performed through individual consumer choices. That framing obscures the structural conditions shaping diets, and reinforces the mistaken belief that veganism is a modern invention. The “Ital” tradition complicates the popular narrative of modern veganism. Long before plant-based eating carried a price premium in Los Angeles, it was ordinary in the hills of rural Jamaica. 

The Rastafari movement began in the 1930s in Jamaica among the working poor who had been devastated by the global financial crash of 1929 and prolonged colonial mismanagement. These forces created mass unemployment and rural-to-urban migration into the slums of west Kingston. Rastas fled to the rural mountains where they could access land and practice self-governance without persecution.  

Leonard P. Howell, an early Rastafari leader, drew on the practices of Hindu indentured laborers in Jamaica to promote what became known as Ital living. The word “Ital” comes from “vital,” dropping the first letter to emphasize the pronoun “I”. This linguistic practice signals unity with the speaker, the listener, and Jah (God). Ital eating is an expression of “livity,” a Rastafari concept that the individual can embody and express spirituality through the practices of daily life.  For Rastafarians, Jah exists in all of creation, including plants, animals, and people. As such there is a divine force or energy in all. 

What one puts in one’s body either enhances or degrades this life force. Food that has been processed or chemically altered is considered corrupted and further from Jah’s creation. Life force does not begin at the moment of consumption. Powell’s research participants described farming, cultivation, and conservation as the literal pouring of one’s energy and emotion into the earth. The sincerity of this effort determines how the earth responds and reciprocates that energy. 

Rural Rastafari food is shaped by what the land yields. Coconuts are naturally abundant across Jamaica. They are cracked, drained, grated, and squeezed into milk that forms the base of most dishes. Vegetables and aromatics are sautéed in coconut oil. The food typically contains beans, spices, chili peppers, and the coconut milk, stewed for hours over low heat and eaten communally. A strict Ital diet rejects salt as “a needless adulteration” of what Jah placed on the earth, so herbs and dry seasonings are key. Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, lemongrass, allspice, and nutmeg build complex flavor without salt. 

The one pot stew is a practical response to the rural conditions of Rastafari life. Land access is limited, so the range of available produce is narrow. A single pot stretches what is on hand to feed the community. Cooking takes place outside in clay pots often balanced over a wood fire by three stones. Metal cookware is avoided on the belief that it harms the body. 

In Saint Lucia, a young Rasta farmer described conversing with plants throughout their life cycle to transfer positive energy to them. He explained that during planting one must ensure a positive heart is present because this very energy will be transmitted to the earth. The same is true of cooking. Ital food involves preparing food with a clean heart to transfer life force into the food. Food must be cooked slowly, with intention and gratitude. This preserves and transmits the life energy that began in the soil. Food is not just physically nourishing; it is also spiritually nourishing.

Food that is rushed or processed severs the energy force and transmits a lower form. It follows too that food grown under corporate conditions is spiritually degraded. Jahson Peat, who runs a vegan restaurant in London called Zionly Manna, presents Ital as a process of relearning that strips away the method of eating brought about by colonialism. This is inseparable from a rejection of capitalism itself. Commitment to Ital eating is tightly linked to a broader turn away from the imported industrial and materialist ways of life, which are all combined under the Rastafari concept of “Babylon.” 

By contrast, mainstream veganism operates according to market logic. It converts diet choices into an ethical identity. For some, it is an exercise of personal branding, where what you eat signals who you are. This channels genuine ethical concerns for animals and the environment into demand for plant-based products. In this sense, the market-based vegan movement can be seen not as a challenge to the current food system, but a force that risks expanding it further, as seen through the IPO of Beyond Meat. The Ital diet is not a consumer identity. It seeks to reject the economic system and the very notion of consumerism that it relies upon. 

However, Ital does not operate entirely independent of market forces. Jaffe’s concept of “Ital chic” describes the convergence of middle-class consumerism and the Ital diet. In Kingston, Rasta symbols have been used to market artisanal soap lines, and premium vegetable products. When a brand sells coconut-milk products with Rasta packaging, it co-opts a tradition built on self-sufficiency and places it inside the very market that tradition was designed to refuse. This dynamic is similar to that explored in a blog post from this semester about rural tourism. It noted that rural culture is often packaged to meet consumer expectations, with authenticity operating as a selling point. 

Plant-based eating did not begin with a farmer’s market or with a marketing campaign. It owes some of its roots to rural Jamaica, where people grew what the earth offered based on a theological conviction. That story deserves to be remembered before it is repackaged.

The fast and the curious-ly large urban pickup

Acura Integra, Outside of Yosemite, Spring 2025

I have more than a passing interest in classic cars, particularly those of the Japanese domestic market (See some “JDMs” here). I inherited this interest from my father, who has raised me in an exclusively Honda/Acura household. His affinity for Acura began in the 1980s when he lived and worked in Osaka, where he purchased a Honda Quint (now known as a first generation Acura Integra).

My father’s Integra was an original model three door coupe, with a four-cylinder engine that displaced 1.6L of standard 87 octane and produced about 91 horsepower at a base weight of 2,000 pounds. In the thin, often crowded streets of Osaka - and most of Japan, for that matter-  that compact size and its modest horsepower were more than sufficient for his needs. This design philosophy can be found in many JDM cars, with the informal gentleman’s agreement capping original JDM output at around 276 horsepower at the wheel.

Acura watch given to salesperson
for making quota, circa 1990s

Today, I also drive an Integra. It is ostensibly of the same lineage as the original production. (Read more about the fifth generation Integra here). However, despite the fact that my Integra is classified as a “subcompact,” it weighs 1,200 pounds more than the original JDM Integra, typically cruising around 3,200 pounds. Despite this (in my mind unnecessary and deeply upsetting) size update for modern tastes in cars, it remains one of the smallest vehicles on asphalt, with American markets now dominated by SUVs and pickup trucks.

As anyone who drives on country roads in America can attest, one of the common classes of vehicle on the road today is a full-size pickup; think the F-150, the Ram 1500, or the Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Read more about driving in rural spaces on this blog here. ]. Looking closer at the 2024 F-150 as an example, the standard powertrain is a 325Hp 2.7L V6, with the typical model weighing in around 5,500 pounds. That is by no means the top of the scale. Many non-commercial super pickups can go upwards of 7,000 pounds. (For example, read about the F-250.)

In many rural contexts, these vehicles serve legitimate irreplaceable needs. Pickups are necessary for anyone who has to haul in day-to-day life, whether from hunting. (Read more about hunting to eat on the blog here) or work, and their standard four wheel differential transmission is more suited for off road travel than a forward wheel drive or a rear wheel drive. However, these justifications simply do not apply to urban environments. Urban roads are well developed; urban spaces do not typically require hauling of loads in daily life.

Cultural factors help explain the popularity of these monster trucks in situations where their practicality is in question. Much has been said about the cultural ethos associating rural practices with country, blue collar work and conservative politics. Read more on this association. As mentioned, you can’t listen to a modern country playlist without hitting three allusions to a truck. Trucks are one of the most popular vehicle types, owing I believe some amount of success with this association.

That said, I have a serious interest in limiting these vehicles to urban environments. If vehicle choice was purely aesthetic, then I’d let it rest there, with the only discomfort being visual. However, this choice of vehicle is not harmless in an urban environment.

Larger vehicles increase the survival rate of their own occupants while increasing the mortality for others from a collision (A study about increasing vehicle sizes and lethality here). Increased fuel consumption, wear on roads, and congestion are negative externalities that are put onto the public. With every pound that a car carries, its wear on asphalt becomes exponentially greater).

Today, addressing pickups and other automobiles through regulation has regrettably become a culture war problem. Current contentions surrounding car emissions and sizing are much the same as the rural/urban divide elsewhere: idealistic urban elites are intruding on the necessities of rural life. Read more about rural contentions on emissions standards and the adoption of electric vehicles here and here. 

To address this issue in a less controversial way, I propose to localize vehicle regulation. Municipal policymakers should have greater authority to regulate vehicles purchased and used within counties, rather than this power being solely vested in the state and federal systems and resulting in deeply unpopular legislation between rural and urban areas. (One such example involving taxing larger vehicles at the state level here). As such, localized vehicle standards would no longer place unnecessary burdens on rural communities. At the same time, vehicle emission standards should remain federal and state, as air remains shared amongst both rural and urban areas and across state lines.

This increased municipal power could come in many forms. The simplest would be a increased municipal tax of some sort on the purchase and registration of larger vehicles in urban areas. The easiest way to implement this would be an excise "sin tax" on vehicles of a certain size that are deemed unnecessary outside of work purposes. Alternatively, or in addition, bylaws that regulate the usage of vehicles over a certain size in some areas such as parking lots and school zones would serve to decrease congestion and potential safety risks.

My final proposal is to allow the local importation of JDM vehicles that are not marketed in the United States. As these vehicles are often smaller, their fuel consumption and negative externalities are correspondingly smaller. Read about “Kei trucks,” a JDM only smaller pickup, here. Subsidies could also be incorporated into prices for subcompact automobiles and their drivers, preferably those who drive Hondas or Acuras.

By making these vehicle regulations local, cities can better manage their own safety, infrastructure, and environmental concerns without deepening the cultural divide that often accompanies broad, uniform mandates between the rural and urban. I am happy to report that I have no conflicts of interest in any of these proposals.

Acura Integra, Yosemite, Spring 2025

Energy poverty burdens rural America, especially as the climate warms

Mt. Sherman, Arkansas 

Credit: Lisa R. Pruitt, 2009

Rural areas produce much of the energy that our nation relies on. 60% of coal plants are located in and 83% of wind, solar and geothermal energy is produced in rural areas. Even so, families living in poverty in rural areas are more likely to experience energy poverty. Energy poverty is the inability to pay utility bills to heat or cool a home. A report by the Island Institute explained that the median energy burden (percent of income spent on energy bills) is 33% higher for rural households than the national median. 

Inability to pay for utilities can increase exposure to heat or cold, leading to various health risks such as respiratory issues, heart problems, allergies, and kidney disorders. Climate change has exacerbated exposure risks due to a greater frequency of extreme weather conditions.

Rural areas face these energy inequities because of rising energy costs and a lack of investment. Across the country, residential electricity costs have increased 30% since 2021 and residential gas costs have increased 40% since 2019. The geographic isolation of many rural areas makes it more expensive to deliver energy and provide energy efficiency upgrades. 

Investor-owned utilities in the early twentieth century didn't want to provide the same service in rural areas as in urban areas because the lower population densities in rural areas made profits too low to justify construction and investment. In 1935, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) was created. The REA utilized a "rural cooperative model" which allowed for publicly owned and controlled electricity. Although, these rural cooperatives often lack capacity and resources to invest in more comprehensive energy efficiency programs. 

Additionally, rural areas are more likely to have older homes with worse insulation. On top of older homes, 20% of rural households live in manufactured homes (commonly mobile homes), which are significantly less energy efficient and more costly to repair than traditional housing. 

AC Unit on Mobile Home

Credit: Creative Commons

How do we currently address energy poverty?

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federally funded program that provides assistance to low-income households who face a high energy burden. Assistance can range from one-time financial assistance to free energy efficiency upgrades. A study done by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that weatherizing a home for families living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line can save an average singe family household $283 per year and manufactured home households $458 per year.

Katrina Metzler from National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition explained that rural areas have a harder time accessing LIHEAP benefits because the resources are not centralized as they are in urban areas. A 2024 survey found that only 17% of households that qualify for LIHEAP assistance utilize the program. 

LIHEAP's funding formula has historically provided more funding to cold-weather states. But climate change has caused a shift in the historical energy burden being faced by rural communities. Extreme heat is now the primary cause of weather-related deaths, with 2,302 heat-related deaths in 2023. This is a 44% increase from 2021. With rising temperature, regions such as the South and Southwest have greater cooling needs, while the heating needs in regions such as the North and Northwest become less extreme. 

LIHEAP is still using a funding formula from the 1980s to determine how funding is distributed to states. With changing climate, it may be time to shift the funding formula to better aid states struggling with extreme heat. 

Credit: ACEEE

What are states doing?

9 states have implemented percentage-of-income payment plans (PIPPs). This type of program caps energy bills at a specified percentage of household income for low-income customers to keep them affordable. 14 states provide low-income households energy at a discounted rate to keep costs low.

Additionally, 10 states offer arrearage management plans, which forgive a portion of debt for each timely payment of a new bill. This helps to defeat the energy bill debt cycle than many households in energy poverty face. One missed payment can turn into growing debt that threatens disconnection from service, forcing households to pursue risky options such as emergency aid or high-cost loans. 

The Rocky Mountain Institute modeled the cost of a universal PIPP, capping bills at 4% of annual income. They determined it would only cost $9.3 billion to fund this program, 0.14% of federal spending in 2024.

In 2024, Congress appropriated $4.125 billion in LIHEAP funding. Last April, the Trump administration sought to completely cut funding for the LIHEAP program, but full funding was eventually included in the appropriations package passed in February of this year.

LIHEAP is an essential program to ensure that rural households have some assistance with the crushing costs of utilities. Implementation of PIPPs, ideally at the federal level, could drastically reduce the burdens of energy costs on low-income rural families and prevent them from having to choose between buying food or having air conditioning during severe heat.