Final Interview Project

ERH-303WX

Date Due: 12/13/16

Date Sub.: 12/13/16

Help Received: Cited Sources, peer review, professor

Matthew Kenkel

For my interview project, I interviewed my grandfather on my mother’s side, who grew up in Appalachia. Specifically, he grew up in Independence, Virginia, which falls close to the eastern boundary of Appalachia in Virginia. He shared with me his experience of growing up in Appalachia between the years of 1935 and 1954. Most of the experiences that we discussed were things I had never before discussed with my grandfather. Through that interview, I was able to come to understand several things about Appalachia and its culture. I discovered that stereotype deflecting is real, language is something that Appalachians notice, and Appalachian identity is relative.

The whole idea of stereotype deflecting surrounds a concept brought up by Anne Shelby in The “R” Word. She discusses how the “real hillbillies” are hard to find. Shelby points out that if asked, some Appalachians respond by say something to the effect that the hillbillies are, “over the hill somewhere, or on up the holler, one county over and one class down” (Shelby 154). I had a similar experience during the course of my interview. I had asked my grandfather if he had ever experienced the stereotyping of Appalachians, be it in the media or in person. He responded by saying, “this didn’t come into play until, you know, later on much more years later after I left Independence that I even heard about that. But, I don’t think that it involved…, but if it did it was more of the outskirts of Independence.” I found this answer very interesting, because although my grandfather stated that he himself had never come across negative stereotypes of Appalachians growing up, such portrayals did come into play once he left his Appalachian town of Independence. Then, on the outside of Appalachia, the portrayals of Appalachians as being poor came into play. Using Shelby’s concept, my grandfather deflected the “poor” stereotype by saying that his town wasn’t poor, it was the areas just outside of Independence that were the places being portrayed as poor. This came up a second time when I was asking about misconceptions he thinks people could hold about where he grew up. He said, “Well they possibly could, you know things that come up but I don’t like to say it had to be the outskirts, but still the address is in Independence because it reached pretty far out, but not the town of Independence”. Again, he deflected, although with hesitation, the misconception about his town to the “outskirts”.

One of the questions I added to my interview protocol had to do with language and dialect. I asked, “Would you say that there’s anything unique about the language you speak, we all speak English, but different areas of the country have slight accents?” I wanted to see how an Appalachian would identify their own language, the way they speak, and the reactions they garner from it. My grandfather pointed out that he did indeed notice that his language was different, but only once he actually left his hometown. He did not bring up the fact that he received any negative reactions or discrimination because of his language. However, he did point out that outside of Independence he would get reactions to the way he spoke like, “where are you from?” The most striking response from this question was when my grandfather said, “I haven’t been able to change some of it.” This, to me, implied that he was bothered by the fact that he could not change some of his language and took notice to it. Hearing that pointed out to me that at some point, my grandfather took notice to and decided that he would rather conform his language to his surroundings than keep it. This represents the dialect “interference” that Jeffery Reaser brings up in Dialect and Education in Appalachia (Reaser 95). Also, the fact that this happened after he had left Independence and began to assimilate into a bigger city (Roanoke, Va) further points to the fact that he could have received interference from the surrounding population, possibly when he was completing his business diploma. He received the education for his diploma outside his hometown and in the city of Roanoke. It is possible that it was in the education system in Roanoke that he was subject to, “interference in formal education contexts in the realms of speaking, listening, reading, and writing” even if he did not notice it (Reaser 95).

Finally, I discovered the importance of context and identity. What I mean by context and identity in regards to Appalachia is that many Appalachians do not know that they are part of any larger “Appalachian” identity until they leave Appalachia. I was surprised to hear my grandfather say, “I never thought of myself as being Appalachian so to speak, I never heard the word when I was there…all the time I was there I never thought about it being any different from any other place.” Also, when describing Independence, Virginia, my grandfather pointed out that, “It’s very far back, it was very far back. I understand that now, I didn’t even really think about that part when I was growing up but it’s very far back in southwestern Virginia.”  So, it took him having to leave Independence to hear the word Appalachia and understand that his hometown in context, relative to other places is considered, “far back”.

Overall, it was refreshing to sit down and hear the perspective of an Appalachian, especially someone who grew up in Appalachia between 1935 and 1954, when the War on Poverty was beginning to gear up. At first, I was hesitant to interview my grandfather because of the biases that come with interviewing family members. But, I believe it turned out well because through the course of the stories and answers I heard through the interview, I found ‘cultural artifacts’ that are related to topics that have intrigued me this past semester, such as stereotyping, language, and identity.

Works Cited

Anne Shelby. “The “r” Word.” Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes, Edited by Dwight B. Billings et al., University Press of Kentucky, 1999, pp. 153–160.

Reaser, Jeffrey. “Dialect and Education in Appalachia.” Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community, Edited by Amy D. Clark and Nancy M. Hayward, University Press of Kentucky, 2013, pp. 94–109,