It was the end of summer, and I was tired of Ohio. I had spent more hours than I wanted to count on the stretch of I-70 and I-71 that takes me from Kentucky to Pennsylvania, and the idea of that lifeless stretch of interstate exhausted me. My phone map showed me three blue lines that could lead me from Pittsburgh back to Lexington.
I am not an adventurous person, so an unfamiliar route seemed intimidating and a bit unwise. Still, I decided to take the extra 45 minutes to drive through West Virginia instead of my typical Ohio trek, thinking that maybe it would at least offer some variety. The next six and a half hours were full of winding back roads and sunlight reflecting on rivers and dripping through tree leaves. The drive was hours of vast valley views followed by single gas station towns and quarries where you could see the chunks taken out of the earth, like a wound in the side of the mountains.
There’s a reason that the Appalachian trail is a common bucket list site; it’s beautiful. Its mountains have existed since before the split of Pangea. It’s a perfect landscape to pass through and admire, but for some reason–never to stay.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, residents of West Virginia have been leaving the state at a higher rate than any other state in the country between the years 2010 and 2020. As of 2023, the mortality rate in the Appalachian region remains 72% higher than the rest of the country for individuals ages 24-55, according to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Appalachia has been viewed as a problem area since the mid-twentieth century, and its problems stem from a complicated history marked by extraction from both the land and its people. In his book recounting the history of the region, historian Steven Stoll describes this extraction and corporate exploitation as one of the “defining events” that categorizes Appalachia as a region.
Corporations preyed on local poverty by offering jobs in mines, railroads and mills with low pay, long hours and dangerous working conditions. These conditions led to Appalachia, namely Kentucky, being an essential piece of the existence and persistence of labor unions in the United States. But somehow the stereotype of laziness continues to pervade public perceptions.
No one needs to look far to find the public attitudes of Appalachia. They tend to range from overly antiquated views and admiration of a quaint rural culture to complete dismissals of the hillbillies and rednecks with few teeth, no work ethic and tangled family trees. More subtly, books like J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” have perpetuated a view that Appalachian poverty stems from the region’s laziness.
In this time of political tension, it is important to state that this criticism of J. D. Vance and his book is not a political one. Instead, it is a response to his memoir, in which he asserts his personal experience as the experience of the entire region. Kentucky’s own governor, Andy Beshear, addresses these issues with “Hillbilly Elegy” best in a series of press conferences, saying “He ain’t from here.” Beshear reminded the audience that Vance had never lived in the region and had only visited it throughout his life. He directly responds to the accusation of laziness, saying, “These are the hard-working coal miners that built this country that powered the industrial revolution that created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen, they powered us through two world wars.”
Appalachian labor built the United States. But now that the profits have been pulled from the soil, America’s eyes have turned away from the Appalachia that was left behind. Between the state of the land after decades of coal, oil and lumber extraction, the commonly held views of the people and the rapid population decline, the region has been left somewhat hollow. But it is far from empty.
Appalachia continues to burst with cultural expression, not only the antiquated kind with trades like quilt and soap making. While these aspects of Appalachian life are essential, they are not the only things the region has to offer. Former West Virginia State Folklorist Emily Hilliard presents us with a form of folklife that could be monumental in the efforts toward Appalachian restoration. In her book “Making Our Future,” Hilliard shows us a more enriched view of folklife that encapsulates future-oriented folklore stemming from the counternarratives coming from the people of the region itself. This counternarrative includes everything from the stories of the mountains to the West Virginia hot dog. In all its forms, it is the insistence that the way of life in an area matters and that it is richer than any stereotype we hear about it.
In his essay “Bluefield, Light of the World,” pastor and author Travis Lowe asks, “Why have we always encouraged our best and brightest to leave? I believe it is because we never really felt we were worth it.” It is difficult to see change in an area when those best equipped to make change are shipped off to big cities or cleaner suburbs. It is even harder when we believe the lie that our place is somehow not worth it.
When I am home in Pennsylvania, and I tell people that I go to school in Kentucky, I tend to get the same response: why? I used to shrug it off or evade. As the years went by and I now enter my final year of school, I’ve realized that I accidentally put down roots here. And I have no plans of leaving anytime soon. I fell in love with the area. The people. The music and the stories.
In an age of disconnection, a rootedness in place is a kind of revolution. An insistence, despite all protestations or dismissals, that the way of life and the beauty of a place is worth it is somewhat radical. But to convince the rest of the world that would cast Appalachia off, we have to tell better stories. Not ones of laziness or an economically decrepit wasteland–one where culture blooms and finds soil, like greenery through sidewalk cracks.
So now when people ask me why I stay, I tell them.
Photo courtesy of Stacy Kranitz.
Appalachia: Telling Better Stories
It was the end of summer, and I was tired of Ohio. I had spent more hours than I wanted to count on the stretch of I-70 and I-71 that takes me from Kentucky to Pennsylvania, and the idea of that lifeless stretch of interstate exhausted me. My phone map showed me three blue lines that could lead me from Pittsburgh back to Lexington.
I am not an adventurous person, so an unfamiliar route seemed intimidating and a bit unwise. Still, I decided to take the extra 45 minutes to drive through West Virginia instead of my typical Ohio trek, thinking that maybe it would at least offer some variety. The next six and a half hours were full of winding back roads and sunlight reflecting on rivers and dripping through tree leaves. The drive was hours of vast valley views followed by single gas station towns and quarries where you could see the chunks taken out of the earth, like a wound in the side of the mountains.
There’s a reason that the Appalachian trail is a common bucket list site; it’s beautiful. Its mountains have existed since before the split of Pangea. It’s a perfect landscape to pass through and admire, but for some reason–never to stay.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, residents of West Virginia have been leaving the state at a higher rate than any other state in the country between the years 2010 and 2020. As of 2023, the mortality rate in the Appalachian region remains 72% higher than the rest of the country for individuals ages 24-55, according to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Appalachia has been viewed as a problem area since the mid-twentieth century, and its problems stem from a complicated history marked by extraction from both the land and its people. In his book recounting the history of the region, historian Steven Stoll describes this extraction and corporate exploitation as one of the “defining events” that categorizes Appalachia as a region.
Corporations preyed on local poverty by offering jobs in mines, railroads and mills with low pay, long hours and dangerous working conditions. These conditions led to Appalachia, namely Kentucky, being an essential piece of the existence and persistence of labor unions in the United States. But somehow the stereotype of laziness continues to pervade public perceptions.
No one needs to look far to find the public attitudes of Appalachia. They tend to range from overly antiquated views and admiration of a quaint rural culture to complete dismissals of the hillbillies and rednecks with few teeth, no work ethic and tangled family trees. More subtly, books like J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” have perpetuated a view that Appalachian poverty stems from the region’s laziness.
In this time of political tension, it is important to state that this criticism of J. D. Vance and his book is not a political one. Instead, it is a response to his memoir, in which he asserts his personal experience as the experience of the entire region. Kentucky’s own governor, Andy Beshear, addresses these issues with “Hillbilly Elegy” best in a series of press conferences, saying “He ain’t from here.” Beshear reminded the audience that Vance had never lived in the region and had only visited it throughout his life. He directly responds to the accusation of laziness, saying, “These are the hard-working coal miners that built this country that powered the industrial revolution that created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen, they powered us through two world wars.”
Appalachian labor built the United States. But now that the profits have been pulled from the soil, America’s eyes have turned away from the Appalachia that was left behind. Between the state of the land after decades of coal, oil and lumber extraction, the commonly held views of the people and the rapid population decline, the region has been left somewhat hollow. But it is far from empty.
Appalachia continues to burst with cultural expression, not only the antiquated kind with trades like quilt and soap making. While these aspects of Appalachian life are essential, they are not the only things the region has to offer. Former West Virginia State Folklorist Emily Hilliard presents us with a form of folklife that could be monumental in the efforts toward Appalachian restoration. In her book “Making Our Future,” Hilliard shows us a more enriched view of folklife that encapsulates future-oriented folklore stemming from the counternarratives coming from the people of the region itself. This counternarrative includes everything from the stories of the mountains to the West Virginia hot dog. In all its forms, it is the insistence that the way of life in an area matters and that it is richer than any stereotype we hear about it.
In his essay “Bluefield, Light of the World,” pastor and author Travis Lowe asks, “Why have we always encouraged our best and brightest to leave? I believe it is because we never really felt we were worth it.” It is difficult to see change in an area when those best equipped to make change are shipped off to big cities or cleaner suburbs. It is even harder when we believe the lie that our place is somehow not worth it.
When I am home in Pennsylvania, and I tell people that I go to school in Kentucky, I tend to get the same response: why? I used to shrug it off or evade. As the years went by and I now enter my final year of school, I’ve realized that I accidentally put down roots here. And I have no plans of leaving anytime soon. I fell in love with the area. The people. The music and the stories.
In an age of disconnection, a rootedness in place is a kind of revolution. An insistence, despite all protestations or dismissals, that the way of life and the beauty of a place is worth it is somewhat radical. But to convince the rest of the world that would cast Appalachia off, we have to tell better stories. Not ones of laziness or an economically decrepit wasteland–one where culture blooms and finds soil, like greenery through sidewalk cracks.
So now when people ask me why I stay, I tell them.
Photo courtesy of Stacy Kranitz.