Reflective Tag: My interview with an Appalachian was undoubtably one of most important parts of my research throughout this semester. The interview allowed me the opportunity to discuss the Appalachian region with someone that had lived in it for his entire life. It was particularly helpful in providing me with an unbiased, first-hand opinion of the region. The opinion showed my that many of the negative stereotypes are inaccurate and that the region has far more plurality than many people recognize.

Interview Reflection

In order to gain insight on how the average Appalachian views the Appalachian region I interviewed John Dalton. John is a 22 year-old man from Radford Virginia, a city on the eastern edge of the region. He has lived in Radford his entire life, thus he has been exposed to the culture of Appalachia for many years. Prior to the interview, I expected him to have a firm understanding of people from the region as well as a general idea of the location of its boundaries. After conducting the interview, I can conclude that the Appalachian region is comprised of various types of people living in Appalachia, thus the dramatic stereotypes associated with the region are both misrepresenting and inaccurate.

Going into the interview, I was particularly interested in discussing the culture of Appalachia with John. He began this discussion by explaining that most Appalachian people are not much different from people living in other regions of the United States. He explained, “They definitely have aspects of their culture that are different, but as far as the people and who they are and the kind of people they are, I don’t think that they’re all too different.” As we continued to elaborate on Appalachian culture, I asked John to describe the types of food he sees throughout the region. Among them were chili, potatoes, honey, and whiskey. All four of his examples have been in Appalachia for centuries and each plays an important role in Appalachian culture. The last thing we discussed regarding culture was unity and how religion and local businesses bring the community together. John proceeded to say that church, in many communities, is “how everybody knows everybody”. Regarding local businesses, John mentioned The Chicken Bus, a small, family run business in Radford. He said, “It’s actually part of the community too because a lot of people will get on their Facebook and they’ll go to the page that he has up there and post on it.” I thought his description of unity throughout most of Appalachia was very accurate. My experience and research suggests that, as a result of being both geographically and socially isolated, Appalachian communities are far more unified and dependent on each other than communities in other regions of the country.

As the interview continued, I asked John to describe the typical Appalachian and whether or not he felt that he felt that he shared the characteristics of his description. He responded by saying, “Much more country than the kind of people that you see in Radford, like bigger accents”. In his own opinion, he was not an accurate illustration of the typical flannel shirt wearing, big truck driving Appalachian. That being said, he did recognize the fact that Radford lies within the boundaries of the region. I found it interesting to hear someone from Appalachia associate other Appalachians with a very specific style. Prior to the interview I would not have thought someone from Appalachia would provide such a specific description. When I asked john what he considered to be misconceptions about Appalachia he first mentioned, “Everybody definitely isn’t a farmer.” Then moved on to define the term hillbilly. He described hillbillies as, “someone who is more ignorant than a redneck”. The problem with associating ignorance with hillbillies is that, to many people, all Appalachians are hillbillies. Therefore, the entire population is labeled as mindless mountaineers.

After discussing a few common misconceptions of Appalachia and having a typical Appalachian provide his own description of the Appalachian stereotype, I wanted to hear John compare the terms hillbilly and redneck. The primary differences he discussed dealt with pride and social class. He concluded that the term redneck is a general description, typically referring to southerners, of any social class, that are proud of their country and heritage. On the contrary, he characterized the term hillbilly as derogatory and extreme. He said, “When I think of a hillbilly I think of someone who is blue collar, not too intelligent, maybe missing a few teeth, and probably wearing some overalls.” Then explained, “I think of them as the most extreme redneck.” I think it is very likely that media attention has an affect on this response. Both stereotypes have experienced increasing exposure to the rest of the country via multiple forms of media in recent years. With that in mind, I believe the redneck stereotype has not only received more media exposure, but more constructive exposure as well. It is my opinion that this exposure has strengthened the sense of pride in the term redneck while having little to no affect on hillbillies. Thus, the term hillbilly remains derogatory and insulting to Appalachians while the term redneck has grown in desirability throughout the country.

The interview with John showed me how an average Appalachian views the region along with the people in it. The information I gained from the interview was very useful in making connections between the experience-based opinions of an Appalachian and the data I collected throughout the semester via research and class discussions. Throughout the interview I realized that there were numerous similarities between the misconceptions of the region that John described and the misconceptions that are featured in The Kentucky Cycle and Deliverance. Especially regarding “missing teeth” and the alleged ignorance of everyone from the region. It was not surprising to hear a native Appalachian cite many of the inaccurate depictions that are shared amongst outsiders. On the other hand, unlike the writers in Back Talk from Appalachia, John did not make it a point to discredit the derogatory stereotypes as I initially predicted. Finally, I found John’s description of hillbillies and rednecks to have slight variations from the post-research descriptions we produced in class. This dissimilar response showed me that very few things about Appalachia are black and white. Moreover, people tend to rely on their personal experience when describing their culture, not a set of definitions in the dictionary. Now that I can compare the personal encounters provided for me by a life-long Appalachian as well as the facts that I gathered from the literature, I have a far more cultured understanding of what Appalachia truly is and just who calls it home.