Regionalism put to the test

Working at an international company based in the Midwest made me aware of just how small the world has become. I learned that when it's 8 p.m. in Springfield, they're just getting into work in Singapore, and morning for us is mid-afternoon for a writer in Great Britain. It gave me a glimpse of how much alike we are. It doesn't matter if you live in Australia or Germany -- people want to be treated with respect as the individuals they are.
But I wondered about regionalism. There seem to be a marked difference in the way that I talked with an ad rep in New York City and a magazine editor on the West Coast. One was hyper and one was so laid back I thought she might fall asleep.It seemed to me that how you acted was highly dependent on where you grew up.

I didn't coin the term "regionalism." It came about back in the 1930s when a group of artists including Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton painted scenes of romanticized rural settings. These were oddly reassuring to the American public, waist-deep in the Great Depression, and showed them that there was still a place where life was good and that place was the farm.

Regionalism was short-lived, dying out in the mid-30s. Perhaps someone found out that farms are just regular places to live, only with animals. But I still wondered if pockets of regionalism had survived, so the other night I asked one of my friends for her opinion, since she's lived on both coasts as well as here in the Midwest. She didn't hesitate with her response -- by and large she didn't see much regionalism in people. No matter where they live, the overriding factor was individual personality.

It's a small world and the web is pulling us even closer. When before would it be possible for grandparents to Skype their grandchildren in China from small-town Illinois?  A schoolteacher get a video off YouTube to supplement next week's lesson on the water cycle? A woman with MS connect with so many others with this disease from around the world? It's good because we're sharing. And because we're all basically alike and because, in the end, we've got each other.