Not everyone in Kansas goes to KU, K-State, or Johnson County Community College. I didn’t. I knew from the time I was 12 that I would leave Kansas, my beloved home state, for college. When I went to school in Virginia, I discovered that my home state suddenly made me something that I’d never really been before: exotic.

People at my school, Hollins University, tend to be surprised that I’m from Kansas, surprised by the very existence of a real, live Kansan. Kansas is uninhabited territory, a flyover state, the wild, wild Midwest. At my initial hall meeting, I said I was from a small city in Kansas, and the initial reactions were, “They have cities in Kansas?” “They have people in Kansas?” “Aren’t there, like, seven people there?” It’s interesting to offer yourself up as proof of existence of a state; almost all of my friends had never met a Kansan, been to Kansas, or really thought of Kansas as more than Dorothy’s place or one of those states in the Bible Belt. I tend to refute whatever perceptions people have of Kansans; I’m just not what they expect.

Sometimes, they think I’m too smart: “But didn’t you guys, like, try and, y’know, kill evolution? Do you hate Darwin, too?” The incident with the school board has been over and done with for a few years, but it happened when kids our age were just beginning to hear about the origin of the species, and their science teachers might have derisively brought up the backward Kansans in class. That debate has moved on to Georgia, but it still lived on, for me at least. Professors also brought it up on occasion, insisting to me that yes, Kansas did ban evolution, forcing me to offer myself up as proof that, yes, Kansans do know about Darwin.

Some people think I’m too liberal for Kansas. On a couple of occasions, it was assumed that the Kerry/Edwards stickers were my roommates, and the Bush/Cheney memorabilia was mine, when in fact it was the other way around. When the election results rolled in, I was blamed almost as much as the lesbian from Texas by the liberals on my hall for the outcome of the election; surely, as a good liberal, I could have done something for my backward home state? Didn’t I never want to go back to that Bush-voting hellhole now? I had to explain to my more dramatic Kerry-fan friends more than once that while I was disappointed by the results, it didn’t mean that I loved my home state any less, and just because I was a left-winger in Kansas didn’t mean that I had to push my views on my fellow Kansans with the viciousness of Fred Phelps.

The list of misconceptions and odd notions of the Sunflower State goes on: I grew up on a farm; I’ve never left my home state; my first pet was named Bessie; I’ve never heard any of this new-fangled rap music; there are no black people in Kansas. But as anyone who’s left the state knows, there is one giant, looming, figure that towers over all factors in someone’s thoughts about Kansas: Dorothy. Toto. The Wizard of Oz.

“Oh! How’s Toto doing??”

“I think I’m gonna call you Dorothy, Dorothy.”

“Yeah? Kansas? You get here via plane or tornado?”

“No place like home, right? Right?”

“Oh, jeez, you must be so sick of Wizard of Oz jokes.”

Before anything else comes The Wizard of Oz. I love the movie, I’ve seen it as many times as anyone else, but in a gathering of 18-year-olds who think they’re witty, the Wizard of Oz is always the first connection with Kansas.

Since leaving Kansas, I’ve realized that I feel more proud and protective of my home state. I’m a bigger Jayhawk fan than ever; I like Bob Dole way more than I did when he was running for president, and I certainly don’t tolerate any cracks about my home state, something I never thought I would do when I was itching to leave in junior high.

Rachel McCarthy James, Hollins University student, grew up in Lawrence.