Rose Aquilar, political blogger and radio talk show host, chose the year 2006, one of national upheaval, to trek through four red states — Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Montana — interviewing random bystanders, shoppers, Wal-Mart workers, state representatives, folks leaning right and left and dozens in between. She and her husband capture the essence of America in a political time capsule while driving a used minivan. They begin their journey from the safety of liberal San Francisco, changing time zones and hoping to change minds.
Her education and deliberate foray into red territories begins to take shape in the year 2004. But the execution is about as well planned as one a vegetarian, liberal, and California activist might produce - quit your day job, buy a used van, allow six months, pick places and leave the details to the universe. This political potpourri is delightful to read.
One does not have to be a vegetarian or love poor people to enjoy the insights that abound in this book. Red Highways asks what country can survive political, social and religious dichotomies.
Democracy, as we all know, depends on choices: freedom in a country means choices, unbounded choices. But Red Highways identifies the myth behind the meaning of freedom, choice, and democracy that are clouded by poverty of place and spirit. Ms. Aquilar finds those living life sans choice held back by inferior education, dark skin, drugs, crime, and poverty. While a free country might be the correct answer to this question, Rose takes to the road to discover how a nation divided by the proverbial blue and red state maps makes its case for survival of the richest.
If honesty is a virtue then this book is filled with it. There are no red-only people living in red states just as there are no blue-only people living in blue states. The author discovers that it is voting or lack of it that creates differences between states and whether or not people have choices from abortion on demand to gay rights. But what strikes this reviewer as most relevant is how anti-intellectualism and pro-choice could derail decades of progress. Progressives like Rose believe that this can only be circumvented if we talk to each other and find the real person beneath the red and blue façade.
Because, of course, if the red states have their way abortion would be illegal, abortion doctors dead and gays burned by the state. Rose finds these thorns and more under the bushes of Texas and Mississippi where workers work but don’t vote and don’t know that their dearth of ballots is actually what keeps minimum wages below a living wage of at least $10.00/hour. That the people in the voting records of Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Montana are as poor as their wallets is no coincidence. And contrary to what many believe it is not teens only making minimum wage or babies but women and men in their 30s and 40s with families that have to live within these meager means.
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