In the summer of 2023, I found myself on the National Mall, helping tell a story about home. As a guest curator for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Ozarks program, I arrived in Washington carrying a question that had followed me through years of fieldwork across Arkansas and the broader Ozarks: Can we tell the real story? Not the postcard version. Not the stereotype. Not the story reduced to a single accent, genre, or political narrative.