Last Fri. evening, Rocky and I watched the 20/20 documentary narrated by Diane Sawyer titled "Children Of the Mountains." We had totally different reactions. Rocky is a native southerner, having been born in Mississippi, spending his childhood in Georgia and Tennessee, and then the next 25 years in Delaware. He reacted to the documentary negatively saying it continued the stereotype of the Appalachian living in poverty and being "hillbillies." He was angry. He is a retired Journalist who believes in presenting both sides of the story. "Children Of the Mountains" clearly presented only one side.
My reaction was that of the social worker. I probably projected myself onto Diane Sawyer who I thought focused not on the Appalachian people but certain children who must powerlessly grow up in appalling circumstances in Appalachia. Sawyer could save herself in many people's eyes (people who are angry about the stereotyping) if she did a series of programs, perhaps on "Children Of the Tenements," "Children Of Salt Lake City," "Children of Casino Communities," "Children Of the Barrio." I thought Sawyer was saying, "Hey, look here, look at how we are abandoning our community's children."
I found it interesting that Rocky, a southerner, and I, a Yankee, had such differing reactions. Later, I talked to my California daughter who reacted just like I did, and then looked at my West Virginia storytelling friend's blog and found a number of comments from people who had reacted just like Rocky did.
As a resident of SW Virginia for the last 27 years, I have never really felt totally at home here.
Often, as soon as I say something, people look at me and say, "You're not from around here are you?" In fact, the manager of our local Office Depot said that very thing to me this week as I shopped for a flash drive that was compatible with my Mac computer. I responded by looking at him quizically, like "why are you asking me that?" He replied without my saying anything, "well most people around here don't use Macs!" I don't want to admit what I was thinking at that moment because I was successful at keeping it to myself!
My native home is Indiana and it's hard to march in a high school band, and root for the hometown at football and basketball games, and track & field events, and represent the local American Legion at Girls State, and sing "Back Home Again In Indiana" without it remaining in my heart my home. Flat though it may be, Indiana is my true home, the home my parents immigrated to from a very similar geographical area in East Germany early in the 20th century.
Frankly, I wouldn't want to live there again, especially since all my folks are deceased, so I felt forced to adopt a home as I followed Rocky to employment, and that turned out to be Washington County between Abingdon and Bristol, Virginia.
I never lived in the mountains or a hollow until I moved here in 1982. Frankly, I thought I had moved back into the 1950's; it seemed so backward. But it either progressed rapidly or I paused long enough for it to catch up because most of it seems just fine right now. So, whether I talk the right way or not, I've adopted this area as my home. I had lived here 5 years when it happened. I had been visiting my daughter in California, and realized how ugly the landscape there was along the highways, brown dead grass with lots of scattered litter, and a young man waited on me in a store with an artificial booger hanging out of his nose and safety pins in his ears, and the traffic in front of my daughter's home was horrendous. Those images were still fresh in my mind when I arrived home in the middle of an April afternoon. We drove from the airport and when I got out of the car and walked down our terraced rock garden to the house, there was a light snow covering purple and apricot pansies and bright yellow daffodils, and instantly I knew this was now "home." I was glad to be here, and nowhere else.
I now have developed a real fondness and appreciation for this area. Sometimes the native-born delight me and other times (when school principals use bad grammar on television) I'm ashamed. I love the metaphorical poetry of the local language, the humor in the words and the tone of voice, the banjo, mandolin, and autoharp music, and especially the stories. I read a lot of Appalachian authors trying to understand the local perspective of the people. I was the only person in the audience one summer for a Festival showing of a film about the religion of the area, because I didn't understand the noisy religion either. The film explained that the Appalachian wants a "heart-felt experience" when they attend church and that's what the calling out and the speaking in tongues and the scare induced by sermons about hell and damnation are all about. I have depended on the media to educate me as well as my experiences with my social work clients, my neighbors, my professional colleagues, and especially my storytelling group.
In my commentary on Granny Sue's blog, I asked if the reason West Virginians were so outraged by the documentary was because Sawyer focused on a group most affected by poverty that Appalachian really wants to deny? Granny Sue set me right on this--that they do not deny these problems with chemical abuse, but rather that they do not want to be defined in this way only, and Sawyer did not present the other side of the story--all the industrious, healthy, stable people who truly keep their communities functioning.
I have long wanted to write a book, or produce a film, that I would call "The Other Appalachians," based on the lives of the Appalachian professionals I've met in the fields of medicine, law, education, business, and the arts. But I've never pursued this objective since I done't think I have the major credential that one should have to write that sort of book--I'm not Appalachian-born.
Two years ago, or so, I read a book about "memes." The meaning of memes, as I understand and remember it, is expressions of an idea, whether truth or myth, in some verbal way (a catchy tune, an adage, a proverb, a lingering joke, a pun, etc.) that resonates with people and lives on sometimes for years. I believe that the idea that "all Appalachia is beset by poverty" is a meme. Likewise, I believe that the idea that "the Eastern Establishment (or National Media) is out to exploit the Appalachian culture" is also a meme. These ideas lead to a mind-set that feeds into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a "Us Against Them" philosophy, which is not a very healthy way for individuals, let alone communities and nations, to operate.
That's my soapbox for today. More later! Mimi
