I've heard this too, which is why I'm trying to be smart with my apps. I applied to some schools in the area that I live currently in the hopes that I can work and go to school at the same time. I talked to one program, and they seemed totally fine with the idea of part-time grad work (in fact, the grad director eagerly helped me block out a part-time 'plan'--now to see if I got in, that's the question). The job market for honestly every field is so terrible right now, and so, while I want to get a PhD, I also don't want to stop working for 5+ years only to graduate with no job. It would effectively be like if I just stopped working for half a decade. I didn't even look at programs that weren't amenable to part-time grad work. Does this not make me a 'serious' scholar in the eyes of some schools/departments? Probably, but honestly, I don't care. Quality of life comes before letters at the end of my name....... even though I really want those letters!
But I could rant about the horrid institutionally-imposed conditions of a graduate school lifestyle all day long, so I'll stop.
This is a great point. The topics I'm interested in studying are radically different from many others in the field, only really unified by the term 'American'. That's cool because it means the field is so interdisciplinary and everyone is learning tons of new stuff all the time, but it also means that you can easily get booted if there's even the tiniest of shifts in the field's overall interests.