One of the central themes of recent readings concerns the identity of young people growing up in Appalachia. How did being from Appalachia affect the kinds of experiences these authors had? In what ways did the authors “cope” or “deal with” being from the region? Have you had times in your life where you’ve had to respond in a similar way because of your own identity?

From the articles we read all of the authors felt embarrassed at one point in time because they were from appalachia. Some hid their accent, others lied about where they were from and all left details out about their lives for fear that they might not be accepted into society. For most of these authors they were embarrassed at one point in their lives and then realized that maybe it was something they should live up to. They thought that they should be proud of where they were from and embrace it. They could also embrace it because they wanted to prove the stereotypes wrong, prove that appalachia wasn’t always something to be ashamed of and a bad place to be from. Some of the authors went even further than accepting themselves and even began to wrote about the region and use their power as an author to get help for the region. Personally I have never responded in a similar way as the authors because of my identity but rather hid personality traits and opinions of mine for fear of what other people might think. I believe this to be a similar response form many people and therefor don’t consider so much a crisis. I have realized that hiding these facts about myself doesn’t really help anyone, including myself. I’ve started to become confident in the person I am because I know that the people who like me will like who I am and that, quite frankly, I’m not to worried about the people that don’t like me.