Is Michigan Actually Midwestern?

Detroit — If you ask most Michiganders, most will say they live in the Midwest. But according to a 2023 Emerson poll, there’s a significant chunk of the state that wouldn’t agree.

It makes sense. What does Michigan really share with Missouri or Iowa or the Dakotas beyond humid summers?

According to the poll, the states where more than 90% of respondents identify as Midwestern include: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. Michigan (85%) and Ohio (78%) are close, but do not share quite the same affinity.

Midwesternism is a malleable concept. It would shock many to know that more than 42% of Coloradans and 66% of Oklahomans think they also live in the Midwest. Michiganders would probably assume these folks identified as residents of the Great Plains.

Maybe “Midwestern” is too expansive to be useful, but Michigan has specific reasons to be less Midwestern.

Detroit, our largest city, is a northern city full of Southerners. The auto industry drew folks north for opportunity in the 20th century. Detroit is a majority black city, and more than 80% of black Detroiters have Southern roots.

Detroiters generally do not celebrate with hot dishes, and the city is dotted with as many chicken and fish joints as Birmingham, Alabama.

Many whites in Metro Detroit also have a hard time identifying as Midwestern. The great migration drew them out of the hollers of Appalachia during the industrial boom.

Beyond that, does the growing Muslim population in Dearborn see themselves as Midwestern? Do they love ranch dressing as much as Hoosiers do?

And do Chaldeans think they’re Midwestern? What is the name of their preferred jello-based dessert?

Michigan’s ethnic mix likely accounts for our more lukewarm Midwestern identity.

Beyond that, are Detroiters nice in that Midwestern ho-hum way? The city’s decision to lean into Detroit Vs. Everybody branding revealed that Detroiters are proud of where they’re from, but they’re also combative about it. It’s not the same niceness you might find in Kansas.

And think beyond Metro Detroit. Have the Finns in the U.P. stopped seeing themselves as a Northern people as they continue to endure six months of winter?

Our state is simply too diverse to have 95% of Michiganders think of themselves as Midwestern. Our roots are not as uniformly Scots-Irish, as so many other Midwestern locales are.

Michigan may be in the Midwest, but it may be the least Midwestern part of it.