While touring William Faulkner’s Home in Oxford, Mississippi, one of my students, who grew up in California and moved here with her parents, asked, “Does the fact that Mississippi is much-maligned put its youth at a disadvantage when competing with peers from other states? In other words, is there a stigma attached to being raised in Mississippi?” Considering the financial shambles her home state wallows in, I bit my tongue to avoid a vituperative riposte.
