The following Connecticut experi presentation is part of the ongoing partnersh between the Connecticut Humaniti Council and Connecticut Public T Together, we're exploring Connec rich history and culture.

More than 3 million of us call Connecticut home.

But who are we?

Who do we think we are?

Connecticut has always had an id problem.

We've never known whether to be the big city sophisticates of New York or the the Calvin esque farmers of New England.

What do we have in common and what divides us?

Do we share a sense of place?

When people think of Connecticut they think they don't think of anything in particular.

And I think that's fine.

I mean, there's no reason for us to get chauvinistic and s we in Connecticut all believe in one thing or anot It's like a roadside attraction.

Connecticut, the mystery state.

What is that?

Who are they?

People kind of identify Connecticut with the white picke and the small town.

But in reality, Connecticut from the mid-19th century has been a very urban, very ethn a very industrial place, a varied kind of a place, even though it's small.

Not entirely.

New York.

Not entirely New England is Conn after all, just a place between Boston and New York?

Or is there more to it than that Kind of goes the wealthiest state in the coun which makes it the wealthiest pl on the face of the earth.

Now the economy of this state and the region is crumbling and that may bring abo some fundamental changes.

We are really, in most people's 169 little solid states.

What I see is a state that's fractionalized by the traditions that we hold.

The search for a shared identity is far from academic.

As Connecticut turns the century It faces many economic, social and political challenges that will demand of its resident sense of place and a common purp There are a number of issues tha exist these days that really bring to the forefro the fact that Connecticut today is very different than it was 100 years ago or whatever.

Income taxes, one of.

Can we have a state that successfully deals with some of political challenges that face it, all of which call for widespread sacrifice and concession and some sense of mutual obligat when in fact, we have no common sense of who we are or what we w to be.

financial troubles have been particularly unsettlin Connecticut's because the state has so long been associated with affluence.

Until very recently, Hollywood p Connecticut as a place apart, wealthy, well-heeled, genteel.

You know, you say I'm from Conne and they picture you, you know, spending your weekends you know, racing at Lime Rock with Paul Newman and, you know, your evenings around the fireside in Cornwall with Mike Nichols and Francine D Gray chatting about literature.

would you spend $7,000 to tear out someone else' when for a few thousand more you a nice old place in Connecticut, fix it up and have the kind of d you've always wanted.

I beg your pardon?

I came to Connecticut from Illin and my image of Connecticut before I got here.

Was extreme living.

I think when I thought of Connec when I thought of Texas, I thought of a cowboy in a cowbo Or when I think of Iowa, I think a strapping farmer or a brash Ne My image of Connecticut, I think, was of a man in plaid pants in a country club sipping a martini.

But pardon me, Mrs. Lane, but I'm planning on.

Having a farm in Connecticut mys One day.

I'd like some good bottomland.

Bottomland?

Yes.

That's the best kind for farming isn't it?

Oh, some people say yes and some people say no.

But what do you say?

I'm inclined to agree with them.

Oh, thank you very much.

I grew up in a movie theater and in South Dakota.

And I had a very clear, very spe image of Connecticut from the mo And that was why I really wanted to come here.

When I was offered a job here, I thought, great, I'm going to t where they have those beautiful in the country with tennis court and swimming pools and those old station wagons wit that have two matching dogs in t And they have those kitchens so big you could land the helico and everybody wears tweeds and everybody is well-dressed an and rather ritzy.

And at night they put on tuxedos And I thought this is great.

This is for me.

I can go live there.

Like being in a Hollywood movie.

Pretty Country, hour by hour.

It's the three kissing the famous old Connecticut custo made because you have or you bond kissing a famous old Connecticut couple.

Usually it's a place to escape from you escape from the city, ugly, corrupt New York.

And you come to the country and you expect the uncomplicated pastoral life.

Of wife kissing up famous old Connecticu You got the idea that people were aristocratic, artistic, the and they lived well.

You look at their homes and you think, well, everyone in Connecticut is a mil But that's the Hollywood image.

And it's a nice image, but completely false.

The first thing I noticed when I which I wrote home back to the f in South Dakota, was, guess what This place is full of pizza parl I mean, who knew there were Ital You didn't know that from the mo You really didn't know from the movies of my childhood.

Anything ethnic about Connecticu And now the films that are made about Connecticut frequently focus on the working class, as you see in Mystic Pizza Green My advertising look easy.

This is Sabrina Windsor, my sist Sabrina, this is Daisy Trujillo.

Daisy, hi.

You have the wealthy boy who's thrown out of Yale for being dishonest or cheating in the exam.

And he he has trouble with his f but his father is extremely weal You should see their home.

They were being real jerks.

The only jerk at that table with they were just being themselves.

Bring home your poor, poor girlfriend for d So you have representatives of the upper class, and then you the people who own and run work in the pizza place.

So the clash between the classes is a wonderful opportunity to sh how they work, how they live.

That's almost a course in sociol Connecticut's tourism department affectionately promotes an image that evokes the state's colonial past.

It's a powerful image, one with which many residents identi Looking for a special place to spend your va Come to Connecticut.

You'll find 350 years of classic Ideas reporting Connecticut.

A quintessential New England as This beautiful New England style behind me on the Litchfield Gree Classic Connecticut Pride of New We feel we're very much part of New England Plastic State, pl Borneo villages and plastic attractive plastic l The coast, the city, the country, classic Connecticut The Pride of New England.

Our problem with promoting and s Connecticut is that people have their own image of C who have never been here before, and the great many of them unfortunately don't associate Connecticut with New England, or else they think that we're just a suburb of New York.

What's a classic vacation?

One that's a sure fire hit.

We've always been between New Yo and New England.

We've been caught between in man and it's been difficult for us over the years to forge our own And you can see what difficulty If you just look around, I you see that our state song, for instance, is not even about Connecticut Yanke It's about it's about a person.

We've got to be the only state i the nation whose song isn't abou The purpose was back in the early 1970s to establish a state song.

They felt that there was a need for a state song to give us iden When the governor or other digni would show up at events.

So a hearing was held and many people wrote songs and had of different people performing t some around recording and some w and I spent a whole day in the h Some of the songs were great and some of the songs were not s but everybody put their heart in My oral history.

Of my.

Oh nine bar.

Fight for five stars that broke when we were by oh.

And the.

Voice that.

Rock stars are.

Our identity today is deeply rooted in our hi Our sense of place over the past 350 years has grown much more co To really know ourselves, we need to know our past.

Just two years after the violent displacement of Connecticut's Native American peoples in 1637, the General Court of Colonial Co drew up the fundamental orders.

The orders both establish a gove and to find our first common ide derived from a central authority The the state really begins with the coming of Thomas Hooker and a group of people from Massa Who came here for economic reaso but also and very predominantly for religious reasons.

The Puritan was high thinking and plain living.

The Puritans were also very community bound, and they w always concerned about their com out of a sense of community.

They were concerned about the co because if somebody in the community sinned, the whole community was going to The land of study habits goes back to old colonial notions of stabi and of that of that Puritan Comm which was very collective in its approach.

And every time the Department of puts a congregational spire on, on some tourist document, whether they know it or not, what they're saying is what they're suggesting is that sense of mutual obligation, shar belief of mutual commitment that Hallmark of the Puritans.

They established the commons in the midst of many of the town a shared space, very practical for grazing anima But it also had a symbolic and a beautiful quality to it.

The church was put on the green.

If there was a time when Connect had a clearly defined self image it was this Puritan era.

Puritan Connecticut was collecti but it was also suspicious of change and insisted on confor Congregational ism was the offic religion until 1818.

It was an exclusive society.

Only God fearing congregations could survive here or be accepte If anyone moved in to Connecticu it had to be voted on by the community to become a to become a citizen and a member of the church.

Well, actually, the very first p who came, the first European people to be in Connecticut actually were the Dutch who sailed up the river looking for chocolate.

And so far, no one has ever actually found any in Connecticut, which I think maybe accounts for the sense of you know, blunted frustration you feel her original Puritans, well, a lot of those were my ancestors As for the And, of course, they were oppose And we had to carry on that trad in Connecticut to the blue law s And that was an expression that about Connecticut in the 19th ce in the mid 19th century was to a certain extent We still have blue laws in Conne that are a residue of that Purit tradition.

People use this expression, banned in Bosto But the fact is that Massachuset legalized theater in the 1780s.

In 1800, Connecticut banned theater altogether.

And that law remained on the books of Connecticut unti And which was remarkable.

No other state in the union had a law forbidding theater.

I can remember a few years ago, the Hartford Office of Cultural Affairs was talking about about having sort of a law that allowed sort and buskers and, you know, spontaneous street performers, you know, out there on on the st that would allow sort of street that, you know, to be around and and stuff on the sidewalks and s And the city council voted it do because they thought it would be a little too spontaneous.

Um, you know, you can imagine what would happe if things got a little too spontaneous in Hartford.

I mean, things would just spiral out of control in no time whatso The early 19th century saw dramatic change in Connectic as a growing emphasis on the imp of the individual mark, the advent of the Yankee era.

Our colonial roots actually cont two distinctly opposite ways of looking at ours The hallmark of the Puritan age had been communalism.

The legacy of this new era was individualism.

What happened over time is that this otherworldliness, this community sense, this willing to accept of author social and political structure, these became diluted and then sharply undermined.

And the Yankee then becomes a pe whom we think of as materialisti this worldly out for the main ch We think of the, you know, the Yankee trader, the Yankee ti the the individual, the entrepre the self-made man.

That sense of ourselves, which is which is organized arou entrepreneurship, around hard wo seizing the main chance.

Those kinds of values are comple completely opposed to what we in from the Puritans.

That was a gr change in Connecticut history.

Was that transition from Puritanism to individualism And I think that in Connecticut as well as a practicality goes, the whole notion of the Co Yankee here and the inventivenes of the Connecticut Yankee, because, again, the term who is you always put Connecticut in pr It's not merely just New England It's the Connecticut Yankee, for the most part.

And even Mark Twain's, Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court, terribly inventi You got the biggest badge I ever saw on any cop in my life Am I.

Am I in.

My right mind?

And if I am the can tell me where in the hell is I a Now I know that our map underlies Camelot, Castle, King Arthur's court all out and his vast domain.

And if one of us is cuckoo, it can't be you.

It must be me for that.

That's certainly no part of Conn I come from a family which regar as an old Yankee family.

And I think one thing that one t that's a sort of a litmus test i you have to we have have to have a very pinched crabbed attitude towards money.

And you have to have a lot of di troubles, usually Yankees, because they worry a lot and the they're concerned about everythi and it's difficult for them to e It was during the Yankee era that Connecticut one of its more enigmatic nickna the Nutmeg State.

Nutmeg, imported from Southeast Asia, were hard to come by and e devious Yankee entrepreneurs earned a reputation for themselv and the state by selling fake nu carved from wood.

It was clearly not the Puritan t to do.

The Nutmeg State.

I can't think of a of a less kind of sexy and tough and.

Big in this.

State is the nutmeg State.

Then when you dig a little deepe into Connecticut history and you realize that it was not nutmegs were our native crop her it was because the people in Con were such shady characters that they carved fake nutmegs to I mean, that even sort of brings another notch.

I made the fake Nutmeg State.

To some degree.

We tried to hold on to the idea that despite how many races and cultures have come to settle here, we still try to hold on in some ways to the idea that we're and that we somehow embody all t that the the old Yankees did.

Thrift and industry and self-rel And we do as individuals.

It's just that as a society, it's sort of ridiculous at this If you look around and examine t virtues compared to what we have it just doesn't just doesn't hol We have lost the unity of the Yankee past, but have we replaced it with another kind I don't think we have.

I mean, we've replaced it with with a lot of diversity.

And some of it's for economic re you know, some of it's from ethnic and racial reasons.

Although we think of hard work a as Yankee traits, they are, in fact common attributes of immigrants to Conn Laotian refugees, Sammy and Sean Some own property moved to Connecticut in 1987.

Why did you come to Connecticut?

My friend told me you got a lot Yeah, and I need a job.

How hard did you work when you g How many hours.

Did you work?

A I worked 14 hours.

14 hours a day.

When we first came here.

We feel the we cannot have anyth the the people have they have car.

They have how they have a TV, ev we hope to have to we start to l Do you know what a Connecticut Y I didn't know who was the Yankee I didn't know.

I didn't know.

I just that I just knew Yankee.

Yankee.

But I didn't know who was Yankee The Yankee era was characterized by rapid industrialization in to Poor Connecticut industry was a of newfound affluence and a new By the start of the 20th century Connecticut was the most industrialized stat in the nation.

In Connecticut, industry has played a great role in the development of the countr A What Connecticut contributed w the the development of mass prod the idea of the interchangeabili of of machine parts.

So that in Connecticut you had the, the development of mass pro successively from guns to clocks, the sewing machines to bicycles to automobiles and finally to aircraft engines, all of which took place in Hartf and New Haven.

And cities like that.

And as time went on, these citie developed very strong identities You had the hat city, you had th City, had the Brass City, you had the rubber city.

And people tended to identify with those industries and to ide very strongly with those cities.

Today, as new storm warnings are our country, our way of life, must be dependent.

We have always thought of oursel as being the front line of our nation's defense.

But here, too, our self-image is under stress.

Prithvi Shaw The all out war defense has and as the youth of Connecticut answered the call to arms, the industries of Conne answered.

The call for an all out defense means all out production And this is a job that Connecticut well unders That's been very strongly defens since the beginning of this country.

You know, the one of the other n for Connecticut is the provision State provisions in that sense means providing fo people who are at war.

You know, the most sophisticated in the world is made here.

The Trident submarine Groton.

But throughout our history, we'v we have been a provider of lead for bullets and uniforms for soldiers and guns for soldie And that has made us different than the rest of New England and allowed us in many respects sort of a unique environment her We have had a tremendous amount federal government money spent in this state on arm Our dependance upon armaments has been has been bad for the st And in the long picture, in the and the early 1990s, we felt it very, very much as defense budget bega to shrink.

Since early in the 19th century, immigration has been an enormous in the life of our state, both enriching it and creating new te By 1910, 70% of the state's popu were either first or second gene immigrants.

The Connecticut Yankee really lost his hegemony mid-19th century as the Irish and then the Germans in the and the Scandinavians later in the 20th century, southern and Eastern Europeans, Poles, Russians and others all c And they came to these shores.

They came to where the work was.

And a lot of the work, because of the Industrial Revolu was in Connecticut and they came to mills like thes to to find jobs.

Leo Tetrault, grandfather left C Connecticut at the turn of the c His was typical of the Connectic immigrant experience.

What drew the French Canadians t this area was it was a work where no question about that.

It was work.

French people have the hard work and of course, the people in charge of the mills recognize that.

And as a result, of course, it was easy to get a Didn't pay much.

$2 a week.

In fact, I worked for as little and a half a week for 48 hours worth of work.

But the wages were enough for these families to survive.

They knew how to make the most o and every penny that they had.

What happened in Connecticut als lots of other places.

All right.

Waves of similar immi I think what happened in Connect is maybe a little bit different, is that it happened in a very sm Right.

And it happened not in one huge It happened in many cities all over the state, each one with its own ethnic mix To me, it's the variety in such space that is unique to Connecti For some, the changes that accompanied imm seemed to threaten the essential and stability of community life.

What happened in the 19th centur especially the late 19th century, as you have immigrants coming into Connecticut.

You also have people in Connecti becoming very anxious about all that's taking place and what you have beginning arou is something called the Colonial The Colonial revival is an attem to look back at what people can It was a much more stable, tranquil, peaceful, restful time And they look back to the villag and what they did is not take the village as it wa but as they wanted it to be.

They literally build up a new co of the New England Village, and Litchfield is a prime exampl I think our image of New England from a sort of mythical colonial picture a New England town, we think of the common When we the the green.

We think of white colonial struc We think of a sort of orderly ex This is mythical because Connect was really not that orderly.

There was a lot of contention on the local level.

But that is our sense of our pas And I think it's precious to us.

I think we value.

Colonial buildings and small tow This period of rapid industriali and immigration was also characterized by heightened racial and ethnic Hostility and suspicion toward those perceived as differ had long been a part of Connecti Connecticut has a very long history of racism, beginning with the Indian World War.

We had slavery in Connecticut.

One of the major slave ports was and the whole area around Narrag into New London, into Norwich, u even into places like Hebron, major slave areas.

Whenever abolitionists came and to speak with riots, wholesale r coming from Puerto Rico, you don't even think about other eth because there are none.

So you tend to feel that everybo treated the same when there's no why color should come into the p as far as treating other people.

So I would say that was probably the first thing that surprised m when I came to this thing.

Back then, when I was nine years is the fact that because people or Hispanic, I found they were t you know, a little bit different And I had a hard time understand Today, racial minorities remain concentrated in Connecticut's ur Three of these cities are among the ten poorest in the Despite our self image of afflue there are two Connecticut's which rarely come in contact with each other.

While I think we're ethnically and racially diverse, we're certainly not integrated.

Our communities aren't integrate Our school systems are not integ Various racial and ethnic groups live in pockets all over the sta Just like Fairfield and the state replaced.

That L.A., the rap on the tooth, the glossy pop.

But the now the city centers.

It stands for that.

New London and London.

Marianne and Bridgeport.

And New Haven.

And Hartford.

Somehow this contradiction must and it must come to an end.

13 year old Milo Sheff goes to school in Hartford where 90% of public school students are minorities.

Just over the border in suburban West Hartford, the student body is 84% white.

To integrate Connecticut's racially segregated urban and su schools, civil rights groups sued the state in 1989.

The suit filed on behalf of Milo other students is now making its way through th We are moving toward a multicultural, multi-et globally connected world.

Our children are prepared to live in that world.

They can't be prepared to live in that world if they're segrega if all they know, as Milosz said, is their own little hometown theories.

You just can't, like, go to one and have all of the same race.

You need to have different races so we can learn about each other And instead of saying, Well, I don't like this whole race because one person does somethin need to learn about all the othe And where do people ever acquire a unifying identity that comes from interacting with each other?

Some commonality of interests, r Whether it's a member of the labor force.

But to the extent that these thi are declining as the sites of oc these factories and so forth, to the extent that our cities no longer are places where there's ethnic interaction and more kind of ethnic enclaves under siege in some sense, right We don't have the mechanisms tha that type of income and identity Who we are is a sort of in a state of fluid where we're heading towards a re And that is that Connecticut, as most of our folks pronounce the name, is a place is a home for a lot of o And we'll continue to be the hom for a lot of our folks.

And we'll continue to sort of be the place where our folks want to bring up their children, have them go to school, have them get a good job, contri to whatever it may be.

Everything from Desert Storm to working in a school.

This is our place.

The song I have written illustra the fact that people have come from all different walks of life and from many lands.

To make our state as great as it I love Connecticut with its heritage, its call with Constitution, stat her history, these all framed, p all came to this land so great and with great skill.

Cities did build where our dreams could be built.

America.

I was born on this day and I'm right on the USA.

So Congress members heed the call to keep Co from a place where men with hear and share the opportunities.

Let's keep strong and.

Work each today for future young men who proudly say that God was formed to stay the pride only.

Another force that fractures our sense of state identity is g segmentation.

Though Connecticut is the third smallest state in the nation, mo see it as a collection of severa and distinctly different regions Spite of the fact that the state is roughly 100 miles east to wes and 60 to 80 miles on its widest south extreme.

The concerns and the interests and the focus of dairy farmers in the northeastern part of the at a town like Thompson are far, far different than the concerns, the interests and the focus of an urban suburb population.

Like what we find in Fairfield C or in Bridgeport, for example.

Tens of thousands every.

Day pass through the Constitutio in their rat race from Boston to To them, it's just 200 miles of winding highwa Or the trains along the northeast corridor.

But Connecticut has always been influenced and divided by its lo between its two powerful neighbo For some, Connecticut has a decided New Yo For others, a New England flavor A lot of people.

In this part of the state talk about the new bridge.

The new bridge is a main part of their life.

They sit in traffic.

Yeah, for a long time in the new And it sort of separates New Yor from New England in a lot of people's minds.

When you're waiting in traffic on the bridge, you are still stressing out about your job.

You are still worrying about what you're going to fix f You're still worrying about whet going to rain or snow before you You get over the bridge.

The farther away from the bridge you get, a lot of people tend to The traffic eases up a little bi The view gets much nicer.

The cue bridge separates New Yor England for a lot of people.

The most often noted border is the one that separates Fairfi from the rest of the state.

Our image of affluence is derive largely from wealthy Fairfield County communities.

Greenwich has a different class in many respects, in that a large number of our po earn their livelihood in New Yor and they, on a daily basis take the train into New York Cit and are in the city for a good t or 12 hours a day and return here to live.

Greenwich has been known in some cases as a bedroom commu for New York City, which is very Do you feel that you are a Connecticut resident?

I am a Connecticut resident.

My driver's license says so.

But if you if I'm traveling someplace in th somebody asked, where are you fr I say, I'm from the New York are To say, Greenwich, Connecticut, is unkno People envision wooden bridges a country areas, which Greenwich i Greenwich is basically a suburb of New Yor as is as is the better part of Fairfield Now some see it.

Litchfield County is on its way to becoming an exurb of New York In recent years, you've had a lot of New York people, as we call them here in Connecti moving up into Litchfield County and into second homes are just going to live there and really transforming a lot of formerly utterly unselfconscious farm towns into these sort of sleek bastions of exurban New York.

You've got fancy restaurants up You've got fancy shops.

You've got a lot of people drivi and and fancy cars.

And those Litchfield County town were so quintessentially Connect and now they've got such a stron New York influence that it's cha quite a bit.

They love the sense of history.

Here and Americana here and.

And rootedness here.

And this is what America is all They love the town rituals and so on that they're not a par They're not really part of it.

But they like being in a place where it's happening.

And the sense of place just 125 miles on the other side of t is quite different.

There's a nickname for this part of the state.

The quiet corner, and some people laugh at that.

It is, in fact, quiet.

But I think it's.

Well.

Named if if you fly.

Over here on an airplane from Wa to Boston, you'll find this is.

Still a dark area in the whole eastern megalopolis Do you think that people feel that they're in the same state.

As, say, Fairfield County?

I think sometimes they feel they Massachusetts because they're so The media there.

Even politics is.

More worried.

About who's going to become gove up there, about their budget tha and know more about it.

But it's sort of a natural thing You live here.

You don't live here so that New York can get connected to Connecticut on Connecticut TV The basic underlying reason was more viewers who were watching o television stations to start wat Connecticut television stations.

We have an enormous number of te households that, even though they're physically l here in this marketplace, are watching New York television Providence, Rhode Island Televis Springfield, Mass.

It's news about your town.

Not the Bronx.

It's the weather here, not in Bo And what we found was that these people felt for some compelling reason that New York television had greater authority.

Watch Connecticut TV.

Channels three, eight, 20, 30, 61 and see TV.

Get connected to Connecticut TV.

The influence of both New York and Boston can be seen even in the state's divided spor loyalties.

The players may say the.

Rivalry is dead.

But don't tell the fan the rest.

They said.

Left field Rivera sco Yankee fan all the way and gone for a home Big fan.

I hate Red Sox fans.

They're arrogant Yankee fans a little bit up the middle and amazing.

I like the Red Sox and Yankees.

But I am engaged in that.

Kind of competition.

I like Bost And a little bird to centerfield and that is going to make troubl I don't.

See that.

That's from t Because Connecticut there is no Connecticut identity, the itself in many sports.

So, yeah, the Giants as well.

Yeah, but as baseball, you're in instead of the Yankees.

I remember the New York Mets, Bo Red Sox, New England Patriots.

Definitely.

That's where we live.

Yeah.

Connecticut.

Yes, Connecticut.

What exactly is Connecticut?

Let's see if we can find out.

The state can be divided into seven geographical areas.

This area right here is the New York suburbs.

This is not really Connecticut.

They identify completely with the Big Apple when they say They're not talking about Hartfo It's very expensive and exclusive down here.

The average price of a home is s hundred thousand dollars.

That's not really Connecticut.

This area is Litchfield County Playground of the Stars.

A lot of artists and celebrities from New York.

Summer here, many live year roun A lot of money here.

Out here, people pay high prices for antiq You can get the same thing cheaper in the real Connecticut.

Until the mid 1800s.

Connecticut, like other states, was primarily agricultural.

With most people sharing a rural but its poor and rocky soil made farming a losing propositio When the American frontier moved many of Connecticut's farmers followed into the early 20th cen Small town rural values still pr as many Connecticut residents either lived on or had grown up But by 1950, there were only 16, working farms in Connecticut.

Today there are 4300.

When I first came around here about 40 years ago or more, it was a very different culture that was agricultural, basically and there were traditions that would carry down from generation to generation.

They shared the same work.

Basically, they were farmers.

And that creates, of course, the cultures of the town.

This is the 20th century.

So what it's done basically is t people out of the land and it will more and more.

You move into cities.

You have vast numbers of face to face relationships in a day.

Most of these become anonymous.

In the days of the little villag you only saw 20 people a day.

You knew all of these people.

You greeted these people.

You start to talk to these peopl You cared about them.

You hated some of them.

You loved some of them.

You were probably not neutral about any of them.

You move into cities, you're neu about almost everybody and you d So that city living, which comes with industrializati makes a tremendous difference.

As industrialization and urbanization continued, Connecticut's population became more mobile.

With the demise of company domin and the emergence of multinational corporations in the 20th century, the trend became more pronounced cutting us off from a shared vis I think we're standing in a plac that reflects in some ways, in f a great many ways what Connecticut's identity has What you're looking at is the yarn mill at Cheyney Brot one of the largest silk manufacturing companies in the c that yarn mill produce yarn and therefore produce jobs, thousands of jobs, thousands of in this entire mill area.

Today, it's apartments because today we have moved from being a primarily industria to a post-industrial, mixed econ much greater reliance and servic There is, I suspect, a substantial number in Connecticut who were here for a few years and then going somewhere else.

How many of us stay here long enough to have a sharp sens either of the history of the pla or any sense of commitment to it I don't see a commonality of cultural attitude, at least in the middle class, which is what dominates this sta All it holds together is essentially a walled city, the same size, and that is much known.

So it lacks character, which comes from a tr and tradition comes from people who've lived in the same place for a long time.

In 1991, for the first year since the boom years of the 1980 more people moved out of Connect then moved into the state.

Many left in search of jobs.

Unemployment has risen dramatically since the recession to Connecticut three years ago.

The state's historically strong economic mainstays, manufacturing and insurance, have both hit hard times.

The insurance industry, which on virtually guaranteed a job for l continues to lay off workers man beset by out-of-state competitio and defense cutbacks, has been steadily declining.

And the Polish American Falcons In New Britain, the search for j has affected both family and sta My son just moved out to Texas and it's the job market and job market that motivates hi And my son's out in California and he left for the same reason.

The job market was better out here.

And I was here.

And I have a daughter in Florida who left because of employment.

When you're young, when you're 22 years of age, you know, you k But to stay here, you know, he's worrying about th He can always make new friends, new friends.

Social life is there.

What else does he need?

Promising job prospects brought Maria Torr and her family to Bridgeport in Do you plan to stay in the state for the rest of your life?

Honestly, with the budget crisis that the state of Connecticut is going through now and the bankruptcy issue that the city of Bridgeport is f my husband and I are seriously t of relocating.

For instance, I find myself in a very difficult situation because I have a son who's going to be going to college nex And I'm also facing, you know, a middle rate coming up next year.

So I would rather spend the mone my son's college education somew where the cost of living is less than to spend an additional $300 on my mortgag The search for Connecticut conti This is the capital, Hartford.

It looks like a cross between Ne Boston and Newark.

Centrally located.

A lot of people like it because halfway between New York and Bos I like it because it's halfway between Providence and a the suburbs of Hartford, like any other suburbs and any other town in the countr A lot of people have moved here from other states, like to live in the suburbs that they feel like they haven't move It looks like the last suburb they moved in.

Same McDonalds, same mall, same It's familiar.

This area, New Haven, is academi Wesleyan University, plus a bunch of othe and schools are down here.

A lot of analyzing and heavy tho being funneled down here.

These people talk in a multi syl Pentium metrical.

Then they really Connecticut.

Clearly, Connecticut's identity is fractured, complex and changi in the midst of change.

Is there anything that can bring together with which we can all s identify?

Is our identity, our lack of ide I enjoy being in a state that do a clear identity to the rest of the world, I think, because that means we're not pigeonholed, we're not stereotyped.

And I think that's that's a very good thing.

I mean, there is something very about that image of the classic or the guy from Missouri who say Show me or the Klan or The New Yorker or the Califor or almost any other state you ca has this very annoying person who symbolizes that.

And I think we in Connecticut do if we do have a person who symbo he's a he's an insurance salesma which can be pretty annoying, to But I think basically we don't when people think of Connecticut they think they don't think of a in particular.

I mean, there are probably hundr of Connecticut's.

I mean, I think the rest of the might think of Connecticut as th Stewart state where everybody walks around in a in a white linen dress with beau arranged flowers on their table and makes a goat cheese appetize and leads this country chic life But when you go to Dharavi, it's you could think Martha Stewart did not exist.

And similarly, if you go to Gree you have that or New Canaan or Darien or Headline.

I mean, every place has its own take on what Connecticut is.

And it's a state that I think in reinvents itself every time you cross a border.

I don't know what Connecticut is It's a nice place to be and it's a beautiful day to day quiet here.

And I just hope it finds its way to something more And so does more of a character, by the way.

But the mere fact that we can't what its character is doesn't me doesn't have one.

simply be that we're in the midd and don't see it.

It may Jay ROI Grace is a marketing exp and advertising copywriter who lives in Connecticut.

He's made a name for himself writing ad campaigns that make us think of one thing when we hear another.

Mommy, that's a spicy meatball c If I name a state.

Would you name products that you think might be well ass with that state or benefit from California Surfing.

Sun Products.

Wine.

Fruits.

Vegetables.

Clothing.

Fragrances.

Texas Texas Chili Barbecue.

Beef Boots.

Cowboy Hat.

Horses.

Louisiana Cajun Cooking Jazz.

Maine L.L.Bean.

Skiing.

Florida Sun.

Surf vacations.

And Connecticut.

You got me.

You got me.

There's no there.

There.

As Gertrude Stein once said.

But I don't mean that Connecticu A great state.

But, like anything that doesn't have that high prof you know, it's I'm sure if you did this about N you know, people talking.

You know something?

Forever, but nobody wants to liv There's something in the name that makes us want to stand and and scrawl.

And it's fame to have made a sto that is grand and very dear to u Rebirth of freedom.

Helping hand from this rougher, land.

It's Connecticut.

Connecticut.

Connecticut.

The Constitution states.

What makes an area a good place A number of things.

Probably present residential dis for varying income groups, good school centers or cultural programs, excellent medical care facilitie recreational opportunities, the year round.

So it's it's a nice place to liv and it's a good place to raise a course.

I think it's a.

Sophisticated, desirable place t It's got a lot to offer.

And from corner to corner, it's it's quite diverse.

Money, money, money.

They.

Connecticut, you think mon Nice country live in nice place Raise a family.

For many, Connecticut is simply a nice place to live.

The quintessential suburban stat I think we lose sight of a very important element of C if we don't think of the fact that very early and maybe much more complete than other states, we invested in the suburban solution to our The suburb as the perfect enviro where we have all the benefits of urban life without the disadv and we have the benefits of rura without the disadvantages.

I mean, it has it has led to pro too, in the 20th century.

And I don't know what it's based but there's a there's a sense that, you know, we don't want to go anyplace els and we don't want to be anyplace And we want everything here exactly the way it is here.

And we don't want anything to ch There are a lot of people here who who think, boy, this is a gr to live because I am able to liv in a community where there's no crime, where my kids can go to school w Everything is taken care of.

There are a lot of people, I think, who in addition to, you know, have a nice pictur surrounding.

On the other hand, you may have you have in Connect a group of people whose reality and who who think of themselves when am I going to be able to ge checked in order to cover my ren What am I going to do if my son or daughter gets sick and has to go to the hospital?

And not only that, but then there you know, there a who are questioning even more ba things than that.

Where am I going to live next we It is part of what we are here in Connecticut that we live in two very different realities.

One of the things about Connecti that that flows from this sense as a great place to live is that it's a great place to live by yourself and to retreat to some individua A lot of people admire it becaus it cuts them off from other peop and don't want to have anything to do with other people.

And that's one of the attractions of living You take care of yourself, and that is enviable for a lot o And in many places they love to They could.

That is certainly not the classical idea of mankind, which was always social.

Other than being the nice yard o to a wonderful mall, good shops, decent schools in some places.

That's it is just that it can't be.

It.

We're still searching for the real Connecticut.

Let's look in this area right he the Rhode Island border.

These people identify with Providence and Boston.

Some of them even speak with a Rhode Island accent and eat clam chowder with a clea This isn't really Connecticut.

This part of Connecticut is called east of th It's very rural, very quiet, eco depressed, even in good times.

It's, um.

It's like Maine.

We're supposed to be in the wealthiest state union, so this must not really be Conne So where is it?

Connecticut.

You've heard so much about the C of books, movies and fables in here and in here.

Where then do we find Connecticu What does hold us together?

Ironically, one thing that all Connecticut c and towns have in common is a strong strain of loc When Connecticut does think of i it does so primarily in local te There are 100.

And 69 towns in Connecticut and thousands of sites along the So common get acquainted with the constitu in Connecticut and there's nothing far away.

And you might like it.

So you want to stay.

I think there's 169 towns or something like that.

And really, if you talk to people in Old Say they are mortally offended by th that that anything happening in has anything to do with what's happening in Old Saybrook And I don't think there's anothe in the world as the kind of town You know, Connecticut had county government for a whil and then they got rid of it.

The tendency is to sort of add g as you go along.

Connecticut, I think, is unique and in that respect, having elim a layer of government which indicates that this this t and small town relationship and identity is very important t Perhaps one of the greatest myth about Connecticut, indeed I'd say it about most of New Eng is the idea that we are a societ by our town governments, that the towns are the locus of original power lay in the towns that are states, army or confederations of autonomous That's a potent myth for 200 yea It is a myth, however.

In fact, the towns in Connecticut, histor and legally and constitutionally have never from 1633 to the present, autono in any sense of the word.

They have always been agents of The limits of localism have come into sharp relief late as Connecticut grapples with pro that defy solution at the local as statewide obligations have in federal revenue sharing has decl Can a clear sense of state ident to greater sacrifice for the com I don't think that that that there's going to be a trend to looking to the federal govern For solutions to problems that.

The financial requirements are really going to to be at the local level, at the state I think it in large measure shar the the issue and really demands that the people have a debate ab what an identity is is being from Connecticut.

Means that perhaps the.

Latest debate on whether we ought to have a state Tax is somewhat.

Symbolic of this notion that we have a sense of real community, a sense of sacrifice.

Not in my telling you, Joe, that is the explanation for a lot of the disasters that we face as a society.

This this goes back to that issu what is it that ought to link us with those around us?

And if that link is solely on a town by town or a neighborhood by neighborhoo none of these problems are going to have any resolution The reality in which we live tod that we have an income tax, dema that we look at regional solutio to problems, demands that we look at school desegrega demand that we have common solut to common problems that we all s Whether we like it or not, that' where we're heading.

And that's what's going to produ hopefully sooner than later.

What, what what we are all about Our devotion to our towns has be our common ground for much of ou The challenge is that we now nee extend that commitment beyond to To the extent that we can preser the feeling of community that I think grows out of the to grows out of face to face contac that you find only in the town.

That would be a great thing to d if we're going to have a revived sense of responsibilit which surely we must have.

Perhaps it will come out of the Towns can no longer act as islan so they they have to recognize higher responsibilitie and they don't.

It is time for change.

If our sense of identity is in fact individual rather than c that the function of our society is to let me get what I want, then we've lost that opportunity together around some kind of con What do I owe this person that makes me willing to sacrifi something of my own for his bene Is is one of the questions that a sharp of shared sense of ident might help resolve?

I think the challenge is to find in our political history an area in which we can come together, u how it all fits together as.

It does in some sense, the towns or counties and the state as a w My sense is that that a positive self-ide is a is a is a very good thing, and that it should be informed by a sense of history.

Any kind of change, discomforts, That's where tensions arise.

And I think that's what we see t is that these changes are occurr and some people don't like them and they have a number of choice Either they can go on and live in their little dream worlds and spin their world of myth and try to stay there and the tension that that create or they can recognize what's the and try to help the transition, which is a continuum.

Transition never stops.

It's near the end of the day.

Mr. O'Neill, who was the speaker the House at that time, had a su So he brought in the East Hampto Fife and Drum Corps to play Yankee Doodle out in the and proposed right on the spot that Yankee Doodle be the state and everyone said, that's a grea And after a whole day of waiting that was the end of our efforts.

Yankee Doodle.

Dandy Yellow.

I got that.

There it is.

Rounding Yankee Doodle.

Yeah.

You know, I am blessed that.