Appalachia: 2011...10 years ago

Appalachia is one of America's most unique cultural trademarks. No where else in the world do people speak with such noticeable accents and so many words made up it just sounds like they're saying 3 words at once. Given this as it may be, many people from America don't even know what its really like in the genuine Appalachian towns. I asked three different people some questions about what they think of Appalachia. This isn't totally conclusive about all of America but it gives you an idea of what some of the people our age think.

I interviewed 3 people in my dorm for this experiment. Strangely enough, they all gave me the same answers! The first question I asked was what is the very first thing they think of when they hear Appalachia. They very quickly said Appalachian mountains! That's an easy answer given they just tacked on mountains at the end but it gives us an idea of what people think of Appalachia. Most mountains are secluded, hard to get to, and sometimes you never want to leave right? And Appalachians live in exactly those types of places. How could we have Appalachia without the mountains? We wouldn't and the atmosphere would be much different I predict. The next thing I asked them was does they consider themselves an Appalachian. Again they very quickly said no. They don't come from a community anywhere close to the Appalachian mountains. So, what can we learn from this answer? I have a feeling unless you really want to live in Appalachia, you will probably always answer no to this question. This could be for a number of reasons, one being because your definition of Appalachia doesn't match your town that you live in or came from. Two, you may come from a town that might resemble an Appalachian town, but you don't want to be considered an Appalachian per se so you say no. This brings up an interesting thought. Why wouldn't someone want to be considered an Appalachian? One of the most popular reasons might be because the only kind of people who live in those areas are uneducated and don't make very much money. And that's understandable because one of the most important things society has told us that can make us happy is money and that requires an education so we don't want people to see that we are failing at that...but thats a whole other blog.

The last question I asked was do you know anyone who is an Appalachian. Again, the reoccurring theme here of quick no's shows up and I ask myself why. It very well might be the same reason as above; they really don't know anyone in the Appalachian area. It could also be because they just don't want to be considered an Appalachian because when you have friends from a certain area you are often considered part of that area as well.

These answers are very enlightening on how people think of Appalachia. But what is Appalachia really like? Based on my experience of visiting places up in the mountains and my mother forcing me to go see how people live up there, it's really not all that bad. They don't have as much things to keep track of as we do in our city and suburban areas. They barely ever use their cell-phones, they don't even watch tv, and they definitely don't play video games. They also don't have to go to work in the city in a fast paced environment and try to do a billion things through out the day before its over. They do hard work though like farming. That in and of itself is hard work sometimes but its a different kind of hard work. Depending on your personality you may wish you could just live off the land and be a farmer and live in Appalachia. I don't think it would be as bad as some people think it is. If you really want to know what Appalachia is like get off the computer and go take a hike up to some real American homes in the mountains and see for yourself.

M&M