Gwenda Bond linked an interesting article from Southern Cultures. The author, Meredith McCarroll, who comes from Western North Carolina, talks about her efforts to blend in and hide her cultural heritage and eventual acceptance of who she is.
Yet while I was proud of my home, I was also learning that powerful stereotypes about Appalachia had arrived in places like Boston well before me and had influenced the way that even the most considerate people thought about me. The banjo lick from Deliverance backed many introductory conversations when I said where I was from. Instead of calling people out for their ignorance, I distanced myself from Haywood County. I laughed along. I waited longer and longer to reveal my background. I blended in. During this time, I applied to graduate school. In my visits to prestigious universities in Boston, I actively tried to “talk right” and hide my accent. One lingering linguistic marker caused me the most panic when I slipped. Long after I attached ‘G’s to my gerunds and bleached out the local color from my language, I stumbled over the word “on.” When my mom told me to put my coat on, those words rhymed. She told me to call her when I was on the road. And those words rhymed. To my Appalachian tongue, “own” and “on” were pronounced exactly the same way. But not for the rest of the world, I learned. This reminder that I was not from around here meant, to me, that I might not belong in a Boston graduate school.
I learned to always use adverbs. I took my groceries from a buggy and put them in a cart. I (nearly) stopped calling my hat a toboggan. I forced my vowels into shape. It worked. I got into graduate school. I got a PhD. I learned to pass. But I lost my voice. With Granny’s chiding in my ear—“You’re talking uppity now that you live in Baaaaahston”—I developed a new way of speaking. And it wasn’t until a decade later that I heard my own repressed voice echoed back to me in West Virginia.
I still say buggy. I learned my English in North Georgia. My first trip to a US grocery store, featured Piggly Wiggly. I could by now lose the accent, but I don’t care to, because that’s who I am. My daughters are the same. Neither of them looks typically American, both of them picked up a slight accent from me, and people comment on it. Both of them tried to fit in when they were teenagers but now they are adults. Kid 2 was trying to cheer Kid 1 one after someone said something snide to her out of pure spite.
The truth is that you and me both are very pretty in a foreign way. We don’t look American. We bring attention to ourselves even when we’re not trying and some girls see that and are immediately threatened.
This is true. Our kids are unusual and memorable, both in their looks and background, and people react to it, mostly with interest but sometimes with spite.
So I get feeling like an outsider.
That said, I intensely dislike Western North Carolina and Appalachia at large. ( By this I don;t mean places like Asheville. I mean deep mountain towns.) People come there and see beautiful mountains. I see crushing poverty. I see people who start the conversation with “who you’re kin to” before deciding if they’ll repair your car and say things like, “You’re foreign. You don’t need to be here.” I see self-segregation. I see a lot of religious intolerance. No church in Jackson county would marry us unless we went there for a year and proved that we were good enough, which was fine with me, but getting constantly judged because you don’t go to church to get saved every Sunday got old fast.
I see a culture where – if you’re not from around there – it’s okay to take advantage of you. It’s okay to charge you double for the same repair, it’s okay to bump you down the line for work you need to get done, and it’s okay to feel superior to you while all of this is happening, because you’re either a Floridiot, who obviously has a ton of money to spend on vacation house or you’re a foreigner and you don’t belong in the country anyhow.
Gordon probably has a different perspective, but I have to tell you, after living there for five years, I couldn’t get out fast enough.
Gordon here: I will say only this, there is a reason we haven’t lived in Jackson Co, NC for a very long while. I lost my accent like Meredith did, but I don’t miss it.
I presently live in NC. I’m from up “up north” and a “damned Yankee”; I don’t let it bother me anymore. When I was young, I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., people made fun of my accent there because I sounded “Spicish” (Spanish). Then moved on to NJ; sounded way too “Brooklyn” and people assumed I was stupid bcse of the way I sounded. I’m happy, was always happy with the way I talked. I can speak three languages read two and understand four. My extended family is so totally multicultural we can be called the United Nations. Some isolated peoples (?) can be ignorant of differences but that’s on them. I’ll close with this:
I started a new job here in North Carolina, and met some fabulous people. One was speaking about what he did on his day off. Being new here I hadn’t become accustomed to the local vernacular. He said he was helping a “widder” woman with the lawn. I replied with : “Her windows?” He said No a widder woman. Me: Huh? Him: “What do you call a woman that’s lost her husband?” Me: ” I don’t know, lucky?”
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your reply to what do you call a woman that’s lost her husband!!!! LMAO
I am a sixth generation native Texan, and throughout my life I have been accused of being from all sorts of unlikely places because I don’t particularly have the “Texan Twang”. Don’t get me wrong, when I set my mind to it, I can “twang” with the best of them. But I have to think about how to pronounce the words to achieve it.
And I’ve experienced the closed against outsiders mindset here in Texas. I rather imagine it is quite common to smaller communities, as well as communities without much resources other than its people. I consider it a sort of intellectual inbreeding, and the small community we lived in for 30 years was a prime example of that sort of mind set. They were very proud of their “Czech” heritage, when the Czechs did not arrive until the 1890’s, and my ancestors helped to settle that part of Texas.
The high school students would graduate and go away just long enough to get a college degree and then come back to work for the school system. No one ever learned anything from the outside. They were too busy reinforcing their stereotypes.
I guess I have to brag a little on my local area. I live in northwestern Louisiana – generally not looked upon as a fortunate circumstance 🙂 – and people here are incredibly kind and welcoming, especially to those from somewhere else. I guess we feel badly for them, since they are away from their extended families, so we do our best to make them part of ours. But Louisiana is different in a lot of ways from the rest of the South and everyone who visits comments on how friendly the locals are. We have a large Air Force base here and many choose to retire here in part because it is just a friendly place to be. It makes up for a lot of our shortcomings in other areas.
Suzanne, I’d guess the area around Barksdale is different. I surely wouldn’t give Louisiana at large, or north Louisiana, as much credit as you do. I grew up in Monroe and now live in an Appalachian town of similar size, and I don’t see that much difference in attitudes. They are friendly and helpful as can be to anyone who’s accepted (as a neighbor, a fellow church member, or same economic class, for example).
But in their attitudes and outlook, most people in each town are deliberately anti-intellectual and they think that anyone different from them needs to leave.
I can understand why racism exists in north Louisiana, but I was surprised by it in Appalachia. It’s the whitest place I’ve ever lived, but people still act like anyone with darker skin is suspect and likely dangerous. In both places the white people I know won’t even try to imagine why a black person might feel nauseous about a confederate statue in front of the local courthouse.
There’s a patriotism that says that if you disapprove of an action by the military or the government, then you’re anti-American. If you fail to notice any opportunity to loudly and publicly reinforce your patriotism, you are suspect. Also, Christianity and patriotism are as close as red and white stripes on a candy cane; non-Christians are threatening.
In Monroe and in Appalachia here are some things that can make a typical resident feel open-minded and able to tell themselves (and friends) that they’re not prejudiced or small-minded:
— having a black friend,
— knowing a man who’s a stay at home dad,
— working with someone who’s LGBTQ and not complaining all that much,
— having a Democrat in the family that you like okay,
— having at some point had a passport,
— owning any books beyond the bible, bible-study or self-improvement books,
— liking any ‘foreign’ food, and
— eating sushi, ever.
I feel like you nailed it. The only thing I would add to your list is “having some Indian blood.” Despite the fact that we quite literally annihilated their entire way of life, and relegated them to reservations, somehow a hundred and fifty years later, claiming to have some tenuous amount of Native American blood bestows some sort of mystical extra Southern rural Americanism cred to the family. I have never understood it. My own family for instance is basically French and Scottish, yet I have heard the pale blond, blue eyed relatives claim that some mysterious ancestor was Native American. I just bite my tongue.
I am from the Shreveport-Bossier area and feel that O.S. is the closer truth. Certainly, people are friendly but there is still that sense of “not from around here” if you are not local born and raised. Also, This area is not really small townish. There are small towns close by but the area has over 400,000 people. Barksdale is one of the biggest AFB, so naturally people are more friendly and inclusive due to the large amount of military and their families.
I hate to tell you this, but there are people who think it’s okay to take advantage of you everywhere. North, South, East, West, town, country, city – doesn’t matter. They don’t need an excuse but they will take one if available. The religious intolerance is endemic across the rural South, not just Appalachia. In general, urban and suburban areas are more tolerant than rural ones. Happily, there are exceptions to all of this. When people get to know actual human beings, it tends to change things for the better.
“Actual human beings.” Wow.
Sorry, I just realized that could appear critical. I meant the quote as an appreciation of the phrase.
Yep, once they get to know them, they recognize them for what they are. Amazing!
That’s absolutely true. Actual human beings are usually awesome.
I come from a country where you had to bribe people left and right. I get that culture. But deep Appalachia just destroyed me. We were dirt poor. We would scrape up and give people money to do simple things, like repair the floor. They wouldn’t show up. We wouldn’t hear from them for days. One time while I called, I heard the woman on the phone say, “Are you going to that foreign girl’s place?” And the guy was like, “Naaah, they can wait.”
One time I called to check if an autopart shop had windshield wipers, and they told me to put my husband or my daddy on the phone. I have so many stories. So many.
Yuck:( That area probably doesn’t get enough oxygen.
I lived in TN for 8 years, born and raised in south Jersey, been in Austin TX for almost 20. I worked in a Waffle House until I left for grad school. Being a catholic I was told constantly that I was going to hell unless I was saved. I would tell them I would see them down there I guess because that’s not how my religion worked. I was also constantly told I needed a man in my life so I always told them that I know how to change the oil in my car and a flat tire, I choose to pay to have it done. I need a man for only one thing in my life and most of the time they aren’t any good at it and they make toys to take care of the problem.
We moved to Utah in 1972. Mormon country was interesting. No bars in town limits but outside was okay and bring your own bottle was the norm. My husband picked up a part-time job at the local garage. They were an interesting couple, yapped at each other all the time about anything and everything. (She pointed out a man to me one day, told me he was a church bishop on Sunday but any other day he’d rob you blind.) I was at the laundromat one morning talking to a young woman while we waited for the wash to finish. She informed me her mother told her, when she was 14, if she was old enough to think about marriage she was old enough to be married. I was stunned to say the least. Anyway, I carpooled to work with a woman who worked at the same clinic I did. She warshed clothes and bath’d the cat. She was the only person I ever heard say that so I’m not sure where it came from. Nice people for the most part but some days it was real culture shock for the 20 year old newlywed I was at that time. As I’ve gotten older I occasionally wonder how they are and where they ended up. I have fond memories of a few of them, some very nice women worked at that clinic. Life is interesting, a sense of humor is required, and always “consider the source!”
I love the US. But as soon as I open my mouth I know I will get comments. People are friendly and complementary but my difference is pointed out several times a day. I once had to tell a family that their critically I’ll father was coding and probably would not survive. After a long pause one of them said, ‘where you from?’.
*facepalm* Y’know, there was a time when this reaction would have surprised me.
This discussion reminds me of My Fair Lady and Henry Higgins: “Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?”
My God! I grew up in Haywood County (as did the writer of this article) from the ages of 7 to 13 as a Korean-American bookworm (girl) with educated medical professionals as parents. I know this town! I stood out in ALL the ways a person possibly could. This article brought me right back to that time and place. I had such a carefree childhood and didn’t realize until later that my parents were miserable. I was miserable myself but didn’t have the ability to recognize this until much later. It has been 25 years since my family moved away and I was very happy to live in NYC as a young adult and now LA. I’m with Ilona and Gordon; I never want to go back. Also, my accent is a complete mess. 🙂
Oh man, did this post resonate! I’m from Alabama, but from the biggest city (Birmingham) so I don’t have all that strong of a Southern accent. I went to college in NC, but at a school with lots of students from NY and NJ, and I got asked a lot of questions like did we have indoor plumbing when they found out where I was from. On the flip side, after college I was a waiter’s assistant at a fine dining restaurant in Birmingham, and a couple refused to believe I was a local because I didn’t have a strong accent and because when they asked how I was doing that evening, I said “well” instead of “good.” There’s not a lot of the small town “who are your people” here (except possibly in the most affluent suburb) (because it’s a city with a strong medical university and we have tons of people from all over the world here.)
When I was younger I did distance myself from where I was from when I went elsewhere–in a lot of ways it was easier to play into the preconceptions people had about the south. It was kind of like being proud of being “one of the guys” when you’re a woman–you’re not like those *other* women/Southerners/whatever, so *you’re* cool. Only later did I realize what a toxic mindset this was, and how it was a dick move to all those other people and was basically repudiating part of myself.
I’m sorry you’re daughters have had to deal with people judging them & being spiteful. Kid 2 sounds like she has a great perspective on it.
The posts above about code-switching were definitely food for thought as well. My mom is from Louisiana and most of the time, you’d never guess (until she says New Orleans)–except if she’s on the phone to one of her siblings. Her accent thickens up like a roux. 🙂
Argh! “your daughters”.
I just wonder how your fans, who live in the areas discussed and love their home feel when dissed in a worldwide forum!
Yeah, as a native of Asheville, NC, this makes me sad and I’m trying really hard not to be defensive, especially since I’m a fan. I lived in the mountains of NC for the first 25 years of my life and only moved away after I married. In the last 20 years, my husband (a Chicago native) and I have lived in several different places including a foreign country—although it was Bermuda, so not that foreign—and I’ve gotta say, it’s tough to be an outsider anywhere. Appalachia does not have a monopoly on this.
Oh please, you’re from Asheville. That’s a different country. I am talking Cullowhee. Or better yet Andrews. When I came to Andrews for Christmas break with my roommate, they had two restaurants, Hardees and a Chinese Place. I was told to not eat at the Chinese place because when you go to Hardees, you see fat people, so food must be good. When you go to the Chinese place, you see racial slur here, who are skinny so the food is crap.
For the entertainment, my roommate and her male friends loaded me into a truck and we drove around in the dark in the snow on mountain roads while they drank beer. I was handed an empty beer bottle and told to throw it at the STOP sign.
I am not saying one can’t love Appalachia. I am saying that I got to see the ugly of it and it made me want to move.
I agree with Maria. It’s hard not be be defensive since I love you guys. But I’m from Lincolnton, North Carolina which is between the mountains and Charlotte. I also lived in the Eastern part the state for 5 years, which is where I experienced more of what you spoke of than I ever have in my home town.
But, the mountain area is my heart and home. Yes, I have a southern accent and I’m proud of that. I have also been stereo typed, when i have to make calls to other non-southern states for work, as being a “dumb southerner” because of the way i speak . Yes I hunt, but I don’t lock bears up in my back yard. I’m a christian and a republican. But, I also read science fiction and have a gay best friend.
I hate you guys had such a terrible experience. But, we all aren’t bad nor do we all hold the same views. I think there are pros and cons to any areas of the world. I just think mine is the best. 🙂
The buggy/ cart dilemma confused me slightly at first – in English, I think you are talking about a trolley to put shopping in! A buggy is where you put your very young children to take them out when you go shopping and so on.
Wherever I’ve travelled in Europe, North America and Asia, people hearing me speak usually ask where I am from and suggest things to see or do in my free time, so my experiences abroad have been positive. However, I have been mocked by people with regional accents in my own country – to them, I’m clearly not from ‘around here’. I really like to hear regional accents, and my ears pick them up fast enough that I develop some of the local accent in a couple of days. That causes problems though – people can think I am mocking them. I never had a defined accent to lose, so maybe that’s why they fascinate me so much!
Not speaking like everyone else is a problem for refugees and migrants, as well as returnees whose accent has been toned down. As long as a person can be understood, that should be enough 🙂
Just goes to show how varied the English language really is. In Ohio we use grocery carts when shopping for food. Baby buggys (or strollers) are used to transport infants (toddlers) by foot. Trollies are mass transit vehicles that run on electric train tracks and move people around town. In Cincinnati we use the words please and pardon interchangeably due to our large German heritage. It’s a crazy language.
I am so out of touch. At first I thought someone was referring to a horse drawn vehicle, a buggy. So out of touch LOL. English is such an interesting language.
I’m a Canadian,,, but up until a few years back I’d never have claimed to be one. I’d have proudly said, “I’m a Newfoundlander, born and bred.” 🙂
With very few changes your article could be written about us. The only real change would involve the going back portion. Without exception, Newfoundlanders want to go home.
A well known (?) person once said, “When you get to heaven you’ll recognize all the Newfoundlanders, as they’ll be the ones begging to go home.”
What does, “looking American”, look like? My mother is Hispanic, my father is European (their heritage) – would I be considered as looking American?
By “looking American” in this case, Kid 2 meant looking like a typical white kid you can find in Texas, because that’s how people judge them. Other white people literally told them before that they “don;t look American.” The American really should be in quotes, but because this was a text, she didn’t bother since her sister knew what she meant.
The stereotype is a corn-fed Iowa kid, blond and blue-eyed. Your daughters are exotic looking, much more attractive. They are also smarter with a broader world view than most, from what you have written. And it’s hard being young – even the prom king and queen have issues. It does get better, though; as you have proved, you can move.
….most blondes I know all get there color from the same bottle, not their DNA. 🙂 No judgement, I get my “youth” from the same kind of bottle.
I loved what you told us via Nevada and her conversation with Rynda and where we find our security. As always, thank you for interesting conversation.
It’s a cruel, crazy, beautiful world and I’m glad to share it with all of you. Sometimes on really rough days I re-read blogs and the comment sections where the BDH weighs in. Here, unique and imperfect souls meet and mingle, slay monsters, plead for snippets, critique color choices, cure itchy throats… I imagine each of you with your own voice, back story, challenges, victories, and point of view. It makes my world bigger, better, and more interesting to be part of this forum. You all take me out of myself and into vast universes of exceptional wonders.
There are always going to be little pockets of inbred ideology and values. Oddly enough they are not restricted to small towns, though the effect is intensified by isolation. These common bits of local color/local flavor have value in the fact it shows us how exposure to varity broadens everyone’s horizons and how lack of varity can be a steely toothed trap otherwise known as ‘comfort in what’s familiar’.
I am grateful that this forum sometimes shows me where I’ve been ensnared while respecting me where I’m at -that is a rare sort of courage the Authorlords and members of BDH seems to have in common. It’s a cruel, crazy, beautiful world and I’m glad to share it with all of you.
At first I was thinking of this only in terms of accents in other languages – the ongoing teasing about my Chinese accent (not to mention the general hilarity of an oversized white girl who speaks Chinese), or living in Turkey when what I really spoke was Kazakh (they’re more or less mutually intelligible, but not only did I have a noticeable accent, vocabulary reads as more archaic – imagine someone wandering around babbling in Shakespearean English. My modern Turkish did get a lot better…) I grew up around a large University on the west coast, and between that and my multicultural family I remember being told that it sounded like I’d spent time traveling before I even had. These days, I mostly seem to blend in or stand out at will. Well, in terms of accent.
But then I think about moving to Cleveland, and the huge amount of culture shock around doing being a woman wrong. I’d wear the same clothes I wore in Seattle – loose yoga pants, a t-shirt – and all the sudden, a barrage of catcalls. A lot of feedback that my level of assertiveness and self-assurance wasn’t socially appropriate (and, well, tough. If the men were toning it down, I’d have taken it as a different social norm, but…) Then I had multiple people (like people at blood drives, intake people at the doctors) ask if I were transgender. And it was clearly not a standard question. Okay… seriously, I’m tall, I have fairly broad shoulders, and I’m muscular. I’m also curvy as heck – I’m not saying it’s impossible, it’s totally possible (though far more likely if someone got on hormones early). But they pretty much went “Oh, she’s tall, strong, and confident – she must be trans!” …which is so many kinds of messed up.
People are people everywhere, and human nature doesn’t change that drastically, but as it’s expressed within a culture or subculture beyond accents and appearance can seem so different because we tend to think it’s the other culture/appearance that is bad and not the behavior.
It took me so many decades to realize that prejudice and racism and cliques aren’t necessarily personal, and that just because some people makes a snap judgement about me based on whatever information they processed first doesn’t necessarily mean that person is racist or prejudiced, but just a person doing what most people do when they meet someone new – classify you! (And that I finally accepted I will probably never fit in anywhere for very long, so now I don’t worry about it.)
Since where I grew up was very racially and culturally divided with some ugly behavior that was entrenched in some families, It was a breakthrough for me to realize it’s the diehard racists who are truly hateful and to be avoided, and that judgmental people are not by default racist. It made it so much easier to accept the “you’re not one of us” attitude from other people when I realized that’s essentially what they’re acting out, and not necessarily “I don’t like you or trust you because you’re [insert wrong race/culture here].”
This is a really difficult concept to explain, though. It’s also very difficult to explain to non-outsiders why anyone who might be considered another race or ethnicity or culture would be sensitive, because they really don’t think people are being judgmental or exclusionary or discriminatory and that the “other” person is being too sensitive. It’s equally difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t match the current cultural/ethnic group that hurtful statements and exclusionary behavior are not necessarily related to that person’s culture or ethnicity. Sometimes it is, but I now believe that at least half the time it’s just “you’re not one of us, you’re not from around here, you’re interrupting me, you’re rude, you’re taller, you must think you’re better than me, etc.” and that that person or those people would react exactly the same way to any outsider for whatever reason happens to irk them at that moment. And some people are easily irked and overly fixated on their own opinions which does NOT make them racist.
For me a toboggan is something long and made out of wood with a curved front end that you and your friends use to slide down a snowy hill ? A toque is a knit woolen hat, often with a pom pom your wear when its cold. Still get asked to say about and roof when I travel to USA. And when I moved to Vancouver I had several people comment on my country accent even though there isn’t a pronounced difference like there is in Texas or the south. In Canada it is more likely to be a difference in the speed of speech although certain areas do have distinctive accents, more so in the Eastern provinces. Torontonians for example are famous for calling their city Toronno eluding over the last T. French Canadians can speak very quickly in Quebecois a mixture of French and slang while people of the Gaspe Peninsula have a heavier accent in general than someone in Montreal. And yes some Canadians do use the all inquisitive eh? IE What you gonna do eh? Or Good times eh? You know it eh. It is not used as often as people outside of Canada think.
I lived in Toronto for a year (and yes, I do call it Toronno) and found it really interesting that my Aussie accent was more easily understood by the immigrant/non white Canadians.
And travelling in the US was even more interesting. Some people would stare at me blankly as if I wasn’t even speaking English….
I’m from CINCINNATI and grew up very near our University. Thus, I was blessed with a multi-cultural upbringing early on. Then we moved to the burbs when I went to Junior high. Such a different world. No people of color. The kids at my new school asked me what it was like to talk to “colored people”. No one in my new school had ever met a black person in their entire life. Well, I grew up I moved back into the city and have worked for my beloved university for almost 40 years now. I have had the privilege of working with people from around the planet. Even holding the hands of foreign students who are crying because they are homesick in this strange land of ours. Thanks to all for sharing your stories. My love and respect to all of you.
I’m a Brit so don’t really know much about regional identities in the US. However, some of the comments on this thread remind me of a book I read called ‘The Moonshine Mule’ by Tom Freemantle (another Brit). It’s an account of how he walked with a mule across the US from the Mexican border to New York. More or less everywhere he went he was treated with generosity and kindness but whoever he came across would warn him about the folk in the next county/state and tell him that he wouldn’t be treated well there. He’d get to the next county/state and be treated with generosity and kindness but would then be warned about the next place on his journey…
I was reminded of the only time I have heard my husband say something like this. We were watching “Firefly” 1st run on TV, and Morena Baccarin came on the screen for our first viewing. He choked a bit on water and said, “she doesn’t look american!” After that we never missed a show. Until cancellation.
Ah well. It doesn’t matter what your accent is, what your religion is or what you look like. Someone somewhere is not going to like you just because of that. I’ve worked for an airline, travelled a little and the only places I have ever been afraid for my life was once in rural Georgia. That was a truly threatening group .And once in my native city of Baaahstun. That was just an attempted mugging. I am blond, hazel eyed and fair skinned. I worked for an Asian airline and sometimes was surprised by my reflection after a day of being with Asians. Sometimes they would forget that I was American and would tell each other tales about “stupid” or “lazy” Americans. I’d just sit. Sometimes there would be a sudden silence that meant, “Ooops, we’ve got one here.” On the whole I’ve never had a lot of trouble getting along., but we are considering moving from NH to SC. Guess we’d better think hard.
To grow up with different “cultural backgrounds” (in regards to geography, mother tongue and other factors) it’s a blessing. It provides you with a unique insight, and sometimes it also makes you stand out sweetly. I am glad kid 2 has helped kid 1 to realize that (great brothers and sisters learn from each other) Thank you for sharing your experiences with us ♡
Lived in Kentucky Louisiana Oklahoma and deeply despised the deadly combination of generational poverty deep dish commitment to ignorance and pride before simple common sense. The book hillbilly elegy got it exactly right.
I was once given a train ticket to leave the country, because the ticket seller thought I sounded foreign. Two towns with the same name, one in USA and one in Canada. You have a “Canadian” accent, therefor you must go to Canada. Doubly annoying because that happened in my home town. My accent is local, but it’s 100 years old, learned from my grandparents.
I can’t comment on Appalachia, having never been there, nor close…but your daughters’ experience strikes home. I’m the foreign mom and we live in Japan. My daughter and son are that almost mystically cool combo, Caucasian “halfs” (usual phrase, and overall a “positive” thing, except when it isn’t.) Humans are remarkably sensitive to the faintest scent of other, however it is defined. My son had to dye his hair black so a teacher would allow him to go on a junior high excursion…lots of issues were at play, so didn’t meet/ gently confront said teacher until after the dye job…his shock at my “blondness” (I’m brunette) led to an apology, particularly to son. They have learned, with tears and triumph, to own the difference and enjoy who they are, and the opportunities that come along. I hope your daughters also rock the difference and celebrate the “extra” in who they are.
I’m with you Ilona. I sadly live in Virginia. I moved here in 1998 with my parents; I wait for the day that I can finally escape this hell back home north. I have very few or positive memories/experiences of living here; almost none of them envolve humans. I’m an outsider and always will be. A damn Catholic Yankee with a degree and a love of my heritage. Though I’m not in Appalachia, I think it’s just as bad; I live in a small rural town. I’m always asked who my “kin” are; lots of interactions are based on that alone. I recieved death threats and intense bullying during school; with some teachers who helped or enjoyed it. I’ve even had people say that the domestic violence I experienced by an ex was deserved; my favorite was when I was told that was my punishment for dateing a “good Southern boy”. While I’m sure this isn’t solely due to where I live (there are always good and bad people/places/sterotypes) it’s certainly shaped my view and feelings about Virginia.
In FL I met a woman who had a self admitted seriously “hick” backwoods Georgia accent. It took me a considerable time before the accent stopped jarring my ears every time I saw her. She turned out to be, once I could actually hear her words and not her accent, a brilliant, creative person with a self deprecating sense of humor and the energy and pure drive that put most people that I know to shame. She’s had reversals in her life and come out on top. She reinforced something I learned a long time ago, don’t assume anything about intelligence from an accent or dialect — no matter how jarring!
I’m 70, European born, and don’t have much accent left, you’d mainly hear NY, and I’m a US citizen. Having lived in a few countries, and in more than a few US states, I can say that people judge people for all sorts of reasons, no matter one’s age. I’m married to a man of a religious minority’ and I converted from Christianity to a non-Christian religion where I felt at home, I learned to deal and so did my girls. My main prejudice is against those who have the capacity, but who lack intellectual curiosity. I see coastal urban US areas as being less constricted in thinking and outlook. Mainly because the people who live there have been exposed, at young ages, in school, to people who are diffferent from them, who may know nothing about one’s culture or home country, and exposed on a regular basis.
People who are born, live and die in the same town, county or, in some cases the same US state (especially if it’s myopic one) seem to have (in my experiences) far less tolerance. I attribute that to the lack of exposure to differences in their everyday lives. If they can separate themselves from personal encounters with those who are different, in any way different, they can assure themselves that life is as it should be. Their lives become self fulling prophecies, and the certainly of same-ness assures them that life should be the way they perceive it to be.
I often wish every HS student could live abroad for 6-12 months. International exchange programs, or even regional exchange programs (within a country), are nothing short of transformational experiences. I’ve read the research that proves that. I’ve also experienced geographic change as well as major life changes many times, and so have my girls. Change and being forced outside of one’s preferred mental, physical and emotional ‘box’ is an enlightening thing. Well that, or it forces you back into a hole, where you stay peering out the world, for the rest of your life! If one can be open to new voices, places, and new experiences, life has a lot of wonderful things to offer and to teach, tolerance of differences is one of them.
Oh boy… this hit home for me but in different ways. I live in Vermont, (so therefore I’m a “hick”, not a “hillbilly” or “redneck”), in the top third of the Appalachian mountain range in a section affectionately referred to as “The Green Mountains”.
I can relate to the lady in the article. People usually single me out immediately if I’m not careful to “bland” my language. The “country” accent is softer here, for sure, in New England and sometimes a little “foreign” according to some out of state folks. I’ve never really understood what they meant… all I know is that people often ask if we are European when we put on our best pronunciation. Maybe it’s because we sound slightly French when we swallow our T’s… Vermont is not said as “VermonT”… it’s pronounced more like “Ver-mon”…
True story: a group of my classmates in high school went to a youth Government trip thing in DC and many of the other groups from around the country kept asking why they were there and what country they were from. When my classmates told them they were American and from Vermont, they were usually asked what state that was in…
Some people to this day believe we are a part of Canada… and some of us wish we were… especially now… I cannot tell you how many times I’ve personally had to explain to people that Vermont is in fact a real state and is not a part of New York or New Hampshire… despite what both of our neighboring states tried to pull off in the early days of our country… (Sorry… a bit of regional bristling there…)
Unlike what Whoopie Goldberg claimed during the last presidential election (shudder), Vermont is NOT a wealthy state. There are still a very large number of poor and working class poor families disproportionate to our total permanent population who struggle with being priced out of their own communities by rich city folks purchasing vacation homes that empty out towns during the off-seasons. My family on my mother’s side has literally lived in Vermont since the mid/late 1600’s, and were mostly farmers. My mother’s family was horribly poor, and my own childhood was only better in comparison to hers, really. Maybe there aren’t many people quite as destitute as those in the southern reaches of the Appalachians, but at that point it comes to splitting hairs about who is MORE poor. (I kid you not… the “who is more poor” is a real argument… )
There are even regional arguments here in Vermont… the northern third thinks the bottom third are “Flatlanders” (NOT a compliment… it’s a pretty rude way to refer to a non-Vermonter, regardless if they are from a place with or without mountains…), we in the middle get it from both ends, and the Northeast Kingdom (referred to locally as The Kingdom up there) is our personal “banjo” area and is more or less the most rural and most likely to give gunshot warnings… That said… Vermont on the whole is far less religious and much more liberal than our southern cousins… so perhaps there is something in that to explain our differences… I’m not sure…
As different as we are from the south, we are also alike in that we are usually written of as ignorant country bumpkins with our own culture often mocked and derided… sometimes deservedly so, to be honest.
I remember being shocked and outraged when a friend in California laughed about how he could pick up a truck load of Mexicans and get them to re-scape his lawn for $50 and a case of beer each. It sounded like slave labor to me, or taking advantage of people in a particular situation in the very least. I’m still pissed about it to be honest. I’m sure there was some kind of local-ism I was missing, but I cannot to this day comprehend it when someone in one breath complains about illegal immigrants and then laughs about taking advantage of them in the next breath. How can they resolve the two points of view? I guess this shows that everyone has issues.
In my own family I see a cultural split. On one hand many were proud of me going to college, but on the other hand many of those same people despised me for “being uppity” or trying to be better than they are. When I’m with my extended family, I usually slip a little bit back into my familial accent (“Poor Hick Vermonter from the wrong side of the tracks”) so they don’t ostracize me. However, I have to carefully choose and pronounce everything I say to my boss and to my fiance’s much more affluent family, and get odd if not downright disapproving looks the few times I slip a little Vermontism into my speech.
My fiance says that when I get mad, I slip the most accent wise, and I’m too mad to care in the moment. He thinks it’s adorable… his affluent and very German parents don’t… I get frustrated to say the least. It’s not that I particularly WANT to cling to my native accent, it’s just that I wish I didn’t have to care one way or the other.
Oh well… I guess you really can’t get there from here…
I like your balanced perspective, and I’m sorry you were treated with legalism and not kindness by the church.
My first day in Atlanta, Georgia, after moving from New Mexico, I was baffled by two other kids who told me they ‘fell.’ It took a southern translator to explain that they were sharing their inability to pass seventh grade.
My experience was in Hendersonville NC. I am from NYC and have a noticeable NY accent. My father had bought a second home in Hendersonville for his new wife. They both loved the mountains and when he passed I went there to assist his wife with taking care of his estate as he also had a house in NY . My first shocking experience was when I met their neighbor who wanted to know who my daughter was and why did she have such dark skin (she is Hispanic greek and Armenian ) and then asked me if my s–c husband left me holding the bag. My brother daughter and I were speechless. He then told me that Yankees are not usually tolerated but my father and his wife were ok . The second experience was at the court house where I needed a legal form for my father’s estate and was told that Yankees could wait until everyone else was taken care of . I waited 3 hours and when I asked why I had to wait she told me that I could come back next week if waiting was a problem, Needless to say I never have returned to Hendersonville and have no desire to ever return to see the smokey mountains