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

Different from other chapters in both content and style, Chapter 3 explores an occupation not as important to the functioning of America, but instead is emblematic of American values. Laskas connects the cheerleaders in narrative style to her section on migrant workers: Laskas as narrator is not as prominent in this chapter, and the content jumps around, moving quickly from topic to topic, sometimes with no warning or clear transition. In this way, Laskas imitates the chaos of the locker room in which the cheerleaders are preparing for the game, which she describes as almost frantic:

The cheerleaders are all scream and shot, jazzed with beauty adrenaline, in thongs and hose and push-up bras, stretching, bopping, bouncing, assisting one another with hair extensions, pasting over tattoos, spraying tans, announcing newly discovered cleavage-enhancing solutions—'Duct tape, girls!’—hooting and hollering in a primpfest worthy of Miss Universe. (80).

However, this chaotic style also serves to make some of the characters seem less intelligent, closer to the stereotypical cheerleader the reader might be expecting. For example, Laskas provides three “meet-the-cheerleader” sections, focusing on Rhonée, Sarah and Shannon, and Adrienne. Sarah and Shannon’s section is presented as a dialogue, with quotes alternating from each woman, which often seems choppy and unrelated. For instance, Sarah explains that although men might think of the cheerleader as “a sex symbol,” for her it’s “like a costume. It’s not something [she] think[s] a guy would like to look at every day,” which is immediately followed by a quote from Shannon, discussing how they eat to maintain their weight: “Egg yolk is what actually carries most of the fat. I’ll usually put one yolk and about six egg whites just to have some fat and not just the protein” (95). This disconnected conversation makes the two women seem foolish and vain.

Indeed, Laskas’s disconnection from and disapproval of this profession comes through here more clearly than in the section on blueberry picking. Despite her insistence that “[t]he cheerleader is pure,” that she is the “one actor in our most celebrated entertainment empire who gets nothing tangible in return” and represents “nationalism at the most basic level” (82), Laskas does not understand why these women do this, particularly considering the restrictions they live with and the incredibly low pay. She tries to allow the women to speak for themselves, to be a subject rather than object. However, unlike previous chapters, she has a much more difficult time explaining this particular profession.

This difficulty manifests in an ambiguous understanding of the way in which cheerleaders are chosen for the squad. She notes that a couple hundred women audition each year, and only thirty are chosen. Those who are chosen must have “raw dance talent, a degree of physical beauty, a soldier-like level of self-discipline,” of course, but even more they must have “a specific consciousness,” one that is “so obvious to those who have it, and yet so fleeting, if at all attainable, to others” (88).

Laskas imagines the reply of the Ben-Gal with this “consciousness” to the question, “Why do you want to be a Ben-Gal?”:

“‘Because it’s a Ben-Gal,’ she will say, wondering politely and in her own generous way if you have perhaps suffered some brain injury at some point in your tragic life and if there is anything she can do to help make your world just a tiny bit brighter” (89).

Indeed, “everyone,” these women think, “wants to be a Ben-Gal” (89). In other words, if you have to ask, you won’t understand.

Laskas thus tries to present these stories simply, with much less analysis and personal interaction than with other sections. Much like the migrant workers, she presents subtle criticism of the American experience of this profession, particularly in terms of how the women are judged based on their “weight, glamour-readiness, dance-preparedness, all the factors of the total package” (89). Just as no one can seem to understand why these women want to be cheerleaders, it is also clear that no one can really say what exactly a “total package” is or where these rules came from.

However, despite these differences, the theme of camaraderie evident in the first chapter returns. Laskas may not understand the choices these women have made, but she does illustrate the many ways in which they support each other. Not only do they share with each other tips and tricks, but they all support each other in a myriad of ways. None are jealous of Adrienne, for instance, for being named cheerleader of the week or for getting a second shot at it. Instead, they are happy for her and worry when she is feeling ill. Similarly, Charlotte, who supervises the Ben-Gals and enforces the rules, is also presented as being supportive of the women rather than using the rules to punish, as might be expected. In this way, Laskas ties this narrative back into the overall themes of solidarity and communal support with which most of the text engages.

This is a theme to which Laskas returns in the section about air traffic controllers. There are surprising parallels between the cheerleaders and air traffic controllers. For example, in the Ben-Gals section, Laskas uses short, declarative sentences interspersed with long, complicated descriptions to help the reader understand the chaotic environment in which the Ben-Gals prepare for the game. Laskas uses a similar style in the section on air-traffic controllers to try to get the reader to grasp the full complexity of what these men and women do every day. Indeed, the work is so complex that Laskas does not even provide a full picture of what each air-traffic controller does, though she does try to provide analogies to help the reader understand. She compares the TRACON controller’s work, for example, to managing cars merging on a highway, explaining that the “TRACON controller handles the merge and the highway itself” but on a massive scale: “There are dozens of other highways at dozens of altitudes he likewise manages” and he must direct planes who all want to use the same exit at the same time (123).

However, she also adds more commentary to this chapter than in the Ben-Gals section in order to provide background information on controllers’ role and to explain why controllers in the United States are “so miserable” (114). In fact, when Laskas first approaches the NATCA about meeting controllers, they assume that she wants to create an exposé on their conditions, though she assures them that she wants to know “about the work and not the mood of the controllers” (114). However, Laskas cannot ignore the poor conditions in which the controllers work—not just the physical conditions at LaGuardia, but the mental and emotional toll the job takes on the controllers in conjunction with the seemingly never-ending war between NATCA and the FAA.

To emphasize this, Laskas includes the testimony of the controller in charge of US Airways Flight 1549, which “pilot C.B. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger had famously landed […] on New York’s Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 people aboard the plane” (127). The testimony itself is poignant, highlighting the controller’s belief that he “was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that plane alive” (130), and Laskas lets it speak for itself. Similarly, she records little complaints from the controllers, all of whom seem love “the job itself” and “feel proud of the work they do” (124). She lets her descriptions of the conditions in which they work serve to illustrate the problems the controllers have. Not only do they work in a place where “[s]ometimes the bathroom plumbing goes” frequently with “giant diapers hanging” from the ceiling “tarps tacked from here to there to catch the water; a garden hose [taking] the water down a flight of stairs to a janitor’s sink” (107), they also work for an organization that insists they work more hours and refuses to let them leave one high-stress position for another.

Indeed, none of the controllers complain about the actual jobs that they do, just about the terrible mental and physical conditions under which they are forced to work. The controllers “feel trapped in the cross fire” between the FAA and the union, “little kids scrambling to dodge the rocks the big boys hurl at each other” (124). This never-ending “stupid war” fractures the controllers, forcing them to choose sides repeatedly: union or management, good union versus bad union, TRACON versus other controllers. Just like the other occupations Laskas explores, teamwork is necessary to get this job done and to do it safely. However, the battle lines are constantly being drawn and redrawn, and everything “depends on what team you’re on” (136).

Unfortunately, Laskas reveals at the end, things do not seem as if they will improve for the controllers. Although the LaGuardia controllers get their new tower, new software from the FAA (which is “[r]iddled with […] glitches”) will also heap even more responsibility on the controllers’ shoulders: “the system is supposed to allow planes to fly closer together, increasing the number of flights controllers handle by about two-thirds, and allowing airports to be busier than ever before” (140). By ending with this information, after readers have just seen for themselves the complexity and potential danger inherent in the controllers’ jobs, Laskas invites the reader to marvel at the sheer stupidity of such an act, and to perhaps worry a bit more over whether “some radar controllers are cranky” or “have stopped caring” (127).