Mother Shiron Hagen and her daughter Elizabeth are both from around St. Louis, and while they grew up in the same area, both have different perspectives of what they love, and what they don’t, about the Show-Me State.
They reflected on their mixed feelings when they spoke with the Missouri on Mic team at this year's True/False Festival held in Stephen's Lake Park.
Missouri on Mic is an oral history and journalism project documenting stories from around the state in its 200th year.
Shiron Hagens: I think Missouri seems like an afterthought, as if, you know, there's not a lot happening here, and I think that's also a misconception.
There's some wonderful food here. St. Louis is known, of course, for you know, everything from gooey butter cake to the toasted ravioli, but I think Missouri is known for a really home-cooked, kind of stick-to-your-bones type of food, really good meat, and, I guess in quotations is like "traditional American food."
Elizabeth Hagens: I think I have a love for nature, and lately I've been going to a native lands like Cahokia Mounds is right out of St. Louis. There's just a lot of places where the Natives were and they built that land and we kind of just built on top of it, just right on top right.
But here, it's just us and we kind of just plopped it right on top, and we see anybody different, and then it's kind of weird.
"So, I'd love for Missouri to get better at becoming more center, and those who have opposing views to speak up and we get an opportunity to be heard."Shiron Hagens
But it's like they were... they were here first. So lately, I've been trying to connect to the nature that was here first. I mean, I love the Midwest nature, you know, I love all the trees and there's no mountains, but sometimes a mountain… or the trees look like mountains sometimes.
And that's beautiful, and maybe I wish people would learn more about the history of the actual land and give respect to it.
Shiron: I would love for us to change our perception about politics here, right? I think we've grown to have a reputation of being a very radical right wing state, and I think there's a lot of people who are not... who don't subscribe to that thinking.
But we kind of are outshouted, outnumbered or at least it feels like we are outnumbered – I'm not sure if we actually are. So, I'd love for Missouri to get better at becoming more center, and those who have opposing views to speak up and we get an opportunity to be heard.
Elizabeth: I want to like talk about, like, political stuff, but I don't personally see it changing. So, it’s hard for me to say “Oh, I would like for this to happen “ or “Oh, I would like for that to happen.”
I mean. Missouri is pretty agricultural, so, you're always going to have the rural and the city differences and they're probably never going to see eye to eye.
I wish this wasn't so gloom, but it's, I don't have any hope for Missouri.
