Posted on 06/08/2021 3:23:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
The roots of faith, family, patriotism, dialect and work ethic are a prominent feature here. One of the first modern American presidents to recognize those characteristics here and in the swath of Appalachia that extends to the southwest was John F. Kennedy, who when speaking to his Cabinet in April of 1963 said that despite automation passing it by and poverty now defining it, he did not doubt its ability to succeed.
"The Appalachian region is an area rich in potential," Kennedy said. "Its people are hardworking, intelligent, resourceful, and capable of responding successfully to education and training. They are loyal to their homes, to their families, to their states, and to their country."
Within months, Kennedy was dead, but the 35th president's promise to help this region succeed lived on in the form of the Appalachian Regional Conference. Approved by Congress a year later, ARC is a federal-state partnership whose goal has been to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation.
Schoharie County marks the spot where Appalachia begins a 420-county journey through 13 states, including parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, in addition to all of West Virginia.
From beginning to end, the Appalachian region comprises 205,000 square miles that over 25 million people call home.
Many of the cities, villages, towns and rural farms in this region were some of the first plots of land settled in North America beginning in the 17th century. The original settlers were mostly Ulster Scots, fleeing religious persecution and looking for freedom and opportunity.
Family-oriented, they often kept to themselves and were early to identify themselves as part of this land and not part of any particular ethnic tribe. That is why few of their descendants even know of their Scots heritage. For them, their stories began here, which is often reflected in both the oral history and the music that has come out of these hills.
The dialect here has a choppy twang that is sharp and often contains words left over from the early settlers. The farther south you go, the twang becomes more of a drawl. Outsiders and elites often associate it with a lack of education or intellect. Locals, in turn, hear the deliberate cadence of cosmopolitan elites, which often carries no dialect, and find that it lacks character and contains too many words to make a point.
Take the back roads throughout the region, and you will find that its greatest asset is also its greatest obstacle to economic success. The distinctive mountainous terrain allows only winding, two-lane roads.
Taking a trip from one town to another, or even just going somewhere nearby, often involves snaking through narrow valleys, where the streams overflow onto the roadways or over mountaintops that are often impassable in snow, sleet or heavy rain.
The area might as well have been made for tourism. It draws trout fisherman, hikers, boaters, swimmers, hunters, snowshoers and skiers. But it has many features not so great for economic success. Just try to get a cell signal or download a PDF on your computer, and you begin to understand the challenges.
The people whose families have called Appalachia home come from a long line of patriots who first defended the land in the French and Indian War and first defended the country in the Revolutionary War. Gayle Manchin, the newly appointed co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, said that call to service has continued throughout our country's history.
"People who have been the first to answer the call of duty and join the military have disproportionately come from Appalachia over any other region in the country," Manchin said in an interview in her home state of West Virginia.
The people who live and work here have deep pride in their skills and craftsmanship, whether they are artisans making Fiestaware dinnerware in Newell, West Virginia, or the handcrafted All-Clad cookware at the mill in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. What they do is part of who they are.
Manchin said the same can be said for the men and women who work in the coal mines, whose jobs provide either heat and light for homes and buildings all across the country, or make the steel that goes into the bridges, roads and buildings for cities large and small everywhere.
"They often view what they do as patriotic," she said.
Manchin said the goal of ARC is noble, and she is up to the challenge. But she also acknowledges that the challenges are not trivial. For one thing, the country has a skewed view of the region, which is reinforced by attitudes in Hollywood and corporate America. It is often used as a punch line in movies or music. It is deemed irredeemable by cultural elites who often quip, "Why don't you just move if you don't like the job prospects?"
In reply, Manchin said they all miss the importance residents place in their roots to the land.
"I have had people say to me, 'Well, why don't they move?'" Manchin said. "Well, it is because the people love the land."
It is land the families have been on for generations, often by going back to their father's father's father. "They have hunted and fished and grown farms and lived off of the land, and it has served them well," she said. "They also worked the mines, and that had served them well. So when people say it's not working, you just need to move, it is ridiculous."
Hollywood calls them hillbillies or rednecks. Politicians refer to them as deplorable, bitter clingers or Neanderthals. Corporations and sports entities ignore them. Academics and the media believe they are all racist. That last one makes many of them shake their heads and chuckle because they are more likely to work side by side with their hands or serve their country with a more diverse population than most elites.
Manchin said that because of the economic prosperity that has eluded many, the result has been despair and an epidemic of addiction. This cycle, she said, has orphaned many children, whose parents are either dead or in prison and whose grandparents become parents again at an advanced age.
A study done by ARC shows that between 2012 and 2017, the all-cause mortality rate in the non-Appalachian United States increased by 5.8%. During this same period, the overall mortality rate in the Appalachian region increased by 9.5%. The change coincides with the national surge in opioid overdose deaths.
Appalachia is complicated. On one hand, God, country, family, and work are the ethos of the people. On the other hand, the very locality of the land they love contributes to the disease of despair and the wasting away of their most precious treasure -- the people.
My family has lived in Appalachia since they first came here in 1638. I could not imagine living anywhere else. Drive through any part of it -- New York, Tennessee, or Mississippi -- and every town, large or small, every mountain pass, every stream always feels like you are coming home, even if you are miles from your house.
Agree. It always feels like home to me.
Why does govt have to “fix” everything?
If people are allowed self-determination, problems take care of themselves.
We better nail those mountains down now that a Manchin is in charge of the commission. Damn Manchins are as bad for the citizens of WVa as the Bush or Kennedy clans.
capable of responding successfully to education and training.
Yeah...so is my dog.
What condescending nonsense. Since the New Deal, if not before mountain folks have been scorned and treated as a problem to deal with.
Free folks will find their way as many have. First thing to do is to reject fatalism. I have seen too many people simply accept “thats they way it is” and do little to do for themselves.
They don’t need to move away but they do need to be more in charge of themselves.
[And that could go for a lot of folks].
My roots. :)
“What condescending nonsense.”
JFK saying that is like Biden saying Obama is “clean and articulate”.
If only that were the case.
I had a former business associate who worked as a senior executive in a prominent STEM company. He was from West Virginia. He lived a very modest life despite his position. As I got to know him better, I learned that he was the only one in his immediate family who was employed. His parents and all his siblings still lived back in West Virginia in the town where he grew up, and he was basically their "welfare check."
It is often used as a punch line in movies or music. It is deemed irredeemable by cultural elites who often quip, "Why don't you just move if you don't like the job prospects?" In reply, Manchin said they all miss the importance residents place in their roots to the land. "I have had people say to me, 'Well, why don't they move?'" Manchin said. "Well, it is because the people love the land."
This is no different than the pathetic mindset of the American Indian.
They kept voting for Bobby Byrd. He brought home the bacon
I call Florida ‘home’.......and have for most of my life....
....but my roots are in the Appalachian hills and mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina......
Life there is simple and defined by kindness......
Now that I’m older I appreciate more intensely what I use to take for granted........
...home is where your roots are
I love Florida but almost everyone, who live here, is from ‘somewhere else’
In North Carolina they take great pride in being 4th, 5th, 6th generation and can recite their lineage to the nth degree!
Currently, a mass invasion occurring from those in California and New York, as one person said, “Escaping”. They are buying houses unseen, on the market less than a day, paying well over the asking price.
I pray to God, the government does not fix Appalachia and Appalachian families as well as the fixed Black Americans and their families.
Another worry about Appalachia is the outsiders moving in. It is only a matter of time until the entire region is Californicated beyond all repair.
Back in the day, the late Don Williams had a song with a line in it that has stuck with me for many years. “I learned to talk like the man on the six o’clock news”
When Appalachia learns to talk like the man on the six o’clock news, Appalachia is dead.
You have to consider the times. In the early 1960’s the abject poverty of Appalachia had just entered the national consciousness. Living in northern Ohio, we knew because we were entertaining a steady flow of Appalachian emigrants, seeking work in the steel and auto plants or wherever they could find it. Many were illiterate, had at best handyman level skills.
One such man I spoke with much later told an amusing story, of how he began life by shoveling coal in the mines in WV, finally left for Ohio, and got a job at a factory in Youngstown— shoveling coal in the boiler room.
It would appear Biden wants to place his illegals in this area......NC, Tennessee, Georgia, etc
The good folks there have been in dire straights due to Covid........more so than a lot of folks due to the poverty if some areas
....and now illegals flooding in to take their jobs
Don’t worry about it. Give it a little bit of time and those illegal immigrants will start disappearing down abandoned mine shafts and other places. Your immigrants will start to relocate to wherever after a very short time.
When I went through Navy recruiting training, one of the trainers was giving a class on, basically, cultural bias. He had recruited in Appalachia. He said he went to a kid’s house and it was a shack in the middle of nowhere with a scrabble yard. He told the kid he could join the Navy get away from all this. The kid looked at him and said, “why would I want to leave? All this will be mine one day”.
A great book about the Ulster Scots' influence on the traditional American culture, including the military:
I love that!
Interesting, but the kid was right, I suppose.
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