guthriedm15's blog

Interview Project

With

Glenn Reynolds

Interviewer: Dylan M Guthrie

10/21/14

Interview Transcript

Dylan: This is Dylan Guthrie and I’m sitting here with Mr. Glenn Reynolds. I’d like to thank you for agreeing to sit down and interview with me.

Glenn: Absolutely.

Dylan: I would just like you to answer the questions to the best of your ability and feel free to speak freely. Okay. First question. Where did you grow up within Appalachia?

Glenn: I grew up in the mountainous region from Richwood, West Virginia up to the Maryland border due to my dad’s travelling and work.

Dylan: So how long did you live in those individual locations?

Glenn: My father followed road construction and the road jobs would last anywhere from four to six months. So probably two or three times a year, we would move to a new locations and go to different schools.

Dylan: Can you describe to me what it was like to have to move schools and make new friends and things like that?

Glenn: In West Virginia at the time, it was a very rural area and there were mostly one room schools where they taught eight grades. Most of the economy was bad because it was right after the depression. The schools were ill equipped and homes at that time didn’t have electricity or water; everything was very primitive.

Dylan: Do you identify yourself as an Appalachian?

Glenn: I’m a West Virginian and an American. The Appalachian Mountains is the name of the region, but I am not identified with that region.

Dylan: Why would you not call yourself an Appalachian?

Glenn: It doesn’t have any meaning. I’m and American and a West Virginian. It’s just like calling yourself a New River Valley person, it’s just an area that doesn’t have enough meaning.

Dylan: Consider the Appalachian area, not that these people call themselves Appalachian, but consider the Appalachian area. How would you describe the culture and certain aspects of that culture?

Glenn: The culture was very rural with a poor economy. There was no industry much coming into the mountainous areas. People were very poor. And the living conditions were pretty poor. Not much in the way of transportation and communication systems? People were living with very limited resources.

Dylan: So, do you think that’s changed today? Do you think that it’s still the same today?

Glenn: No, it’s changed dramatically over the years. Rapidly changed with better roads and more jobs available. People becoming employed. School system got better.

Dylan: If you were to meet a person, and you had never met the person before, would you be able to tell if they were Appalachian?

Glenn: I don’t think so. I’ve never been identified as a person from Appalachia by my parents or actions. So I don’t think that I would recognize one.

Dylan: So, people don’t generally identify you as a person from Appalachia?

Glenn: No.

Dylan: But do you think that happens? Do you think there are people out there that you can look at and say that they are from Appalachia?

Glenn: Very limited number.

Dylan: We talked about the culture of Appalachia and you pointed out some of the aspects. How do you think that these aspects differ from those around the country and the world?

Glenn: You have to understand that a rural area is a totally different culture from a city. People in the rural areas have to live off the land and they tend to be more resourceful and independent and they’ve got to make do with what they’ve got. They are a little more independent.

Dylan: Do you think an independent farmer from Appalachia is different from the same sort of person in the Midwest or other regions?

Glenn: They’re the same sort of person in agriculture, except for they had fewer mechanical farm machinery. Everything was pretty primitive. Also, the mountainous regions are more difficult to farm than the flatlands. The farming culture is somewhat similar; however the mountains and terrain are the handicaps.

Dylan: What role does family play in your life?

Glenn: Family is a basic institution in my life. In that era, family was very important. Everyone stuck together and helped each other. Then people helped other families in need. But the family structure was very important and the father figure was usually the main figure in the family and the mother took care of all the raising of the children and the household and things. In my family, my mother was probably equally as strong as my father as far as a promotional and motivational person. She wanted everyone to get an education. All of her children got college degrees. The family is very important.

Dylan: You said that the man was typically the head of the household and the wife is in charge of taking care of the kids and the household.

Glenn: And working at home.

Dylan: What sort of reasons for that? Do you think it has anything to do with the region? Time? Religion?

Glenn: The time, because there were not jobs for women at the time outside of the home. My mother, she did sewing, laundry, cooking for anybody that she could help. She was very resourceful.

Dylan: Did religion play a role in your family?

Glenn: Yea, religion was very important to most families in the region. Most people attended church on a regular basis. The church was a place where you helped other people.

Dylan: So what sort of church did you go to?

Glenn: I was baptized in an Episcopal church, but mostly attended Presbyterian Church until I went to college where I went to a Methodist church, then a Baptist church, then back to a Presbyterian.

Dylan: Ok. So, growing up, did you have any memories of the way people from Appalachia were portrayed in the media? Like the news, or TV, or popular culture? So, when you heard people talk, did they paint a certain picture of the way people from Appalachia area?

Glenn: Well, of course when I was growing up before I got to be 18 years old, you never heard much from the media because there was no media. We didn’t have newspaper, TV, radio or anything. You heard anything, it was transferred by the word of mouth. So you didn’t hear much world news, except when World War II started and then all the men were drafted into the army. In fact, when I was going to school. I went to a one room school, and I was in the eighth grade. I had a partner that was 18 years old and he was drafted into the army. When I graduated from the eighth grade, I was the first student that she had ever sent to high school. She was very proud of me.

Dylan: So, you didn’t really have a lot of contact with the media and stuff like that; how do you think the media would have portrayed people from the area at that time? Do you think that there’d be any unfairness or anything like that there?

Glenn: Later on, after I left high school and sometime in the ‘60s the media began to portray the Appalachian region as sort of a backward, illiterate, uneducated area. This was not totally valid. There was some of that but mostly these people were independent and resourceful. The image was a little bit false.

Dylan: Why do you think that they were painted that way?

Glenn: It made a big media story. There were movies and things made of it. It was a story.

Dylan: You can talk about now or then. Did you eat any special or particular kinds of food in the area?

Glenn: Most of the food that we have in the area, was homegrown food and vegetable. It was typical country home food. The meat was either domestic animals, or when we went hunting, you always preserved the meat for consumption. Everything was cooked at home.

Dylan: Did you have meat often?

Glenn: Whenever we had it. We didn’t always have meat because of the circumstances you didn’t always have meat.

Dylan: What would you consider respectful in your community? If you were to meet someone, what would you expect them to do as far as customs and courtesies and things? What kind of customs and courtesies do you practice when you go into people’s homes?

Glenn: In that era, the courtesy that you would show other people: you would say yes sir and no sir to the men and yes ma’am and no ma’am to the women. When you met someone, you always spoke them and was very respectful, particularly to the older folks. And you expected to be respected in return.

Dylan: So this is just the opposite question. What would you consider disrespectful in your eyes? Like if they were invited into your home as a guest.

Glenn: If you met someone on the street and they didn’t speak to you, that would be considered to be disrespectful. If they come into your home, generally if they are invited into your home, they are of a more friendly atmosphere. Usually, you don’t take issue with someone in your home and argue with them about some issue. It’s just a courtesy to not do that.

Dylan: Do you think that these common courtesies are the same everywhere across the country?

Glenn: They’re different. Some areas of the country, people are more abrupt and don’t acknowledge meeting someone at all. I call that a southern thing, southern culture. Where people like to greet one another cheerfully and everything.

Dylan: Why do you think that is? Why do you think that applies more to south than any other region?

Glenn: I think that when you get into bigger cities, people become not as personable, not as close together like a community or family.

Dylan: And you feel that it’s because of the atmosphere that a city creates?

Glenn: Yes, it’s totally different.

Dylan: What do you think are some common misconception about the Appalachian people?

Glenn: Well, the most common is that they are backward and illiterate. Many are uneducated, but they are very intelligent. The common picture that you get is just backward and illiterate.

Dylan: Can you give a specific example of something that you may remember from your childhood that may counter the stereotype?

Glenn: No, but let me tell you a little story about my childhood. Right after the depression, early on, my dad had a good job. He was an engineer on the railroad. When the depression hit, he got laid off. Then he went to work for a lumber company that was logging in West Virginia. He ran the locomotive for them. He made good money and bought three little houses in the lumber town. He lived in one and rented the other two. After a couple of years, the lumber company went bankrupt. He lost his job, and they owed him about eight months’ pay. Well there no jobs available then. So he couldn’t pay the mortgages on the three houses. So they were foreclosed and sold at auction. Well the auction didn’t bring what he owed on them. So the bank wrapped it up into one mortgage and he had a 30 year mortgage to pay off over the next 30 years. So when he began to work again in road construction, every month, he had to pay the mortgage. Usually it was about half of what he made. Now, I grew up watching that bill come in every month and saw the stress that it took for them to rake up enough money to pay the mortgage on houses that they no longer had. When I got out of high school at 18 years old, there was no chance of going to college. So I went in the Marine Corps, where I made 75$ a month. What I did is take out an allotment of 47$ every month for four years to help them pay that mortgage. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I went to college. Of course, my mother worked and paid back every dollar that I had sent home. It helped them get it paid off in 1952. Then they bought a little farm in a mountainous area there near Marleton. My dad retired on the farm and raised sheep and a few cows. The last couple of years I was in high school, we lived on that farm. I walked two and half miles on a dirt road to get on the bus to ride 25 miles to schools. That was some of the experiences that I grew up with.

Dylan: That’s very interesting. How would you want young people to think about the Appalachian region? What would you want to tell them?

Glenn: Let me put it this way. I look at the Appalachian region today as a beautiful mountainous region with some highways through them. They have a tourist industry. It’s a beautiful place to visit. The farms are a lot more prosperous now. A lot of government projects that went through the region all the through the Tennessee valley and down and the highway projects. It’s the reason that the region no longer carries the stigma of Appalachia.

Dylan: Do you think that stigma is still around today?

Glenn: No, I don’t.

Dylan: How about in the minds of the people outside of the area?

Glenn: I am not aware of it. I don’t see it anywhere.

Dylan: How do you feel growing up in the area has affected you today? In family life? Professionally? In life in general?

Glenn: I think it made me more independent and more determined to get an education and achieve something in life.  And to take advantage of all of the opportunities that are available to me. It helped me a lot.

Dylan: Why do you think growing up in the area did this for you?

Glenn: Like I said, it made me independent and strong enough to not be upset by little setbacks. I noticed when I got out of high school and eventually went to college, due to the school system that I attended being very weak, I had to play catch up in math and several subjects to catch up with my peers. I was determined to do so, I had to work a little longer and harder, but I could compete.

Dylan: Will you just take a second to speak about your professional life?

Glenn: Probably when I went into the Marine Corps, I lacked a little self-confidence but Marine Corps training gave me a little more self-confidence. Then, after four years in the Marine Corps and one year in Korea where I worked on aircraft, I went to college and studied to become an electrical engineer. Then I had an opportunity to get into the Air Force and become a pilot, which was an ambition of mine since early high school. So, I was able to fly in the Air Force, and later in the Air National Guard for a total of 32 years of total service. I retired at the rank of Colonel, which was very successful for me. During the same time that I was in the Air National Guard and went to work as an electrical engineer for American Electric Power and did some engineering and then moved into marketing and sales. I learned to sale and do marketing and was very successful. By doing so, I moved up the ladder to economic development for the company, which is seeking new industry in the area where you work and moved on into the ranks of management and later on to be the director of marketing and customer service for the company. Which was a pretty good run in the corporate world. So, I have to say that I look back on it as successful.

Dylan: Are you aware that there is discussion of the area in the academic in the world?

Glenn: I am aware, but I can’t remember any of the books that I have read about the area. There are some very good books about the region, but none of the names of them stand out. But I am aware of them.

Dylan: Have you seen shows like the Andy Griffith Show or the Beverley Hillbillies?

Glenn: Yes.

Dylan: Do those shows mean anything to you? Do they hit home with you?

Glenn: Most of those shows have a little bit of truth in them, but then its embellished to sell the move and to provide entertainment. It tends to be a little more fiction than truth.

Dylan: Do you think those shows would offend people within the Appalachian area?

Glenn: It’s not offensive to me personally. It may be offensive to some, but not to me.

Dylan: Have you ever heard or met anyone that would identify themselves an Appalachian?

Glenn: No, I’ve never heard anyone identify themselves as Appalachian. The closest would be to call themselves West Virginian?

Dylan: Why do you think it is that people inside the area don’t normally call themselves Appalachian, but people outside the area do refer to them as Appalachian?

Glenn: I’ve never heard anybody call them Appalachians. Maybe I have a limited background in the area. When I think of West Virginia, I think there are some important people that came out of there. One guy is Homer Hickham, who was the rocket scientist. He came out of that region?

Dylan: Do you think that he was successful because of the region?

Glenn: I think he was successful because he had an interest in a subject science and he had a teacher that saw his aptitude that gave him opportunities to expand his knowledge. Seems like the teacher will always make the difference in those situations.

Dylan: So, if you will just take a second to talk about your college education in West Virginia. What was that like?

Glenn: When I first went into college, I saw that I was far behind. I was out of high school for four years. I was far behind the other members of my class because I needed some math to catch up. So I had to work hard. At the same time I had to work to earn a little money. I was working twenty hours a week at Kroger stocking shelves at night. So, I had to play catch up academically, but soon I caught back up. Though I was probably never as good as some of the scholars who came from great high schools, but I managed to do satisfactory work.

Dylan: How do you think your college education compared to other colleges across the nation?

Glenn: First, I’d have to look at the West Virginia. At that time, there were only two engineering schools in the state of West Virginia: West Virginia Institute of Technology and West Virginia University. West Virginia Institute of Technology was a smaller school and I selected it and I think that I did the right thing. Now, how it ranked against other universities, I do not know how it compared to engineering at Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Tech. It was good, or better, or equal to West Virginia University. But I couldn’t rank it with other major universities because they probably had more resources.  But I found out this, when I got in industry we hired a lot of engineers from VMI from WVU and UVA and West Virginia Tech. And most of the ones that we hired from West Virginia Tech. stood out and performed better than the others. And someone asked me why, and I said “the only thing I can say is the guys that went to West Virginia Tech. probably had to work a little harder and took it a little more serious than some of the others”.

Dylan: So, is there anything else that you would like to say? About your childhood, or the region?

Glenn: Well, I’ll speak about my family. My dad was married previously to my mother and he had three children: two boys and a girl. Then he married my mother and they had five children. The two oldest brothers served were drafted in the Army and served in the Army with distinction. My oldest brother served in the Marine Corps in World War II, south pacific. Then myself and my two brothers served in the Air Force and were all pilots and at the same time we were all fighter pilots. Then we all made Captain together at different times, and eventually is was all Lieutenant Colonel together. We were a very patriotic family that based primarily on my family structure. My mother was always promoting college…always always promoting college. She was a lady that worked her entire life for practically nothing. But when she was 72 years old, she started a bed and breakfast. They put a Snowshoe resort in, right near the farm. She turned her house into a bed and breakfast and she ran the thing until she was 87 years old and made plenty of money. She sold a bed for 6$ and two meals for 3$, but people that would come were attorneys and doctors and would tip real big.

Dylan: I’d like to thank you for your time and I deeply appreciate you sitting and talking with me.

Glenn: I’m happy to talk to you, I hope that you got something that you can use in your paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection

            The interview with Mr. Glenn Reynolds was very interesting because it revealed things about his past that were initially unknown to me. He took the opportunity to speak about his family and the way life was as he was growing up, and the way that he thought about certain cultural aspects in Appalachia. He also spoke about his grade school and college educations, his father’s sporadic working life, and his successful professional career after leaving the Appalachian area. Glenn Reynolds is a great example of the type of person that directly counters the general stereotype of individuals from the area; not only does he differ greatly from the stereotype, but he has almost no concept of an Appalachian.

Because his father was employed by a company that built roads throughout the state of West Virginia, Glenn’s childhood was not spent in a specific town or area in the state. The family was forced to move “two to three times a year” where the Glenn was forced to change schools and towns often.  According to him, “the schools were ill equipped…and everything was very primitive”, which seems to have lead to an education that made it very difficult to complete a formal grade school education; he was the “first student…ever sent to high school” (referring to his elementary school). Perhaps it was because of the difficult economic times that people were forced to drop out of school at a young age in order to help support the family, but the lack of education in the area has long been used as a tool to stereotype the people in the Appalachian area. One of the presumptions that people made about Appalachia is that the people were dropping out of school because they weren’t intelligent or hardworking, but it was because young people were being forced to work by the very challenging economic and social times.

The ill-equipped schooling that Glenn received throughout his childhood created difficulties for him that followed him to college.  Glenn said, “When I first went to college I saw that I was far behind”. It’s a statement that shows one of the challenges that he faced because of the tough economic situation that many people of the area suffered under. This sort of statement shows us that the lacking education that he received followed him into his adulthood; it presented him with unfair challenges that could’ve held him back. Fortunately, Glenn Reynolds is a very hardworking man that was lucky enough to see many of his dreams realized, but many individuals from the area may have not been so fortunate. While it may have not held Glenn back later in life, this sort of problem can often prevent (or at least make it challenging) a person from reaching certain goals in life. Because the problem of poor education is likely to be a problem that touched many lives of children in the Appalachian area, it begs the question: how many people were forced to drop out of school to support the family and, thus, miss the chance to realize dreams that these individuals may’ve had?

While he acknowledged that there were problems with his childhood schooling and the environment that was created because of the tough times, he neither explicitly stated nor implied that there was a group or person of blame. It was not because he was a person who grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, but because it was the way that life was. He seemed to view his lacking education as a challenge that must be beaten in order to reach his goals in life. In his mind, the trials and tribulations that he and his family faced were a part of normal life.  He was not looking for someone to blame so that could relieve himself or responsibility. He used these challenges to push him to succeed throughout his life.

I had the chance to ask Mr. Reynolds if he considered himself an Appalachian and he very abruptly replied, “I’m a West Virginian and an American. The Appalachian Mountains is the name of the region, but I am not identified with that region.” Upon asking why he felt this way, he stated “It doesn’t have any meaning. I’m and American and a West Virginian.”; furthermore, he didn’t think that he could spot an Appalachian person among other people. These very simple remarks introduce some very important concepts. It’s almost as if he has no concept of an “Appalachian person”, but only the concept of people that come from the area. This was interesting because it forces one to wonder: do all people from that area see things this way? Are the stereotypes of people from the Appalachian area only carried by people from outside of the area itself?

Glenn did understand that there were some misconceptions and stereotypes about the people that come from the area, but he seemed to carry none of the stereotypes about the people. He didn’t even seem to link these people together as a group; there was no concept of “Appalachians” as a group of people. In his mind, he is a West-Virginian, not an Appalachian. And it’s not like he resented to term “Appalachian”, or the idea of being from that area, it just wasn’t the way he identified himself. The fact that he carried no concept of “Appalachian” people would make it difficult for him to see the people from the area as a group that has been socially oppressed by much of the country.

I chose to interview Mr. Glenn Reynolds because I knew that he would counter the stereotype that many Americans seem to believe. He is very successful man, with a strong beliefs in hard work, family, and morality. What I did not expect is that he would not call himself an Appalachian, nor have a concept of what an Appalachian person was. Again, he labelled himself as a “West Virginian and an American”, which counters the common idea of the Appalachian regional and cultural homogeneity. Glenn is a prime example of the differences between individuals and areas within the region solely because he does not call himself Appalachian, but a West Virginian. This very simple statement acknowledges the fact that culture differs within the region. The people are not all the same. Perhaps the American public can learn a lesson from people like Glenn Reynolds. He defeats the stereotype.

The Appalachian Experience

People from the Appalachian area are often forced to be ashamed and to hide their cultural identity because the Appalachian group of people are made the butts of so many jokes. They are looked down upon, considered different because they group up in a place where “hillbillies” and rednecks come from. A particularly interesting story of this occurring is told in “One Affrilachian Woman’s Return Home” by Crystal E. Wilkinson.

This is a story about a black female that grew up in Kentucky, where she lived on a farm, was surrounded by dirt roads, and called herself country. She details some of the criticisms that she received as a result of the dialect that she spoke with.  Presumably, she had what many would call a “country” accent that was the source of much of the ridicule that she suffered when she went out to travel. To stop the jokes and ridicule, she attempted to do things to change the way that she acted: she copied TV personalities, she learned to speak with a different dialect, and she controlled her conversation so that home was never brought up.

Unfortunately, people are often driven to do unfair things because of the ridicule that they receive as a result of being from a different culture. I have experienced some ridicule that was similar in nature to Wilkinson. I grew up in the relatively large area, called Franklin County, VA. I was born in that area, and I spent most of my life (from birth until 15) there. After the 8^th grade, my family moved to Salem, VA (just a country over). In this area, the people considered themselves to be of higher class than those from Franklin Country. People from Franklin Country were “country and poor”, while people from Salem were better. Rejection is a terrible thing to endure, especially if it’s because of something that is beyond your control.

Music: A Cultural Product

Music played an important role in the labor struggles of the Appalachian area. In one sense, they brought light to tough times that the people were going through in 19^th and 20^th centuries. In another sense, they brought in money to certain families in the area. Also, it showed that people in the area were not as cut off from the rest of the public as many Americans thought, through songs that spoke about fashion in the non-Appalachian cultures. Generally, music was a good thing for the Appalachian area.

Country music, as we know it today, essentially began in the Appalachian area. It often highlighted the struggles of the working people in the area in songs such as “How Can a Poor Man Stand These Times” by Blind Alfred Reed. The struggles of these people were during a time in which railroad building and lumbering were the industries that predominated the area. These industries are not necessarily known for providing good living circumstances for their laborers. Appalachian music seems to make that very clear.

Music has been a cornerstone in the culture for a very long time. Music is often classified by the era in which it was released. An example of this is the music that was released during the 1960’s. During this decade, the American counterculture was the predominant scene among young people. The music that was associated with it has become so intertwined with the area that it would be impossible to separate the two into totally separate ideas. The music allowed the people to come together and make changes in a time that is known for political activism among the common people of America.

A Discussion of the Kentucky Cycle

In The Kentucky Cycle, the picture is painted of a family that resides in Kentucky since the time that the family’s patriarch took land from the Native Americans through some very sinister means. This man’s name was Micheal Rowen and he is depicted as a person that driven by greed and lives life in manner that is totally devoid of self-control or morals. Micheal is said to be everything that we may think of as evil; he kidnaps a woman and forces her to be his wife, he beats her, he murders babies, he kills people that may have trusted him, and even wipes out entire groups of people in order to satisfy the intensive greed that he feels for land. In this play, Mr. Rowen is a simple character that wants one thing in his life.

Depictions of characters from the Appalachian are like this one are common in media and entertainment. This sort of person has become an Archetypical mountain man; these men live lawlessly, carelessly, and selfishly. Back Talk from Appalachia is a collection of pieces by scholars from the Appalachian area that have taken it upon themselves to combat this stereotype. Perhaps the strongest debate against this stereotypical depiction of people from this area is made by Lewis in “Beyond Isolation and Homogeneity”. He argues that these depictions are “fictional” and due to the lack of a formal history of the area (Lewis, 21).

In Back Talk from Appalachia Ledford guides the reader through an account of some of the explorers that are responsible for some of the stereotypes that hold today. She accounts a man by the name of William Byrd. He was a man that was educated in England, who wanted to be the one day governor of Virginia. In the name of business, he made a trip to the Appalachian and piedmont areas to see what the terrain and people were life. Perhaps his most blunt account was one where the men supposedly sleep all day, smoke pipes, and watch the women work on their behalf. This is a familiar sentiment that we see in Micheal. He has no respect for the rights of those around him, including his wife.

These authors set out to combat the hillbilly stereotype largely because of the depictions laid out in Kentucky Cycle because they are unfair and used to exploit and damage the people of Appalachia. As we can see from its rebuttals, this play is offensive to people of the area.

Backwardness

The people of the Appalachian region have often been depicted as backwards by the media, academic community and society in general. While Appalachian people may have peculiarities about them (like any other group of people), they are not backwards and lost like the world around them tries to say. Why then do the people around them portray them as backwards?

In the past, the group has been incorrectly portrayed certain church groups in order to muster support for the mission projects that they established in the area. Appalachian people were painted as ones that were lost in time that had little contact with the outside world and that still held onto the old time traditions of England. They were of “pure Anglo-Saxon” in culture and blood; their pure heritage made them worthy of mission effort and redemption to the church groups that came to the area. They used the misguided stereotype because they believed that the people needed help.

A man named William Goodell Frost also perpetuated the myth that these people were lost in time. In fact, he wrote a piece called Our Contemporary Ancestors that embraced the stereotype that had already been in place. They were real American people in culture and heritage because of their seclusion from the rest of the country. Because of this, he saw them as an asset to the country and acknowledged the need to have them assimilated into the rest of the American culture.  In short, Frost used the stereotype to achieve a goal that seemed to be good for the Appalachian people and the rest of America.

The Hillbilly Joke

Through Ballard’s article, she shows us that she has wrestled with the idea of comedy and icons centered around stereotypical characters from the Appalachian area because that is where she is from. She seems to believe that it may be offensive to paint these pictures for the rest of society to see. She even brings up the fact that this sort of “oppression” would not be tolerated by any other minority within America.

At the conclusion of the article, Ballard finally admits that she understands “the joke” that icons like The Beverly Hillbillies paint for society. Ballard concludes that the characters “hold mirrors to the face of society” through wisdom, common sense and honesty. In a way, these depictions of people from the Appalachian area are not all bad; these depictions are even good in many ways.

I tend to agree with Ballard’s conclusion. The Appalachian stereotype has always hit home with me because I grew up in an area where I was surrounded by people like that; furthermore, many members of my family fit that stereotype. Interestingly, the people that may be directly offended by the hillbilly icon are the ones that are watching shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and buying “redneck” themed attire. They take pride in who they are. They understand the joke because they often fit that outward stereotype (not to imply that they are simple). Many of them, in my experience, do not see this sort of humor as oppression; put simply, they see the joke as funny.

Rednecks and Hillbillies

Throughout history, education has been a large source of power over people that are uneducated. Because of the differences in culture and education, certain words and phrases have been used to stereotype groups of people. A couple of examples of this in America are the words “redneck” and “hillybilly”.

According to Wikipedia, rednecks are white people in the southern US that are often uneducated working class people. Merriam-Webster dictionary and Wiktionary both say similar things. If one was to Google images of the term “redneck”, pictures of men and women with mullets, individuals in overalls, and the Confederate Flag. Usually, the term “redneck” and the people that it portrays are used as punchlines in jokes and in online memes; however, this term is sometimes accepted by the very people that this word describes. Often time, the Confederate Flag is flown in these areas as a source of personal pride of one’s southern heritage (this is from personal experience).  Additionally, many country music songs embrace the term to describe the people that they get along with, or how they would describe themselves.

The term “hillbilly” is very similar in nature to the term “redneck”. They are used in very similar, derogatory ways in addition to the common self-identification that was described above.  “Hillbilly” is used to describe people that live in rural areas in the Appalachian area. Hillbillies often resist modernization and change in general. They are often uneducated and self-sufficient that live a life that is reminiscent of the hunter-gathers of the Stone Age (or so it’s portrayed). If one were to search for images, one would of men with “beer guts”, toothless smiles, and overalls.

These two terms are similar to other terms that have been used in the past to describe groups of people. While they began as derogatory terms, they have become terms that are embraced by the culture that they are used to stereotype. When the terms were strictly derogatory, it was a source of power. Now that it is often used by the “hillbillies” and “rednecks” themselves, it is again a source of another type of power. In either case, it’s clear to see that words are very powerful indeed.

An Introduction

When I heard the words “Appalachia”, or “Appalachian region”, my first thoughts are of the Blue Ridge Mountains and of the people that inhabit the mountains. Unfortunately, I am guilty of thinking of these people as “hillbillies” or “rednecks”. In my mind, these people are often uneducated, perhaps racist, and suited to live away from civilization as we know in order to live off of the land. These people are also hardy, polite, church-going people that are almost always absurdly conservative when it comes to their social and political views. These people seem to be stuck in the past because they resist change by their very nature.

While my opinion may seem blunt or slightly inappropriate, I believe that it’s partly justifiable because I grew up in a place that is much like the counties that have been considered to be part of Appalachia. My opinion of people like this has arisen because of the intimately close experiences I’ve had with them. The large majority of the people in my family remind me of the types of people that I have described. The people that attended my high school are like the people that I would associate with the Appalachian Region.

My childhood upbringing has played a crucial role in the development of the people from this area. I grew up surrounded by a family that fits the very stereotypes that I’ve mentioned. Much of my family is made up of people that go hunting on a regular basis, have no neighbors within a few miles, and resist any new change or technology and are what I would call “redneck”. Because of my family, I understand that these people are rough around the edges and gruff on the outside, but have many redeeming qualities about them. In my experience, these people are heavily independent,polite, and respectful.