Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work

Foot is Laskas’s guide during the coal mining section and the assistant safety director for the coal company. A “truck of a man, forty-nine years old, a wide load in both girth and spirit” (12), he got his nickname simply because he has big feet. Foot is decidedly unsentimental and informs Laskas’s inability to portray coal miners in an idealized or romantic light. Foot does his job and does it well; he doesn’t like his job or hate it—it’s just a job. He and Laskas develop a close relationship.

Laskas and Foot spend four months together, and she reports, “He got sick of me, and I got sick of him, and so he got even more sick of me in what became, over a four-month period, an easy friendship” (13). She delights in Foot’s sarcastic sense of humor, and they discuss what life was like when the mines closed, with Foot managing fast-food restaurants in Connecticut before returning to his family farm in Ohio which “was all that mattered” (33). Foot also shares his belief about what makes him a good man—the fact that other people expect him to be one. This reflects the theme of brotherhood and camaraderie in this section overall, the way these men depend on each other and need each other.

Pap is a sixty-two-year-old coal miner, and despite Laskas’s many questions, he never really tells her why he continues to work “what was widely regarded as the worst job of all: roof bolting” (16). Even if he didn’t want to retire, he could’ve at least applied for a position aboveground. Even his wife Nancy cannot shed any light on Pap’s choices.

A good athlete in high school, Pap is a first-generation American who still speaks Polish with his mother and has a work ethic that reflects that background: “You work. If you’re healthy, you work. You don’t quit until something bad happens, which is your sign to move on” (39).

Pap is unsentimental, even stoic. For example, he tells Laskas about his son’s death “with no break in his voice or release of his gaze” (38). Similarly, when he takes Laskas to meet his mother, he never mentions that the woman is clearly dying. Laskas uses Pap to demonstrate the ways in which the coal miners seem to be more comfortable with death than other Americans, perhaps because they are closer to it.

Scott is in his thirties, relentlessly cheerful and optimistic even in the face of mockery from the other miners. Like most of the men Laskas meets, Scott works at the mine for the money which he uses to finance his career as a boxer.

Scott loses the fight that could have made his career. Despite the loss the way his co-workers tease him about it, Scott is unfazed. He decides to retire from boxing, but he doesn’t seem upset. Laskas notes that it is as if “Scotty had lived a previous life as a golden retriever, a tail-wagging pal who keeps coming back around no matter how mean you are to him” (35). Scott and his wife, Eddie, have amassed a great deal of savings and plan to retire early.

Scott is unable, however, to describe “what life would look like once he started living” (36), and he and Laskas discuss the dangers of mining. Scott claims that miners can’t think about the danger; they must be brave. He describes how one of his friends was injured in the mine then died in a car accident a year later. Scott himself becomes symbolic of the many young men who die in mines who never get to enjoy the money they have saved.

Billy is a “fourth-generation coal miner,” who always swore that his life would be different from his father’s and grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s. He would “get himself a job somewhere at least air-conditioned” away from the family farm and the mines (19). Billy went to college, but hated nursing, and always seemed drawn to physical work.

Like many of the men she meets, Billy returns to the mine as a way of financing his family farm. Laskas explores the mine through Billy’s eyes, from his first trip down to the equipment he uses to his promotion to crew chief.

Billy is “a gentleman” and “an upwardly mobile coal miner” (25). Like Scott, Billy is optimistic, thinks of his life as “like the most unbelievable dream come true” (25). Also, like Scott, Billy tries not to think of the danger, though it is clear his wife worries for the both of them, and later, Billy will ask Laskas not to “talk about the bad stuff in front of [his] wife” (26). This exchange is immediately followed by Billy’s recollection of an accident at the mine of seeing a man crushed. Once again, Laskas uses Billy to subtly remind the reader of the danger, of what these men do on a daily basis to keep America running.

Urbano is a forty-five-year-old Mexican man, who may or may not have immigrated to America legally. For obvious reasons, Urbano does not open up to Laskas in the way that the coal miners did. Urbano “fled a life of poverty in Mexico as a teenager” (70) and ended up in North Carolina, living his version of the American dream with his wife and his twin sons, Juan and Pedro.

When Urbano returns to Mexico for his father’s funeral he is robbed and unable to return home for months. When he does, he is behind on his mortgage payments and decides to take work in the blueberry fields of Maine to get caught up.

Laskas describes Urbano as accustomed to bad luck and treatment. However, he is also deeply cynical, believing that “the world was divided: kings over here, peasants over there. Kings live in palaces and want berries on their cornflakes; peasants need the money so they work the fields.” Furthermore, all this “got decided long before you fell out of your mama’s womb, so don’t bother worrying about it” (49).

Urbano is a good father, and Laskas describes his interactions with his sons: the way in which he comforted Pedro who awoke in terrible pain from what turned out to be a minor eye infection and his insistence that his boys would attend school, not work. Urbano is less optimistic than Billy or Scott, but he believes just as much that it is possible for things to get better.

Juan and Pedro are Urbano’s twin sons, “slim, brown, shy, equally oblivious to the powers of their teen-idol good looks—the kind of twins who can survive by bamboozling people, taking tests for each other, talking to girls for each other” (47). They are fourteen years old and see their time raking blueberries as a kind of adventure, during which they “would help their dad save the house, and then they would make more money for themselves” (71).

They are not yet as cynical as their father and seem like typical American teenage boys. When Urbano decides to stay in Maine, for example, they are less than delighted to change schools, and “hated everything about the new school. They hated the name. […]. They hated that it didn’t have a football team” (75). Unlike typical American teenagers, however, they additionally worry about being mistreated or bullied because they “were migrant kids now” (76).

Perez-Fables, “a beefy guy with a jet-black goatee” (55) is an advocate for the migrant farm workers in Maine who is haunted by “hopelessness that had a way of following him like a ghost” (56). A Cuban immigrant who came to America in his teens, Perez-Fables began working as an advocate after a series of scandals in Maine involving migrant workers.

Through Perez-Fables, Laskas is able to comment on misconceptions and treatments of immigrants and the necessity of migrant labor to the American economy.

Laskas describes Adrienne as “a Thoroughbred of a woman, broad shoulders, booming voice, the biceps and forearms of a sailor” (79). Adrienne is not what one would think about if asked to describe a typical professional cheerleader. She works in construction, and studies nursing at night.

Adrienne’s mother was murdered when she was an infant, and she was raised by a sixteen-year-old aunt. She did not know her biological father until she found him with the help of a talk show.

Adrienne is special, for lots of reasons, and both Laskas and Charlotte, the manager of the Ben-Gals, recognize this. Charlotte describes Adrienne’s transformation into a successful Ben-Gal, and Laskas presents Adrienne as emblematic of the sexism inherent in American life, a system that validates women for their looks yet also shames them for taking pride in their appearance. When Adrienne looks at her picture as cheerleader of the week she simultaneously “recognizes perfection” and “wonders what to do with it” (104).

Cali, an air traffic controller whose real name is Tom, represents the ordinary air-traffic controller, the one who takes pride in his work and who does his best despite the games being played by the FAA and the union. Cali plays hockey, and is “proud of his gardens, especially his enormous orange calla lilies” (110).

Laskas uses Cali to demonstrate the extraordinary responsibility shouldered by the controllers, especially while they are on duty which involves “plugging out of the rest of your problems, or those of your union, or of a bunch of blabbermouth politicians in Washington, D.C.” (111-12).

Cali also demonstrates the care the controllers take, despite being told by the union not to do their best in order to show management how vital the controllers are. Cali nonetheless tries to remain empathetic, to get the travelers where they need to be with as little delay as is possible.

Brian is Laskas’s assigned guide during her time with the air traffic controller, “a compact man with ruddy skin and sharp blue eyes and fatherly earnestness” (118). Brian wanted to work at TRACON, but he was unable to complete the training. He arranges for Laskas to hang out with all the controllers and invites her home to meet his family.

Brian was recently promoted to supervisor, which means that technically he “has left the ranks of the union and crossed over to management” (131). None of the people he works with feel any differently, but one of Laskas’s potential interviewees refuses to meet with her after learning that Laskas is “speaking to management” (131). Brian serves as symbol of the chaos of the air-traffic control system, which divides people into various factions.

The owner of Sprague’s Sports, Richard was the only gun store owner who not only allowed but invited Laskas into his store. Richard is a true believer, but he doesn’t rant or get angry. Instead, he invites Laskas into his world and tries to get her to understand the importance of guns and the necessity of the second amendment.

Richard “is a slender man in his fifties with a tapered face and coarse graying hair, and he wears crisp, well-ironed outdoorsman attire” (149). He is committed to responsible gun ownership, and this is reflected in the services the store offers, such as gun safety classes, as well as in the store itself, which is clean and well organized.

Richard and his wife take Laskas into their home and accompany her to the Yuma County Fair. Richard is “proud of Yuma and wanted [Laskas] to like it,” which she clearly does. However, he is also “proud of the firearms industry and wanted [her] to like that, too,” which she has a harder time with (151).

Laskas portrays Richard respectfully; she admires his principles and his work ethic. However, she is baffled by some of his beliefs.

Laskas cannot help romanticizing Donnell, head of the cattle ranch. She presents him as a stereotypical Hollywood cowboy like Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman: “tall, slim, with a quarterback’s build and the deep-blue determined eyes of a man who is hanging on with all his might for the ride” (173-174).

Donnell shares with her his “four life goals,” which include “[g]et to heaven; be the best possible husband and father; be healthy and happy; produce the most efficient beef cattle in the entire world by converting God’s forage into safe, nutritious, delicious food for His people” (174). The goals, like Donnell, are representative of an America that has faded away. long ago faded away.

Jeff is one of the cowboys Laskas shadows. Unlike most of the other men, he has no family experience with ranching. In fact, his father is an insurance salesman. However, Jeff has always dreamed of being a cowboy, wants to work “on a million-acre ranch, like in Nebraska or Montana or someplace, where they call the cattle in just twice each year and a cowboy is handed a can of beans and told to get on out and don’t come back until he’s got 1,200 head moved in for doctoring” (190).

However, Jeff’s romantic ideal is at odds with the realities of modern cattle ranching and with his own personality. For example, Jeff spends most of his time talking about finding a wife.

TooDogs is the character that Laskas seems closest to, the toolpusher on the oil rig off the coast of Alaska. Much like Donnell Brown or Richard Sprague, TooDogs is tough, masculine, unsentimental. However, he is much more complex and complicated than he seems.

For example, although TooDogs’s tendency to break out in hives seems to symbolize his individuality, his need to be alone, Laskas presents it as the reaction of a man who cares too much, rather than too little. Indeed, TooDogs “says he’s a loner, a person who hides, deals with the world only in manageable chunks” (204). This is belied, however, by the ways in which the other men revere TooDogs, who see him as a parental figure, and who never fail to be impressed by the respect and empathy he shows for all of them.

TooDogs is deeply philosophical, pondering the nature of time—that “it’s to keep everything from happening all at once” (202)—and the meaning of family.

Sputter is unique in being not just a woman truck driver, but a black woman truck driver. Laskas presents Sputter as trying to fit in by taking on the stereotypical traits of a truck driver. She sees herself as part of the brotherhood of truck drivers, never mind the fact that she’s a black woman.

Laskas almost seems to say that Sputter tries too hard, as when, for example, she ignores the creepy behavior of a man at the jamboree or when she dances unselfconsciously at the country music concert even though no one else is dancing. Sputter is hard for Laskas to figure out, which reflects as well the grief Laskas was going through at the time, having just lost her parents. This time it is not the reader but Laskas who must let go of her preconceived notions, not of what a truck driver is like, but of how a woman should act.

Mike drives the BioMag at the landfill, and Laskas says he even “looks, as much as a person can, like a Bomag.” Mike is “proudly boxy, enormous, bald, and […] appears as though he could crush the trash without the assistance of machinery” (287).

Laskas notes that Mike is shy and unassuming; he never mentions his award at the rodeo. He doesn’t think about the trash that America generates, only tries to avoid “getting run into by a dozer” (288). Laskas uses Mike to introduce the cliques that divide the landfill: Dirt “the men who run the scrapers and push dirt” and Rubbish “the men like Mike who crush garbage” (296). Mike bridges the divide between the groups and is universally admired.