Midwest Crisis: Vic Klafter in Lincoln, Nebraska
“The experiences, places, things, and people that make up my life in Nebraska are mine to which to say hello and goodbye.”
Vic Klafter has lived in Nebraska for most of his life. He moved from Durham, North Carolina when he was 2, and spent his childhood in Norfolk, Nebraska. He was homeschooled, attended public high school part-time, and then went to UNL for his undergraduate degree.
Vic has chosen to stay in Nebraska. He describes Nebraska as a “fruit smoothie of opportunities, conveniences, and familiarities plus super-charged greens of specific people” that has kept him nourished in his adulthood. He just entered a graduate program at UNL and got his first proper serving job without serving experience. He can bike and walk to most things during temperate months. He drives to get groceries. His partner owns a home which reduces their housing costs. He understands how things work.
People also keep him here: his partner, friends, family, and “heaps of acquaintances who are ready to bump elbows and swap stories at an O’Rourkes dance party or the capitol rotunda.”
But, like a fruit smoothie can’t keep a person satisfied, he feels the desire to “cut his teeth on new foods/places.”
Hannah: What makes you want to stay in Nebraska?
Vic: Frankly, for now, Nebraska is a launch pad. I am choosing to see it that way for various reasons. 1) To see it as a launch pad is to not see it as a wall against which I am ricocheting or a trebuchet out of which I am being flung.I am bent on leaving when and how I decide not because the powers that be don’t want me (a Queer, trans person who is politically aware) here anymore. 2) A launch pad indicates a likely return. I would like to grow old in Nebraska. I see the places to which I go as temporary. I will see them with the wide eyes and open ears of a visitor, drinking in and storing deeply. I will invest, but ultimately I believe the seeds I collect will bloom by sewing them back into Nebraska. Ya know like, samples from Mars except maybe it’s Eastern Europe and Anchorage. 3) Nebraska, and specifically Lincoln, seems like a pretty good place to enter deeper stages of climate apocalypse. We do have a water issue but I think it’s more easily mitigated than bigger cities that are farther from water sources than we are. We have solid access to other resources–wood, clay, grains, wildlife–that are essential to physical survival. I have community connections that are essential for any of these natural resources to be acquired and distributed in any meaningful life-sustaining way. Community connections, acquisition, and distribution of resources to sustain life already determine life, death, or greater harm for many people. I see and hear awareness of this from a lot of people around me in Nebraska and I respect the pragmatic and undramatic way of going about it (Shout to Free Stuff Lincoln, Community Free Markets, Repair Cafe, Everett Free Grocery, and many more) Great Plains? More like Plain Great lol.
Hannah: What do you do for work/education?
Vic: I am a substitute teacher for Lincoln Public Schools, a server at an Indian restaurant, a part-time caregiver/companion, and a newly-minted graduate student. The graduate program is called Orientation and Mobility within the College of Education at UNL. I will learn to equip blind and visually impaired people with the skills and tools they need to navigate their life more independently and safely. Four out of six semesters are online which will allow me flexibility on leaving the state/country if I should choose. Orientation and Mobility Specialists are needed in school districts in every state of the country so after graduation, I will have opportunities open up to me as well. The program is almost entirely paid for by federal funding because these specialists are so needed. (If this piques your interest, check it out! Apply!)
Again, I am being afforded nourishment (educational and financial) here in Nebraska that I am extremely grateful for. I don’t know where exactly I will take this fuel, but I do intend to return these skills to Nebraska eventually.
Hannah: From what I know about you, you’re a creative person. How do you find opportunities for creativity in Nebraska, as many others have moved to seek out creative opportunities?
Vic: This topic is a place of tension for me. There’s a lot of credit due to folks here. Many artists make Lincoln and Omaha home or at least an outlet for their creativity. For its population and “official” arts institutions, there’s a helluva a lot of creators. On the flip side, I am still struggling to establish myself within a creative community that challenges me in the ways I need to actually produce. Frankly, I need an audience that talks back. One thing I’ve done is start a writing group that meets monthly, quite informally, to do/talk/think writing stuff. The Nebraska Writers Collective is a really important institution that exists outside of the university and schools system. The NWC has done much for me since high school to provoke my creativity and connect with other creators, some of whom will be lifelong friends.
Hannah: Do you know many people who have moved from Nebraska? If so, how has that affected your support system or community?
Vic: I had a big ol’ pity party for myself just the other night because I miss my friends who live elsewhere! I feel lucky to have a beautiful array of friendships and connections and many dear friends who live here still, too. I don’t think this is a coincidence. For starters, I thrive with variety so I make lots of friends with a big mix of backgrounds. I have made these friends through college, work, community organizing/activism, night life, line dance, Random Ass Shit, etc. Also, I am careful to not burn bridges unnecessarily. This is a lesson hard-learned. When to quit relationships (of all kinds) is a lesson I’ll probably keep learning my whole life. The small-town nature of Nebraska has influenced me toward being cautious about letting go and continuing to invest – or at least keep up appearances because they might know this other person and we might end up at the same karaoke party or I’ll serve them at the restaurant and I’m not trying to add any pressure to when I’m singing Jesse McCartney or dishing up curry.
But the relationships I have with people who have moved out of Nebraska continue to be some of my deepest, longest, most joyful connections. Because we choose each other despite distance, inconveniences, dissimilar experiences. We can’t rely on accidental run-ins at the coffee shop. We must keep finding each other because we love each other and want our orbits to continue colliding. *Sobs*
Hannah: You seem to have a particular strength in building community and connecting with people, maybe more than anyone else I know who still lives in Nebraska. How do you approach building community in Nebraska?
Vic: I want to add to what I said about maintaining relationships because of the small town feel. There’s gift in this approach; I am motivated to have hard conversations in a way that keeps relationships intact. There’s loss in this approach; I meter out how much of my opinion I am safe to share to not implode the relationship. It’s a negotiation of authenticity that mostly plays by the parameters set by a moderate and conservative viewpoint. But imploding relationships and isolating myself is exactly what conservatives want me to do to leave me stranded, weak, and ineffective at building bridges. I zoom out a lot to think about community in the context of later stages of climate apocalypse. Will I know the names of 10 people I can call on to share water or patch a roof? Our communities will be heavily defined by the limitations of transportation. Our people will become, more and more, whoever is immediately around us and who we can trust. Can we talk to each other about hard things? Real things? Mundane, practical things? I have so much privilege as a white, mostly-passing, college-educated trans man in Nebraska. I guess I’m using it to play the long game. What people accept or affirm is heavily influenced by who they know. I really, really don’t have this figured out, but I’m trying!
Hannah: How do you spend your energy around politics here in Nebraska, or how has that changed?
Vic: When the topic of the Nebraska Legislature comes up, I feel visceral, dripping dread. I have felt this since July of last year after the law was passed to ban abortions after 12 weeks and restrict gender affirming care for minors. I decided by August that I would not engage in the same ways I had the past few years. Because of my previous professional role as a community organizer and a general willingness to jump into the action, I spent many hours at the state capitol. Testifying, watching, listening, yelling, chanting, holding space, spending time and energy and resources. I’m not doing that this year. I’ll probably send some emails and leave some voicemails, but how I really want to engage is through deep conversations with regular-ass people in my own community. While working in a professional capacity as an organizer, I got burnt on how out of touch a lot of people in “advocacy spaces,” myself included, are from how regular people think and talk about the issues being debated. I want to return to that foundational element of change-making which is to find common ground and create opportunities for marvelous possibilities of solidarity. I feel especially suited to do this around gender, queerness, and trans identities, and expect that elements of class and race get organically interwoven. After yelling at the legislative chambers till I lost my voice, I am uninterested in megaphone “conversations.” I need two-way streets.
Also, after working on two ballot initiatives in a professional capacity that drained my joy, I still believe in ballot initiatives! But I–personally–am taking a break! Support Paid Sick Leave, Protect Our Rights, Medical Cannabis, and don’t support the EPIC consumption tax scheme ballot initiative! And in case you still use the word epic regularly, this is your sign (hardy har) to not do that! :)
Hannah: Is there anything else you’d like to share about why you choose to stay in Nebraska?
Vic: If someone takes anything from all this, I want them to know it is my choice. I have agency. I feel feisty and resentful and determined to leave and return on my own terms. I love Nebraska. I love sunsets in Northeast Nebraska. I love the stars above Niobrara state park. I love the bike lane on N Street. I love the tables by the music section at the Bennet Martin Library where warm sun filters in at 4pm in January. I love getting cars unstuck from the snow with strangers. I love the woman at Foodnet who manages the Flowers and Random table and compliments my disco cowboy car decoration every time. The experiences, places, things, and people that make up my life in Nebraska are mine to which to say hello and goodbye. What I say in between those points will continue to be a work in progress and my own personal case study of being a whole, real person in Nebraska.
Vic is on Instagram @theklafterparty. Look for his new Substack, coming soon! The writing group he mentioned meets in Lincoln, every second Friday, 6-8pm. Reach out on Instagram for more details. He asks readers to donate to Everett Free Grocery on venmo @EverettFree-GroceryProgram. He kindly included for readers to also subscribe to this Substack.
Midwest Crisis is a new project from Hannah Michelle Bussa. People are leaving the state of Nebraska, but research on the topic is limited. Join Hannah as she interviews individuals with various perspectives on their choices - to move and to stay - each week this spring.
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