-Segregated schools, but kids of different races played together, residents claim no racial tension.

-Scotts run near Morgantown, which had a booming mine industry due to its proximity to Pittsburgh.

-Floods were very common; they would shut down the city, forcing the town to build a dam.

-Floods in 2009 and 1985.

-Kids would play in the creek.

-Only women teachers.

-Strong sense of community

• consequence of the structures we exist in

• consequence of personal choice

Culture of Poverty Thesis by Oscar Lewis

• resignation, fatalism, dependence, learned helplessness, powerlessness, difficulty in delaying gratification, present orientation

• socially constructed by the poor to survive in impossible conditions

• ignores nuance

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

• Paulo Freire (1970)

• norm is the banking method of passive learning

• critical consciousness, the idea of being aware of what's happening to you, is an important takeaway from the work is You must have this to have an impact.

• Privatization of resources (coal)

-EX: Crack v powder

-Systemic oppression, unjust treatment for unjust and arbitrary reasons

-Gov and culture perpetuate negative narratives about Appalachia to exploit paternalistic exploitation.

-This made the residents dependent on the coal company

-Company store

-No competition leads to high prices

-Coal companies tried to balance local whites, local blacks, and immigrant families.

Organizing in coal company towns

-constant concern of owners

-low wages, scrips, etc lead to need for organizing

-Appalachians framed as other by mine owners, the mine owners depicted them as violent, uneducated, etc.

-impacted by the industrial resources of the region

-weakening of United Mine Workers of America due to increased automation

-global rise of social conservatism

-move away from libertarian perspective

-focus on economic issues by republicans

ECONOMY

-decline of local industries to create jobs

ENVIRONMENT

-battle between extractive industries and preserving Appalachian nature

POVERTY

-disproportionate substance abuse and poverty in Appalachia

-Many of the people being interviewed in the video had been adopted

-Many had experiences of being othered

-Some didn't feel like they understood the Asian experience compared to the Appalachian experience.

-Lonely experience

-Some had experiences of being bullied

-Covid opened up Asian Appalachians to racism

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-Stories of UFOs, Men in Black, and “Indian curses” reflect indigenous and European folklore.

-Native history reframed as supernatural threats like Cornstalk’s Curse, perpetuating racism.

-Settler stories often erase humanity of Natives, reducing natives to a narrative tool.

-Mound builder myth used to deny Native accomplishments by inventing a lost white race.

-Indigenous "cryptids" like Thunderbird were turned into cryptids through cryptozoology.

-Mothman reflects a settler monster symbolizing guilt and fear of colonization and revenge taken by Natives.

-Men in Black around Point Pleasant are described with “Indian” features, showing how racism against natives still affects modern culture.

-Mythicized racism in Point Pleasant turned into tourism and profit.

-Myths in Appalachia can act as settler moves to innocence, easing guilt over Indigenous erasure.

-savagery to barbarism to civilization

-encouraged indigenous people to adopt aspects of white culture

-EX: Christianity, English Language, ETC

-Natives were forced to fit within ideas of the United States

-Jackson forced natives to be on federally managed land.

Indigenous Appalachia Today

Federal

-Seneca

-Cherokee of NC

-Choctaw of Mississippi

Being Indigenous

Self identifying as having Indigenous cultural identity

-Self identifying as having a familial cultural identity of an indigenous person

-tribal nation citizenship

-tribal membership

Settler Colonialism

-Involves large-scale settlement and establishment of a new society

- traditional colonialism focused on extraction of resources and labor

-system of elimination and dispossession with the goal of absorbing indigenous society

-replacement and permanence

-She started a gay bar using her life savings, it opened in 1969 in Bluefield, West Virginia.

-She also hosted first-ever drag show in Bluefield.

-explores how scholars interpret religion's roles in Appalachian life

-Religion is the most distinctly Appalachian social institution

-replaced extended family as a key institution post ww2

-most persistent social institution

-provides adaptation to modernization

Photiadis' structural-functional view

-argues that religion provides societal stability and that it's the social glue of society

Critiques of this perspective

-reduces religion to a tool of social stability

-ignores religions' spiritual and belief-based dimensions

-oversimplifies modern v traditionalist tension

subculture of poverty model

-earlier sociologists described Appalachia as a folk culture defined by puritanism, family feuds, and religion impeding progress

internal colonialism model

-An alternative model that focuses on Appalachia as a colony of the United States

-Outside interests exploit the region's people and resources'

-Religion can be viewed as an exploitive or resistant resource.

Takeaways

-Appalachian religion is complex

-Addiction is a chronic disease of the brain

-focuses on detox and medical treatment

-emphasizes evidence-based methods.

Faith Based

-Rooted in spiritual transformation and moral renewal

-Emphasizes surrender to a higher power and moral accountability

Community Based

-Centers on mutual support, storytelling, lived experience

-recovery seen as a collective journey

-community is central

Policy and systems approach

-focuses on making systems to shape recovery access

-In Appalachia, incarceration rates are often higher than the overall rate for the U.S.

-Jail is a local facility holding people awaiting trial, or serving sentences for less than a year.

-Prisons are state or federal and house those convicted of serious crimes.

-Not enough resources in prison and not enough housing in jail.

-Since 1980, 350 new prisons have been built in rural U.S.

-Jean Dubuffet

-Direct and crude

-folk art

Outsider Appalachians

-Recycling overlap

-paternalism of captivity

-romanticization of isolation

-Collective tradition

-community and heritage

-passed down over time

-functional

-shared cultural expression

-regional identity

outsider art

-vision of one person

-isolated

-both rely on self-taught creativity

-both uses found or recycled materials

-both are spiritual or visionary

Appalachian folk art specifically

-deep ties to place, faith, community

-diy aesthetic born from economic limitations

-oral and material tradition

-art as functional and expressive

Focus on the language of labels (“poor,” “illiterate,” “strung out,” “West Virginian,” etc.)

How does the author describe the weight or consequences of these labels?

1. The author discusses the impact of these labels in depth, particularly in chapter one, when she discusses her college boyfriend from New York, and how his jokes about WV made her feel small and like she could never prove to him that a West Virginian could be as competent as someone from the North.

What nuance gets lost when outsiders use them?

2. When outsiders use pejorative stereotypes, the reason for the circumstances that create these stereotypes is lost. Decades of poverty and suppression are dumbed down to West Virginians being illiterate hicks.

Prompt Four

Consider how the author depicts community, family, or place.

1. The author depicts family, community, and place as essential facets of life. In terms of place, especially, she emphasizes the importance of regionality and also how the statewide community brings people together hundreds of miles away from the state.

How does this depiction differ from common media portrayals of Appalachia?

2. The author portrays West Virginia as being a state driven by one large sense of community, instead of the exceptionally common depiction that paints the state as being very tribalistic. I think that an example of this is the odd obsession with the Hatfield-McCoy feud out of state.

Prompt Five

Identify a story, perspective, or detail the author includes that you would not expect to see in mainstream representations of Appalachia.

1. I think the author's perspective of West Virginians being friendly and welcoming isn't something that is portrayed in the mainstream.

Why might that story remain invisible in public discourse?

2. People outside of Appalachia often present West Virginians in two ways: Disgruntled, angry coal miners or hostile and unwelcoming tribesmen. Therefore, portraying West Virginians as friendly, social, and welcoming people is something that falls outside of this narrative.