A Michigan Hillbilly Elegy

I grew up in trailer parks across Oakland County: Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, and Brandon Township. Some of my fondest memories were riding my bike through close-knit streets and going to the community pool with friends. I felt a sense of belonging there. Those were the early years, before my life fell apart, before my mom brought violent men into my life, before she became addicted to drugs, before she went to jail.

In J.D. Vance’s story, I see my own. He was born into a troubled environment in Middletown, Ohio, a town filled with families who had migrated from the hills of Kentucky in search of a better life but often brought their struggles with them. His mother also battled drug addiction and bad relationships with men, creating an unstable home life marked by frequent moves, constant fighting, and abuse. Vance’s grandparents became the stable figures in his life, providing him with a sense of security amid the chaos.

Despite the stability his grandparents offered, the broader culture of poverty, neglect, and low expectations in Middletown affected him deeply. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” delves into these experiences, exploring the generational trauma, the struggles of the working class in Rust Belt America, and how people can break free from the cycle of poverty and dysfunction.

My mom telling me, “Amber, you shouldn’t really be that upset over the divorce. He wasn’t your real father anyway,” is one of my earliest memories. I was 7 and sitting on the bathtub of my mother’s jacuzzi in our luxury double-wide trailer. My mind was reeling with questions I didn’t really want the answer to. “I know divorce is hard, Amber. But we will get through this together.”

My mother had me at what would be considered a young age by today’s standards, but in the late 1980s seemed relatively normal. She was 22, and I was the product of a one-night stand. Before I could form my own memories, she met stepdad No. 1. He was an ordinary guy, nothing to write home about, but emotionally and mentally unstable. I wasn’t devastated by their divorce; I was more relieved, but now I was bewildered that the man I’d known for the past seven years, was not, in fact, my dad, and that I was the bastard child of an unknown man who didn’t seem to want me. If she could lie to me about that, what else was she capable of? After that, I didn’t trust anyone. 

Her marriage to stepdad No. 1 didn’t end in violence or yelling; it ended quietly. I think my mom just got bored and wanted chaos. Once they were done, he left my life like he never existed, and I realized that’s how easily someone can be replaced and how little they cared about you in the first place. My mother shortly after fell for a man she met online. She moved us, after knowing him for only a few months, to St. Augustine, Florida. I never met him in person, and she only spent two weekends with him, never getting to know him really, before packing up 8-year-old me and moving across the country, which I find absolutely absurd now as a mother myself. 

He turned out to be a con artist, a gaslighter, and an abuser. He verbally and mentally accosted my mother until she was a shell of herself. Then he set his eyes on me. One year, 1998 to 1999, felt like 50. My mother became pregnant with my brother, tying our lives forever to this man, and I would never forgive her. 

After her pregnancy with a man she only knew for less than a year, she moved us back to Michigan to be closer to my grandparents, the only stable adults in my life. Unfortunately, the new baby daddy moved with us. 

He had no redeemable qualities. He didn’t work. He was always home, ready to abuse, nitpick, criticize, and blow up. My teenage years were spent walking on eggshells, not knowing what would set him off, so I turned to people-pleasing. I became a chameleon, while my mother turned to drugs. 

I never had stability. They could never hold down a house, and I found myself changing schools almost annually. I called it, affectionately, the 16-month curse. This curse came along with not ever being able to get close to anyone because, why would I? I would just move and never see you again. I was lonely and  isolated. 

I did find solace in school work, however. No matter what school I attended, I excelled, not because anyone helped me, but because I needed to get the hell out of the house, and academics would help me achieve that. I finally graduated from Waterford Kettering, top of my class, in 2007. I was fortunate to be there a whole two-and-a-half years and earn a full-ride scholarship to Oakland University. I had plans to be a lawyer. 

But best laid plans often go astray, and my dreams were shattered when my mom robbed a bank just before classes started in August 2007. This upheaval led me to work three jobs, move in with my ailing grandparents, and gain custody of my 7-year-old brother after his father, no surprise, fled the state. No family member was willing to really put their neck on the line to help, so we helped ourselves. I became mom, daughter, sister, and everything in between to make sure that my brother got the education he needed and my grandparents were taken care of. 

Over the next decade, through God’s grace and hard work, I built a stable life. I stepped up to the plate after my mother was sentenced to 10 years at Huron Valley Correctional Facility. I didn’t hate her; I felt bad that she couldn’t get out of her own way and love her children instead of bowing to her own selfish desires. 

Through similar upheaval, poverty, and chaos, J.D. Vance was able to rise above his circumstances. Fueled by his grandmother’s love and protection, he finally found stability when he settled in her home during his sophomore year of high school and began to focus on his studies. After graduating, he made the best decision for someone who lacked structure and discipline—he enlisted in the Marines. There he discovered that discipline and structure were where he thrived. After his service, he attended Ohio State University and then Yale Law School. Despite the poverty and challenges of his community and family, he didn’t let them hold him back from realizing the potential that lies within every person.  

The common theme in mine and Vance’s lives is that you can either be the hero of your story or the victim of circumstance. I chose to rise above all odds, and when no one was able to help me, to turn my misfortune into something good for the world.

I did what I had to do to survive. After a very successful court-reporting career, I have found myself immersed in the world of politics to make a difference for families that face similar situations like mine, families ridden with strife and drugs.

J.D. Vance put his experience down on paper for the world to see. His story is similar to millions of those who struggle to make it today. He has the keen ability to know what will help subvert some of the poverty and drugs in inner cities and rural slums. As vice president, J.D. Vance will bring a level of relatability that the founders had with their constituents. Our leaders should be more like him, less like celebrities, and more like emblems of the American Dream.

Amber Harris lives with her husband and two sons in Commerce Township and owns Harris & Harris Court Reporting.