Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work

Much like her struggle with understanding the NFL cheerleaders, Laskas has a difficult time understanding those she encounters at Sprague’s Sports in Arizona. She tries to remain neutral, commenting, for example, on how the demeanor of the clerks “dressed in crisp buttoned shirts with their names embroidered on the pockets” reminds her of “department store shoe salesmen in the old days who wore suits and used shoehorns” (145). She notes as well the cleanliness of the store, “no dust or cobwebs on the hundreds of bobcat, coyote, elk, and other taxidermy mounted on high—and no fingerprints or smudges on any of the cases” (145-146). Indeed, the store reminds of her Disneyland and a general store, all at once.

She admires the owner as well, Richard Sprague, a “busy man, with quick eyes” who “spoke of ‘firearms’ and ‘the industry’ in the dry, responsible way a man might discuss flood insurance” (150). Richard and his wife take Laskas on a tour of Yuma and accompany her to the Yuma County Fair. Laskas even learns to enjoy shooting guns, noting that “[w]ithout the burdensome image of killing” she “found shooting guns completely enjoyable” (151).

What Laskas cannot understand is all of the other issues surrounding guns that the people she meets seem to ignore. She notes, for example, that Yuma is defined by the presence of the “famous Yuma Territorial Prison,” at one time “the worst place a convict could be sent” (154), now a tourist attraction. Indeed, she wonders if the prison, which is still intricately entwined in the everyday lives of their citizens, explains their predilection for guns: “Bad guys were everywhere. Keeping yourself armed against them was not a matter of debate so much as a way of life, a routine as obvious as church. The bad guys were coming, and you were naïve or just plain stupid not to be prepared” (154).

Indeed, the concept of “bad guys” runs throughout the section. When trying to decide between a .22 or a Glock, one of the clerks, Kevin, describes the drawbacks of the smaller gun, telling her it won’t stop anybody. Kevin describes a scenario in which the bad guy is “on meth:”

“He’s got your kid by the throat. It’s the middle of the night and he’s going to take your whole family out. He’s coming after you. He’s dragging your kid. He’s on meth! He’s not feeling your little .22s hitting him [..]. Those bullets are going right through him, and the ones that miss are going through the drywall right into the baby’s room…” (157).

Similarly, Richard talks about the possibility of an armed invasion by a country like Afghanistan, and others bring up the necessity of guns to protect themselves from a government run amuck: “If you control firearms, you’re not going to have people rising up in revolution” (169).

Laskas seems not to engage with these conversations; she merely reports them. Instead, she includes anecdotes and incidents that speak clearly without her having to say a word, such as the ease with which she can acquire a gun or the way that background checks are almost useless, since the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is “a voluntary system. Agencies are under no mandate to supply information” (162). She brings up Jared Loughner, who shot thirteen people, including Representative Gabby Giffords. Giffords survived, but six others died. She also mentions the Virginia Tech Shooter, Seung-Hui Cho; Carey Dyess of Yuma who went on a spree, killing five people, including his ex-wife; and “some guy back east [who] shot up a pharmacy” (168). However, these things are not addressed by the people she meets. Instead, they talk about how many guns they sold the day of the Loughner spree, how frightened they were when they heard about Dyess, not because he had a gun, but because they didn’t, or at least not one big enough.

More alarmingly, she realizes, the people she meets in Yuma never mention the victims of gun violence, and, in fact, “[i]f there were any victims at all to be singled out in the discussion, it was these people here, threatened by tighter gun laws and a government determined to impose them” (168). By the end, though Laskas clearly understands the allure of guns, she does not understand the attitudes of these people toward guns. She tries to think of them as her neighbors, but ultimately, they cannot communicate. The only thing left is to use the guns as a release and try not to think of anything else.

Unlike the section on Sprague’s Sports, in which politics and her own opinions keep coming up despite Laskas’s best efforts, the section on the ranch is much more neutral. However, there is still a sense of two opposing sides. This time, however, these are not sides of a political debate, but a series of binary oppositions with which Laskas structures this section on the American beef industry: past versus future, appearance versus reality. Laskas highlights the cowboys throughout, almost as if she cannot believe they still exist, even as she notes that cowboy culture is still “an intact […] culture that in fact exists all over America, if you know where to look” (178). Even more than other sections, she spends a great deal of time describing these men, particularly Donnell Brown who always looks “neat and tidy,” with “his dark dress-up jeans and a special starched shirt, solid beige, that bears the embroidered brand and insignia of the R.A. Brown Ranch” (196).

Similarly, she delights in describing the cattle drive, noting that there is a reason besides nostalgia for the ways in which the cowboys dress as well as in their choice of horses versus motorized vehicles. However, “on the range” with “no other context cues—just cows, horses, ropes, songs, giant sky and prickly pear, buffalo grass, big bluestem, Texas wintergrass […] it’s easy for a cowboy to lose sight entirely of what century he is, in fact, in” (179).

She contrasts these appearances with what the cowboys discuss, mainly love, particularly Jeff’s search for a wife. These men are not reveling in their romanticized image but searching for companionship. Jeff, who has no familial ties to cowboying, by the end of the chapter has seemingly fallen in love with a “city girl,” Sara, though their relationship makes “no sense whatsoever” (195).

Similarly, Laskas contrasts the cowboys’ work on the cattle drive with the work they do on the ranch itself. Unlike the cattle drive, which, except for the conversation, could have easily been in the nineteenth century, their work on the ranch is purely twenty-first. Cameron and Casey, for example, “insert progesterone plugs” into each cow to prevent them from going into heat, while George, who has been a cowboy on the ranch for 57 years, “is by far the best with the [artificial insemination] gun” (188). This language forces the reader to consider the entire process, conflating the romantic image of the cowboy with genetic science, two things that seem to have nothing in common.

This constant conflation of opposing phenomena is what sets this chapter apart from others. Although Laskas always seeks to present the people she meets during this journey as fully realized, well-rounded individuals, with Donnell in particular, she seems unable to resist highlighting these contrasts. For example, she describes Donnell’s conversation with “a freelance cowboy” about Donnell’s son’s position as quarterback for the football team, of which they’re “mighty proud,” while the cowboy uses an ultrasound machine to check the bulls’ growth—data that will be transmitted to the Red Angus Association of America. This differs from previous generations, when prize bulls and cows were simply showcased at stock shows. Now, “[d]etermining [the] value” of cattle “happens on spreadsheets” and cowboys “like Donnell can pull them up” on smart devices (193).

She presents the information about the cattle industry in general, and Donnell in particular, as straddling two worlds. In one respect, Donnell is a stereotypical cowboy: practical, hardworking, and morally upright. Donnell won’t even “take another man’s poster down” to display his own; “he is not a man to take another man’s poster down” (198). That same cowboy, reminiscent of Clint Eastwood, saunters off, not into the sunset, but into a Walmart to buy a staple gun.

This sense of contrast is also used to highlight America’s vexed relationship with its food. Laskas uses these contrasts to force the reader to see where their food comes from, not the “cut and shrink-wrapped” (176) product they buy at the store, but the majestic animal from which that food comes. Unlike the section on the gun shop, Laskas is able to keep her political views firmly out of this, choosing instead to let these images—the overcrowding of the feedlot and the manipulation of genetic material and breeding practices—to speak for themselves.

In fact, she never comments, for example, on the impact of cattle breeding on the climate, or the conditions the cattle endure, or even on the wisdom of consuming an animal that has fed on antibiotics. Instead, she presents these images neutrally, their only emphasis coming from the contrast—shrink-wrapped steak versus “an astonishing bull with a handsome wide muzzle […] and a square frame solid as a sycamore” (173), the cowboy and the artificial insemination gun, Darrell’s simple faith in God and Revelation’s left ear at the ViaGen cloning lab, awaiting Donnell’s decision over whether to play God or trust in the future.