Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia

CHAPTER 6. Nostalgia and the Power of Amish Witness

:฀฀chapter 6฀฀; Nostalgia and the Power of Amish Witness The good news about this recession is that the Amish are becoming more Amish. With less cash in their pockets, their gardens are getting big again. —New Order Amish man A mish Country tourism attracts more than 19 million people every year and generates over $2 billion of economic benefit to the areas surrounding the three largest Amish settlements in the world, those in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio. The question this book hasprobediswhy.WhydosomanymiddleAmericansspendafairamount of time and a lot of money in Amish Country? Why is Amish Country tourism so appealing? The Appeal of Amish Tourism This examination of the visual rhetorical features of three prominent tourist towns in Ohio’s Amish Country has revealed that each town’s rhetorical elements are based on a theme and tell a story or retell a popular myth that the tourist is invited to experience. Perhaps the single most important characteristic of Amish Country tourism that has become apparent is that it is designed in strategic ways for a particular audience. Throughout these three towns, tourists are welcomed as they are, which is to say, as middle Americans who, among other things, enjoy certain modern conveniences, require ample parking, and like to shop and eat. Even more importantly, tourists of Amish Country are approached as people with specific con- 142฀ :฀selling the amish ;฀ cerns regarding middle-American life. Amish Country tourism addresses these concerns through complex and compelling visual rhetorics that offer symbolic resolutions to middle-American anxieties. In particular, Amish Country tourism offers these resolutions by constructing themed environments that tell stories. In all three towns the stories take the form of idealized versions of a presumably shared past, a past that is imagined as holding the answer to troubles in the present. Put simply, nostalgia is crucial in the appeal of Amish Country tourism. The comparison of two highly successful towns along side another whose tourism industry is struggling reveals a fundamental difference in the nature of the forms of nostalgia employed. Walnut Creek and Berlin tell stories about the past that encourage tourists to imagine how they might change their lives and, thereby, alter their future. This nostalgia for the future is a nostalgia of hope. By contrast, the nostalgia of Sugarcreek is only about the past. According to the story told in Sugarcreek, the answers to contemporary concerns are found in bygone days, but no means are offered for recovering them in the present. With the answers locked in the past, Sugarcreek’s nostalgia is about loss. Not surprisingly, a tourism theme that idealizes the past on behalf of a better future is much more appealing to middle-American tourists than one that says that their better days are behind them. One of the most striking aspects of Amish Country tourism is the contrast between the elaborately, sometimes ornately, themed environments created for the tourists and the plain and simple life of the Amish. But a close reading of the three towns reveals that, while the aesthetic in each town contrasts sharply with Amish simplicity, the stories and solutions offered by them draw upon aspects of Amish life. Indeed, the Amish are essential, especially in Walnut Creek and Berlin, for legitimating the symbolic resolutions made available by these two towns. The Amish demonstrate that it is possible to slow down your life, to regain clarity about gender differences, and to reassert control over technology. Thus, they make the answers provided by Amish Country tourism in Walnut Creek and Berlin seem plausible. TheAmishareusedbytheseenvironmentsaslivingproofthatthesolutions offered will work, but they would not serve as successful examples if they were not pursuing their distinctive ways for other reasons. First, in order for the Amish to legitimate an alternative future, they must be ฀ :฀nostalgia and the power of amish witness ;฀ 143 other. If they were essentially the same as the middle-American tourists who come to Amish Country then they could not signify something different ; yet, as people who are truly different, there really is no knowing what they might mean or say to the visitors. Second, the Amish have their own visual rhetoric, or what they call their witness. That witness is born out of a set of faith commitments that are different from the worldview of most middle Americans. Although their witness may not be as loud as the stories told by Amish Country tourism, it just may be that they...