In many hillbilly hollers there is a grandparent who
has a special recipe. Whether it is biscuits, pork chops, or bean soup, the
home cooking keeps the family coming back for more. Often college students long
for this special family meal when they are away at UPIKE. At times UPIKE seeks
to treat students to their favorite family dishes yet it is hard to get the “special”
ingredients out of the beloved grandparents. If one could find out the special
recipe, they could work on fully experiencing the depths of the meal. In
chapter three, I seek to reveal the “special ingredients,” which is the context
of the project and the program’s design. The
program’s design is based on hollering theology, which is grounded in the
greater cultural context of Central Appalachia. The purpose of the project is
to affect changes in the theological reflection and social action of UPIKE
students who enrolled and completed either Introduction to the New Testament or Appalachian Liberation Theology. So then, UPIKE is the immediate
location for this liberation project and it also aids in the identification of
the problem this project addresses.
This study took
place over a two-year period at UPIKE in undergraduate religion Bible courses.
These courses fulfill the Systematic Study of the Bible General Education
requirement. The average religion course at UPIKE ranges from 25-35 students
and is typically made up of first and second year students. The only perquisite
required for enrollment is English 118: College Writing. The study takes an
in-depth look at my implementation of hollering theological principals and
hermeneutics in the courses of REL 214: Introduction to the New Testament
in 2019 and 2020 and REL 390: Appalachian Liberation Theology offered in
the Fall of 2018.
UPIKE is a private Presbyterian (PCUSA)
university located in Pikeville Kentucky which is rooted within Central Appalachia.
With a total enrollment more than 2,250 students, UPIKE seeks to empower mountain
students. Almost all degree-seeking undergraduate students receive some form of
financial assistance to cover the cost of attendance. 40 % come from homes
making less than $30,000, and
40 % are first generation college students. A foundational part of the
university’s mission is maintaining its commitment to Christian principles by
recognizing the infinite worth of each person. See appendix seven for full mission, vision, and values of
UPIKE. UPIKE is an open
enrollment/opportunity school so any student who applies with a completed high
school diploma or GED will be admitted. UPIKE is the only open enrollment
school in a five-state radius. With an average ACT score of 20, at times UPIKE
students struggle. Comparatively, students at a neighboring state school such
as the University of Kentucky have average ACT scores of 23 and may not have
the same academic issues. The disproportion academic difficulties present UPIKE
with many-sided struggles, especially when factoring how family solidarity and being spatially
close to one’s family are cardinal virtues in Appalachia. This nearness is
evident at UPIKE as 70 % of students and 85 % of the staff come from rural Appalachia
Kentucky thus making UPIKE an Appalachian university.
In January of 2020, a campus wide Spiritual
Life Survey was conducted, see appendix eight . While only 384 out of a possible 2,000
participants completed it, stuff and faculty engagement were high. While 40% of
staff and 41% of faculty completed the survey, unfortunately, only 11% of
students participated. Further research is ongoing as to the spiritual needs
and nature of the silent majority of campus. A few key findings from this
survey follow:
·
90
% believe people should help those in need in the community, yet only 50 % are
willing to personally help and volunteer
·
45
% of staff want to be a leader in the community
·
40
% of participants attend religious service regularly whereas 27 % do not at all
·
40
% of participants read the bible regularly whereas 41 % of students say they
never read it
·
Becoming
a better person is the driving force behind their religious practice
While there is a plethora of questions that
arise when looking at the survey results, the disconnection of declaring the
community in need while not being willing to help is at the heart of this
project. What fuels people to see the needs of the region yet be less willing
to engage in liberative ways? Could the hillbilly stereotype be a force of
disengagement among members of the UPIKE community? As a hillbilly, could a
student not see themselves as adequate agents of change? Does the stereotype
fuel victim blaming? Do the hillbilly staff and faculty members feel that
hillbillies are less worthy of help? Historically
there has been a grand single cultural narrative shared by media and popular
culture about what it means to be from Appalachia and what it means to be a
hillbilly. Despite, or perhaps because of this, there is a lot of
misunderstanding surrounding the term. How do hillbillies speak of being a
hillbilly? What does Appalachian studies have to say for itself?
Appalachian studies is the formal study of all things
Appalachian centering on culture, people, and distinctive qualities of this
sociological subset of people.[1] Along
with Jack Weller’s Yesterday's People, Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to
the Cumberlands, and J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Loyal Jones’ Appalachian Values
is one of the most popularly received and discussed books on Appalachian reality.
Although Appalachia has produced amazing fictional works, such as The
Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow and page turning works by Silas House such as Coal
Tattoo and Clay’s Quilt, I intentionally stayed within the
nonfiction genre and will lean heavily on the comparison of Loyal Jones and
hedge fund manager, J.D. Vance, whose work, Hillbilly
Elegy is the most polarizing and popularized book on hillbilly identity today.
The father of Appalachian studies is Loyal Jones, who has published
dozens of articles concerning its culture, humor, optimism, and hope of the
mountain people.[2] Jones’
greatest contribution to Appalachian studies is his book Appalachian Values.
Jones writes as the faithful insider who highlights the beauty, traditional
values, and storied elements of the culture, while Vance writes as an
insider/outsider who now lives outside the region. Vance writes from a more
personal narrative and seeks to call into question some painful and hard
talking cultural points. Vance provides a glimpse into contemporary ways
hillbillies are seen in popular works which appeal to national audiences
whereas Jones provides a contrast as he is a traditional hillbilly insider who
writes in a folksy style, appealing to Appalachian purists.
Loyal Jones
however has spent his career dedicated to helping others learn about
Appalachia, especially its people. Jones started his work on Appalachian
Values in response to an extremely negative stereotyping book by Jack
Weller’s Yesterday's People, which was a national bestseller. Unlike
Weller, Loyal Jones, is Appalachian and has lived his life as a servant to
listen and tell the story of Appalachia in an empowering and thought-provoking way,
challenging stereotypes through humor and cultural uplift.
Jones’
Appalachian Values was co-authored
with photographer Warren Brunner because words can only tell so much of the
story and the people/region must also be seen to fully be appreciated. The book
deals with ten core values of Appalachian culture: love of place; independence,
self-reliance, and pride; neighborliness; familism; humility and modesty; sense
of beauty; patriotism; religion; personalism; and sense of humor. One of the
most helpful aspects to the book is its positive framework for the culture and
the folk values that drive the people. Jones is clear that Appalachia is unique
and its study must be its own subset. Jones reminds those scholars who seek to
partner with Appalachian people for liberation, that nothing should be done for
the people, but only in consultation and partnership with the people.[3]
Religion
is his biggest section of Jones’ work as religion is a foundational aspect to mountain
people. From Calvinism, snake handling, fundamentalism, Biblical literalism,
and to the missionaries who came to save the primitive people, Appalachia is
religiously diverse. Although most Appalachian churches are focused on being “led
by God” and independent in worship, most churches have a distrust of religious
hierarchy and one church of Christ can be radically different than the next
church of Christ. Appalachian congregations are usually led by congregational
polity and preachers are expected to be “called by God” and not “seminary trained.”
Appalachian religion is based on a deeply emotional experience with God, as God
is sovereignly in control of all. Appalachia has produced some unique brands of
Christianity and the regular Baptists are a good example. In later reflection, Jones
does admit, however, that since the publication of his work that Appalachian
people are religiously changing.[4]
Throughout
the rest of the work, Jones briefly touches on the rest of the values, using
stories to help the readers know of the importance of family, tradition, and being
placed in the land, which is very important for mountain people. Jones does
highlight how love of place is imperative to understanding the Appalachian
person. He says that the longing for the homeplace is evident in the people.[5] His thinking
on independence, self-reliance, and pride build on the shift that is happening
from the rural to the urban as mountain people stay in the mountains yet are now
connected widely to the outside world.[6]
His work on neighborliness, hospitality, familism, personalism, modesty, and
sense of humor are illuminating, yet feel more like historical romance rather
than actualized lived experience today. Jones’
work on patriotism is revealing and helps to see the ways in which national stereotyping
seeks to shame the hillbilly. Jones reminds his readers of the Appalachian
soldiers who volunteered to serve the country. 8% of American military personal
have consistently been Appalachia and they have received nearly 20% of the
medals of honor in Korea and over 10% in Vietnam.[7]
These statistics raise a critical question in light of the larger ideas of
stereotyping as oppression in this project. Do Appalachian people volunteer for
military service so that they can do something honorable in light of the
cultural shame produced by the hillbilly stereotype? When the hillbilly is seen
as the national idiot who is backward and bloodthirsty, does this honorable
volunteering seek to vindicate the mountaineer?
Jones works hard
to paint a positive picture of Appalachia. Ultimately his work rests on the
sense of beauty for which he discusses Appalachian artists and performers.
Today US Route 23, which runs through Eastern Kentucky, is known as the Country
Music Highway and has stops named for local artists who have achieved international
fame. Overall, Loyal Jones helps the hollering theologian to learn about the
historical values which inform Appalachian people today. He lifts up the
traditional realities that have made the region unique, although he himself has
admitted that these realities are now changing.
For most
Appalachian scholars, the very mention of Hillbilly
Elegy creates rage, yet this work is important because it is the most
popular piece of Appalachian and hillbilly literature ever sold. This work has
sold millions and been subject to a $45 million film with an Oscar nominated performance
by Glen Close. As much as it may be considered within the popular genre, this
work is shaping the narrative of Appalachia and therefore must be addressed. Hillbilly
Elegy is a must read for how it is shaping the narrative of the “hillbilly”
and how this term is seen in the larger American context. J.D. Vance is an
Appalachian American who “escaped” the region for the US Marines, graduated
from a major state university, and then navigated the social class of the Ivy
League by graduating from Yale law school. He now lives in Columbus, Ohio,
where he is a venture capitalist, and recently announced his run for the US
Senate.[8] His book
is a memoir written about his personal experiences of being Appalachian living
in the rust belt. Although the book has been used as an explanation for the
rise of the disenfranchised white working Trump voter, Vance did not intend to
produce a cultural work that sought to explain American political realities.
Vance clearly states, “I wrote this book because I’ve
achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn’t happen to most kids who grew
up like me…I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on
yourself and why you might do it”[9] Even
if he did not intend to, Vance does explore his lived experience and how it connects
with millions of working-class white Americans who have no college degree. Further,
he argues that working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America.
His elegy is a hard reaction against people like his family who he believes are
“reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible.”[10]
Vance’s work is provocative yet received glowing reviews
from Appalachian students at UPIKE. The students felt that Vance provided a
challenge to the narrative of hillbillies as victims of a system. Hollering
theology affirms this distrust of the popular victim narrative, because
hillbillies are designed to be free moral agents, shapers of their communal
destiny. Victimization of hillbillies disempowers and only sees the hillbilly
as a group of people who are often having things happen to them rather than
agents of their own destiny. Students saw Vance as a messenger of power because
if the hillbilly is at fault, then the hillbilly can fix it. For many, Vance
highlights what many Appalachian people feel is a lack of control. He says, “There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have
little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but
yourself…For there are no villains in this story. There’s just a ragtag band of
hillbillies struggling to find their way — both for their sake and, by the
grace of God, for mine.”[11] Power
and ability, capacity to be a change agent, and breaking through any ceiling to
succeed are powerful truths in the Vance narrative. His family, although broken
and complex, helped him see through the enslaving blame game and he was taught
early in life that he was an agent of his future. In hollering theology, agency
and freedom are at the core of the liberation pursuit. Vance says,
Still, mamaw and papaw believed that hard
work mattered more. They knew that life was a struggle, and though the odds
were a bit longer for people like them, that fact didn’t excuse failure. Never
be like these fucking losers who think the deck is stacked against them,” my
grandma often told me. ‘You can do anything you want to.’[12]
Vance
battles against the learned helplessness and fatalism of many in his region. He
says, “I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we
stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can
do to make things better.”[13] Hard
work is a deeply valued trait in the mountains and it is also enforced by the
Protestant work ethic that is imbedded within Appalachian theological ideas. He
says,
the theology Mamaw taught was
unsophisticated, but it provided a message I needed to hear. To coast through
life was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard. I had to take
care of my family because Christian duty demanded it. I needed to forgive, not
just for my mother’s sake but for my own. I should never despair, for God had a
plan.[14]
At times humorous and at other times heart breaking, Vance
weaves together a complex view of his mom and her battle with drug addiction.
His work is incredibly helpful as it provides a firsthand case study from a
person who is looking at his own life and asking about liberation. His work is
not helpful as a tool for cultural analysis with the capacity for larger generalizations
of the Appalachian region. His inner exploration is raw and honest. He asks, “how
much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions,
and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our
parents who have failed their children? How much of Mom’s life her own fault?
Where does blame stop and sympathy begin?”[15] Although his critics
nail him for his “pull yourself up by your bootstraps mindset,” Vance does
circle back around to the importance of family, social capital, and
relationships. He gives credit for his success to his grandparents and the
support he has received. His work is a critique to the idea of social capital
vs. economic capital and further how hillbillies are not utilizing enough of their
social connections. Vance harshly criticizes those who seek to go it alone. “The old adage says that it’s better to be lucky than good.
Apparently having the right network is better than both.”[16]
In his
relationally focused introspection, Vance admits that Appalachia has a
complexity that cannot be simply understood or named. Complexity is a mild way
to discuss Appalachian kids who have to deal with drug addicted parents. Vance
records, “People like Brian and me don’t lose contact
with our parents because we don’t care; we lose contact with them to survive.
We never stop loving, and we never lose hope that our loved ones will change.”[17] The
danger in a lot of Appalachian work is the silencing of voices which lay the
blame for regional pain on hillbillies. Vance asks a hard question, one which
could possibly resonate with liberators like Ellacuria and Boff. He says, “Are we tough enough to build a church that forces kids like
me to engage with the world rather than withdraw from it? Are we tough enough
to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harms our children?”[18]
Vance is problematic at points because he makes overarching
social commentary grossly overstating realities. For example,
What separates the successful from the
unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives…. social
mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle
change…Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability
begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly…No single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the
problems of hillbillies in modern America. Our elegy is a sociological one,
yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.[19]
Vance sought
to tell his personal story, but in the end, media created a cheat-guide to
understand disenfranchised white rural Americans. Vance’s voice is helpful when
heard as a personal case study rather than a cultural study or a manifesto for all
hillbilly reality.
One knows that
they have written a thought-provoking book when one becomes the source of a
movie and multiple books to counter one’s argument. In works like Dr. Elizabeth
Catte’s, What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, and the edited
blistering work, Appalachian
Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, scholars push against Vance. A helpful liberation
critique comes from Dr. Billings who says Vance only looks to bad personal
choices rather than honestly pointing to a corporate capitalist economy which
is hungry for profits and throws away workers. He continues by saying that
Vance ignores a government that is failing to properly respond to a region in
pain.[20]
Many see Vance’s work as another caricature of the hillbilly. Yet some
Appalachian scholars see his work as extremely damaging and a weapon in the
hands of capitalistic oppression. In The Afterlife of a Memoir, Aminatta
Forna advises, one must be cautious in writing a memoir because then one must be
prepared to live with its unintended consequences. She continues by saying his
work fans the flames of toxic politics which oppress hillbillies that he claims to
love.[21]
The tension and question of Vance’s work
is felt in the last line of the movie Hillbilly Elegy, “Where we come
from is who we are, but we choose every day who we become.”[22]
Dr. Mike Burr states, “I just finished reading Hillbilly
Elegy and I’m wondering what book most of the rest of you read…stop
pretending that every problem is a structural problem and instead deal with the
poor as moral agents.”[23] This work must be balanced with other works like Dr. Stephen
Stoll’s Ramp Hollow: A History of the Appalachian Ordeal and Dr.
Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: A 400-year untold history of class in America,
which provides a magnitude of insights into the ways in which systematic economic
oppression has powerfully impacted Appalachia. While reading Vance, hold onto
Dr. Stoll’s words tightly: “Seeing without history is like visiting a city
after a devastating hurricane and declaring that the people there have always
lived in ruins.”[24]
Vance makes unhealthy sweeping generalizations yet his
personal narrative does connect with the pain of many hillbilly readers. There
is much pain in the hearts of hillbillies yet the pain is magnified by people
and systems which make hillbillies dependent on their “help.” Appalachia needs
liberated from being dependent on outsiders just as hillbillies need to know
and own their free agency. The hillbilly dependency crisis was birthed by the War on Poverty, which seduced hillbillies
into believing they needed to be saved by Washington D.C. because others had
taught them that they had been victimized by outsiders. Washington D.C. was
happy to oblige through monthly forms of salvation which ultimately became
bribes to the hillbilly to be enslaved through the silencing seduction of survival
through SSI. Author and minister Chris Hedges looks to Whitesburg, KY lawyer,
Appalachian educator, and former state representative, Harry Caudill, who
strongly declared that Appalachia had become the grand experiment in government
handouts. These handouts started in West Virginia in 1961 and birthed a tragic
movement of disempowerment as people started becoming what Caudill called,
“symptom hunters.” Much of the mountain disability checks robbed people of the
purpose of work.[25]
Sadly, the region is still crippled by meaninglessness which is seen in
horrific poverty, lower education, and unemployment, see appendix nine.[26]
Scholar and Appalachian educational specialist Dr. J. Michael King says, “We do assimilate people into a cycle of poverty by
interjecting a set of values and rules to maintain benefits and survive on
them. We colonize a region by controlling the ability to survive and force
people to adapt to a system being regulated primarily by outsiders and external
sources.”[27]
He continues by saying that poverty is not a category; it is something that
occurred among a group and that can be observed as a process, not an artifact
of a time in the past. Appalachian people have been caught in the trap of
poverty. This poverty is stigmatized rather than being seen as a series of
variable events.
In
Central Appalachia today, diseases of despair are killing many through
diabetes, overdose, and loss of purpose. In many hollers, cultural despair cuts
like a flooding creek yet it is treated like a family secret. Tragically,
however, the statistics are staggering and heartbreaking. In 2015 the overall
mortality rate in Appalachia was 32% higher than the rest of the nation. For
the combined diseases of despair, Appalachian Kentucky had some of the highest
mortality rates of all Appalachian states at 91.1 deaths per 100,000.[28] When
one digs deeper into these numbers, the drug addiction and overdose rates
become alarming; 25 to 44-year-old people experience mortality rates greater
than 70 % higher than the rest of the nation. These deaths are horrific and
soul tearing for families, and have major economic development implications for
the region..[29] Most
concerning are the numbers related to loss of purpose and meaning. The
existential meaning gap is the greatest threat to hope. According to the 2018 Gallup
America Well Being Research: Kentucky ranked 47 in purpose, and 47 in
physical health, and 45 overall wellbeing.
Often
economic despair is dismissed with the promise of a resurgence of the coal
industry. It is almost daily that I hear, “when coal comes back.” The number of
coal jobs in Eastern Kentucky dropped significantly in 2019 with a loss of 15%
compared to the same period in 2018. There are currently fewer than 3,300 total
coal jobs in the region.[30]
Although the jobs have disappeared from the country, the black death of the
industry surges. Today many doctors consider the black lung rates in Central
Appalachia to be an epidemic, yet, legislation has made it harder for miners to
gain their earned benefits.[31]
At the time when hillbillies had been given a hopeful narrative of reviving
coal jobs with prosperity on the horizon from prominent politicians, insiders
in the state house were locking the doors and boarding up the windows of the
mines.
Beyond
the unethical politics of coal, there are other political obstacles in Eastern
Kentucky. Today a leading economic job creator for Kentucky’s
fifth congressional district, is the building and funding of prisons.[32]
Just 40 minutes from the
campus of UPIKE, in Letcher County, Ky., Rep. Hal Rogers sought to build a half
of billion-dollar prison facility. Although this plan was going to be the most
expensive prison in federal history, local residents believed that hillbillies
can do more than simply put criminals in cages.[33]
On the surface, an outsider may see this prison refusal as another example of
how hillbillies keep getting in their own way of social advancement, yet this
is a malicious bias fueled by a destructive stereotype. In truth, an extensive
study was completed by Robert Perdue and Kenneth Sanchagrin, in which they
found that building prisons
in Central Appalachia did not work for helping the economy.[34]
The prison industrial economy,
however, is rooted in a false narrative that hillbillies are ignorant and do
not think deep enough to have moral challenges to the American prison
industrial complex. Hillbillies would rather help liberate the inmate than
imprison them.[35]
Hillbillies would rather use their land
for life giving hope than divide, round up, and play the prison guard. Dr. Shumann,
professor of Appalachian Studies, provide a helpful framing of the hillbilly
view of land stating, “In Appalachia, the land
shapes human relationships and personal identity. It defines cultural meaning. Due
to this reality, if the region and its people are to prosper, they must have
industry linking human relationships, personal identity, and culture to a just
economy that works to recognize, respect, and reaffirm the humanity of all
peoples.”[36] Although Rep. Hal Rogers has represented
Kentucky’s fifth district for 41 consecutive years, has he fallen prey to the
seducing influences of viewing hillbillies as inferior? Has Rep. Rogers internalized
the hillbilly stereotype?
An honest
engagement of the region calls for examination of the most sacred of
institutions, the family system of Appalachia. The hillbilly sticks closer to
family than nearly any other cultural group in the USA, yet family can be a
source of hillbilly struggle. Some scholars see the tight knit family structure
as the key reason behind the regions battle with generational poverty. As one generation accepted poverty as their fate, the following
generation started to own this as a way of life thus limiting coping skills.
The status quo quickly became fatalism, and the snag of family created a trap for
those who desired to leave the mountains.[37]
This Appalachian family snag has been lived out by many students who had dreams
of exploring themselves and the world. In Joseph Campbell’s Hero Quest framework, the Appalachian
young hero is often stunted at the stage of “meeting of the mentor” as the hero
is only exposed to the family, and the family has not made the journey of
leaving home and pursuing the quest.[38]
Through the development of hollering
theology, I seek to disrupt processes of internalized oppression and challenge
any systems that limit agency and freedom within Appalachian students at UPIKE.
I seek to do this by way of applying hollering theological themes in two
religion classes at UPIKE. Critical pedagogy will be employed to empower
students to push against the damaging internal oppression by experiencing the
freedom to ask critical questions of institutions like the Church, Bible, God,
myself as professor. This way, students can be encouraged to implement a
liberation hermeneutic within their cultural context. The goal is to have
students engage their community with liberative praxis. As a hillbilly, this
change is both personal and collective. I
must both personally model being a liberative change agent, pushing against
stereotypes and victim blaming, while also lifting heroes from the Bible who
were marginalized and labeled. In this study I learned that there is much
within my own heart and mind that limits my students and pushes strongly
against their own voice when their informed views dissented from my own
preconceived notions of liberation. As
is the case in Campbell’s hero’s journey, I must mentor students to build
confidence and also model the leaving of home. I must model facing obstacles
and challenges, while also helping students see the value of accepting one’s
journey and how this is important for the collective benefit of the
community/family. I will serve the students by asking critical questions about my
own role in oppression and will pay special attention to ways I benefit from
the established systems of power.
In the process of creating a hollering theology,
it is important to note that hollering theology is birthed when hillbillies
control their own theological and cultural narratives, because although their
oppression is at times invisible by the way of internalization, it is
systematic and destructive.[39] This
oppression shames the hillbilly and declares them to be insufficient for the liberation
occasion. The blame is insidious but persistent.[40] This blaming of the people is a way to justify and
sanctify economic structures that strangle the people. Cultural studies show
that stereotypes fuel oppression and justifies taking from Appalachian people. Dr.
Galina Miller, professor of human development and family studies, provides a helpful
conclusion to this chapter by reviewing the historical oppression of the people
while also providing hope:
Once coal and other valuable minerals
were discovered in the mountains, popular media began to change its tune.
Suddenly, media outlets began describing Appalachians as savage people, always
fighting in their drunkenness…. Now that the land was to be exploited, it was
necessary for the people and their identities to be exploited for the gain of
large national corporations such as railroads, coal companies, and other
ventures. Although this shift in perception of Appalachians is largely negative
in present times, the fluidity of identity means that Appalachians can gain
back positive depictions of their own identities via their own internal
resources such as art, music, and education.[41]
[1] Appalachian
Studies Association, Accessed December 20, 2020, http://appalachianstudies.org/about/
[2]
Jay Buckner, “Mr. Appalachia: Loyal Jones- his story in his own words,”
February 29, 2012, Berea College,
accessed December 20 2020, https://www.berea.edu/news/mr-appalachia-loyal-jones-his-story-in-his-own-words/
[3] Jones
and Brunner, 10.
[4]
Loyal Jones as cited in Roger Hicks, My Appalachian
Life, accessed December 20, 2020, http://myappalachianlife.blogspot.com/2017/09/loyal-jones-reflections-on-appalachian.html
[8] Jessica
Lachenal, “Hillbilly Elegy Author J.D. Vance Once Explored Running For Senate,”
November 24, 2020, Bustle, Accessed December 20, 2020, https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/where-is-jd-vance-now-the-hillbilly-elegy-author-moved-back-to-ohio
[11]
Ibid., 7,9.
[15]
Ibid., 231.
[17]
Ibid., 254.
[20] Dwight B. Billings, “Once Upon a Time in ‘Trumplachia’:
Hillbilly Elegy, Personal Choice, and the Blame Game,” Appalachian
Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, Dwight B. Billings,
Anthony Harkins, Meredith McCarroll, eds., West Virginia University Press,
2019, 40.
[21] Ibid., 55.
[25] Joe
Sacco and Chris Hedges, “A World of Hillbilly Heroin: The Hollowing Out of
America Up Close and Personal,” The Nation, August 21, 2012, Accessed
August 2, 2020. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2012/08/21/world-hillbilly-heroin-hollowing-out-america-close-and-personal
[26] James
L. Werth Jr., “How the War on Poverty became the War on the Poor: Central
Appalachia as a case example,” January 2014, American Psychological
Association, Accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2014/01/war-poverty
[28]
“Appalachian Diseases of Despair,” Appalachian Regional Commission,
Accessed December 22, 2020, 8, 15. https://www.arc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Appalachian-Diseases-of-Despair-October-2020.pdf
[29]
Ibid., 23.
[30] Bill
Estep, “‘Still struggling.’ Kentucky coal jobs drop significantly in recent
months,” August 21, 2019, Kentucky.com, accessed August 2, 2020, https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article234186027.html
[31] Sydney
Boles, “Black Lung Benefits Drop for Kentucky Coal Miners After Controversial
Law,” ReSource, February 21, 2020, Accessed August 2, 2020, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2020/02/21/black-lung-benefits-drop-for-kentucky-coal-miners-after-controversial-law-change/
[32] Benny
Becker, “The Prison Builder’s Dilemma: Economics And Ethics Clash In Eastern
Kentucky,” Ohio Valley Resource, Accessed July 31, 2020, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2016/07/29/the-prison-builders-dilemma-economics-and-ethics-clash-in-eastern-kentucky/
[33] Tsolkas
Panagioti. “Plans for a New Federal Prison on Coal Mine Site in Kentucky
Withdrawn,” September 8, 2019, Prison Legal News, Accessed August 19,
2020. https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/sep/8/plans-new-federal-prison-coal-mine-site-kentucky-withdrawn/
[34] Robert
Perdue and Kenneth Sanchagrin, “Imprisoning Appalachia: The Socio-Economic
Impacts of Prison Development,” Journal of Appalachian Studies, 2016/10/01.
27.
[35] “Hip
Hop from the Hilltop / Calls from Home,” Mountain Community Radio: Hot 88.7,
Accessed January 23, 2021, https://www.wmmt.org/callsfromhome/
[36] Schumann,
179.
[37]Constance
Elam, “Culture, Poverty and Education in Appalachian Kentucky,” Education
and Culture, Spring 2002 vol. XVIII.
[38]
Christopher Vogler as cited in Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies, Accessed January 2, 2021, https://www.tlu.ee/~rajaleid/montaazh/Hero
percent27s percent20Journey percent20Arch.pdf
[39] T.
Williams, 36.
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