Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful ideas to be shared about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.
Before I moved to Jackson for the summer, a New Yorker living in Montgomery, Alabama, told me to pay close attention to people’s reactions when I shared my summer plans.
I had just recently received nearly unanimous encouragement for my decision to study abroad in Madrid, so I was curious what she meant; this potential for contrast became a little game for me. I was a double agent, watching closely for the reactions I predicted: coastal elitism and disparagement.
What I noticed instead was more damning. A pause, a curious tilt, an eye squint. The subtle signs of drawing a blank. My friends and family in New York City and Boston didn’t condemn Mississippi. To have such strong opinions, they would have needed to observe, judge and then reject Mississippi. Instead, Mississippi sits outside their scope of consideration altogether.
I grew up in New York City, where a heavy dose of civic pride taught me that I hail from the center of the universe. College in Boston marked a departure down a well-blazed path for New Yorkers looking to expand their world, but only just so. In this universe, Mississippi is an abstraction, rarely registered beyond a childhood memory of spelling practice: MI-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I! It is scarcely acknowledged as a place to go, let alone stay or build a life.
It wasn’t until I talked with my professor, Gene Corbin, about his years living and working in Mississippi in the 90s that its inclusion in this universe—as much more than a thing to spell—became obvious and necessary.
Professor Corbin sent me to Jackson to work for Jake McGraw at Working Together Mississippi. My task was to join in their effort to research why Mississippi struggles to attract and retain college-educated people, a phenomenon known as “brain drain.”
Mississippi Today, in conjunction with Rethink Mississippi and the University of Mississippi Center for Population Studies, created a first-of-its-kind study dedicated to the state’s brain drain crisis. I began my job this summer by reading through the thousands of survey responses they had collected, placing myself at the “stay vs. leave” crossroads that many Mississippians perennially consider. Immersed in these fraught considerations, I found that most respondents reckoned with a home state where they don’t feel they have sufficient opportunities to stay, but they would, and they want to.
Ella Caplan Credit: Courtesy photoIronically, I was analyzing an instinct that I recognize in myself and my friends: glancing toward the coasts, assuming that real life, real opportunity, happens there. The difference is that Mississippians must weigh the cost of outsourcing opportunity with what it costs to stay. Having started on this note, I was primed to spend the rest of my time in Jackson open to experiencing the full weight of either conclusion. Paradoxically, the more I studied leaving the state, the more I felt the value of staying. I was swimming against the current.
As the summer progressed, my understanding of Jackson grew beyond what I read in my research and rested instead on the experience of building a routine and community in this city. I listened to Blues at Hal & Mals on Mondays, learned about community organizing for a weekend in Louisville and wandered through the “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art on rainy weekdays. I felt deep affection for a culture that I also recognized—one I had seen fragments of in New York City and pop culture my whole life.
Multiculturalism is a core part of New York’s identity, and most New Yorkers would balk at being called insular. But my time in one of New York’s great cultural wellsprings revealed just this: a blind spot in New York’s identity and proof that some constituent cultures are celebrated while others are forgotten.
So, let’s celebrate. You all know this better than I do, so forgive me for stating the obvious: Elvis Presley is from Mississippi, and so is Oprah. Robert Johnson, raised primarily in the Mississippi Delta, is the blues giant who inspired the 2025 film “Sinners.” And civil rights legend Medgar Evers is the namesake of a City of New York public college in Brooklyn, a fact I would fairly confidently state many Brooklynites could not explain. What happens in Mississippi does not stay contained behind a state line; it ripples throughout the rest of the country. The case for staying in this cultural wellspring is easily made.
Yet Mississippi is a real place, one whose challenges are concentrated and in their rawest forms – the brain drain didn’t come out of nowhere. And still the state remains unconsidered, even by those who claim to care passionately about social and racial justice. The instinct to engage injustice when it is exotic and geographically or historically distant keeps places like Jackson invisible. We should refuse to tolerate this hypocrisy.
Mississippians, the problem isn’t that coastal “elites” are judging you; it is that we ignore you. The message I will bring back with me is that if you, like me, desire a full understanding of the country you live in, and not just its wealthiest cities, come to Mississippi. If you don’t come, read; and if you won’t, at the very least, consider with curiosity.
Ella Caplan is a senior at Tufts University, studying sociology and Spanish. She grew up in New York City.
Hence then, the article about during brain drain research new yorker finds reasons to remember mississippi was published today ( ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( During brain drain research, New Yorker finds reasons to remember Mississippi )
Also on site :
- PSG vs Barcelona: Kick-Off Time, Expected Lineups and How to Watch the Champions League Clash
- Sarah J. Maas Urges ‘ACOTAR’ Fans Not to Share Leaks Ahead of New Book: ‘Beyond Disheartening’
- Mark Wahlberg Stars as Notorious Hitman in 2026 Thriller The Guardian Called ‘Grimly Effective’ Now Out on Digital