There’s a chance that you’re not entirely sure where Kansas City is. If true, this may be for one of two reasons.

First, there’s its name. The Kansas City that I’m referring to is in Missouri, not Kansas—although a Kansas City, Kansas (or “KCK,” to locals) does exist, just opposite the Missouri-Kansas border. Without engaging the inevitably contentious debate over which is the superior Kansas City, it’s worth mentioning that KCMO has a population of about 490,000, compared to KCK’s more modest 153,000.

There’s also the fact that you might not really know where, exactly, Missouri is. Unless you grew up there—or, say, attended Wash U (another Missouri place with a vaguely misleading name)—its spot on a map is hardly obvious. I, for one, was pretty sure that Missouri was one of those states jammed shoulder-to-shoulder below the Mason–Dixon line, like Georgia and Alabama. (Needless to say, until earlier this month I knew nothing of its contiguity with Kansas.) I imagined my flight path to Kansas City International Airport roughly following that to Raleigh-Durham—suggesting, I think, that I had my destination confused with Mississippi.

Ignorance that vigorous is difficult to explain away, but there is something to be said about the socio-political situation in Kansas City right now. My East Coast, liberal bias can be blamed for a lot, but as one person put it to me during my visit, there’s a “culture of contradiction” enveloping Kansas City. Writer Sarah Kendzior tapped into it on Twitter shortly after the midterms, remarking, “Missouri voted for progressive ballot measures—raising the minimum wage, medical marijuana, campaign finance reform, and in August, an overwhelming vote to protect unions—and then voted for GOP candidates who want to strike these same policies down.” The difficulty for me in pinning the city down geographically is reflected in a broader ideological incertitude; a current questioning of the state’s identity and place.