Wrong Side of the Tracks

The American railroad denotes adventure, exploration, and manifest destiny, but also nostalgia, dominance, and separation. The later half of the 19th Century saw the first transcontinental railroad cut across Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California, slicing through indigenous lands, and displacing communities who had considered this region sacred ground for thousands of years. Almost a century later trains were a main mode of transpiration for the rich and the poor alike exemplifying social class hierarchies. Shanty towns popped up along the tracks during the height of the great depression, and these same tracks cut through neighborhoods, drawing a line in iron between the haves and the have nots. Does the railroad symbolize progress or oppression? What does it mean to be from the “wrong side of the tracks” both literally and figuratively?