Appalachian locals say JD Vance’s career is built on ‘wild claims’

In 2016, as Americans questioned why so many had voted for Donald Trump to become America’s 45th president – and again, how he was re-elected this week, JD Vance’s book appeared to have all the answers.

The memoir of his life sold over a million copies, secured a Netflix movie deal and arguably launched his political career.

‘To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.’

These are the words that J.D. Vance, recently re-elected Donald Trump’s vice president, wrote in the introduction of his bestselling book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’.

Vance attributed part of the reason Trump was elected in 2016 to Appalachia, a region he held dear in his heart but was overlooked and on its knees.

When Trump pledged then to bring much-needed industry back into the area it was a lifeline they’d been waiting for.

But as much as it may appear that Vance was at one with the community – he never actually lived in Appalachia.

In reality he had been born and brought up in the Rust Belt, rural Ohio, after his grandparents moved there, from Jackson, Kentucky, when they were young.

Even so, Vance says he considers the Kentucky ‘holler’ he visited throughout his childhood as his home, and wrote of the regions trials and tribulations in his nearly 250 page memoir. 

‘I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree,’ he said in his book. ‘Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks or white trash. I call them neighbours, friends and family.’

But what do the real people of Appalachia think of the newly elected vice president’s account of their homeland and lives?

Appalachia – home of America’s ‘contemporary ancestors‘

Named after the mountain range which weaves through it, Appalachia is a region that stretches across 13 US states, from New York to Mississippi. 

Dr Anthony Harkins, Professor of History at Western Kentucky University and co-author of ‘Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy’, tells Metro that the area is enormous. 

He explains: ‘There is a northern Appalachian, southern Appalachia, major cities. It is a place that has been largely defined by extractive industries in the late 19th and 20th century. 

‘There was a time when those industries were stable and providing jobs for all the people that needed them. But those industries have been in retreat for most of that history.’

One was coal mining, which once offered lucrative job opportunities in some of the most rural areas of Appalachia. 

But the industry has decimated local ecosystems, and when the coal was gone, so were the jobs and money. 

Since then, Appalachia has been treated as ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for most Americans, says Dr Harkins. 

‘For the UK, it might be comparable to rural Wales, or northern Scotland. There are proud traditions and musical culture, but outside of the mainstream, unwilling to change, and locked in their ways.’

The 2016 Presidential Election and JD Vance

In her essay ‘Hillbillies Need No Elegy’, Meredith McCarroll, director of writing and rhetoric at Bowdoin College, wrote: ‘Every now and then, America remembers Appalachia exists.

‘One of those moments came after the 2016 Presidential election, as America looked around — a bit stunned — wondering why the rural working class had helped put in office a wealthy businessman from New York.’

After Vance’s book came out, another was released – ‘Appalachian Reckoning’ – written by McCarroll and Harkins.

It was filled with personal essays from real Appalachians, born and raised in the area, in response to ‘Hillbilly Elegy’.

McCarroll tells Metro: ‘Vance spent time with his grandparents in Eastern Kentucky and has legitimate ties to that place.

‘My issue with this is that he shifts from “I” to “we” and makes wild claims about Appalachian people that simply invites criticism because it is such a broad brush stroke.

‘There is a long history of outsiders misrepresenting the region – offering a very narrow perspective of one hollow to confirm the stereotypes that exist.

‘Vance falls into this pattern of relying on stereotype in ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, and those stereotypes do significant damage both in what the rest of the country thinks of the region but also what people within Appalachia begin to think of themselves.’

Dr Harkins added: ‘Vance’s book says people have chosen to be in poverty or to be in hardship and that they refuse to change, they refuse to adapt, they’re violent, they’re stubborn and they’re ignorant, they’re lazy.

‘He put his ‘rags to riches’ story on top of it. But he understates the benefactors that played a key role in his advancement and the institutions that do so.’

Hillbillies and rednecks

Appalachia has given the world Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Beautiful art and poetry, music and literature. Rolling mountains and famous hiking trails. 

But most associate the region with hillbillies, rednecks and people with southern accents so thick, it’s hard to know what they’re saying.

Dr Harkins explains: ‘’Hillbilly Elegy’ was a compelling story and Vance has every right to tell it, but he fused his telling together with the whole region and talked about being the sort of spokesperson, that’s what both Meredith and I were very much upset about when we wrote ‘Appalachian Reckoning’. 

‘Vance built himself on standard stereotypes of not just hillbillies, but working class, poor white Appalachians. These stereotypes have very, very deep roots.’

‘He got out because of the army and because of public universities. And for those things to get erased… His book has reinforced negative stereotypes of this region.

‘He writes about all of these things he did to become “self-made”, but when writing his story, he frames this entire region – which he did not grow up in at all – and brings back these negative stereotypes,’ Dr Harkins adds.

‘Silas House, a writer from Kentucky, said he’s always seen Hillbilly Elegy as Vance’s political launch pad. We can see now that it clearly was.’

A region responds

Harkins and McCarroll released ‘Appalachian Reckoning’, in 2019 – three years after Vance put ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ on the shelves.

‘Together, Harkins and I worked to speak back to Vance’s narrative and to create a chorus of voices to complicate a monolith understanding of this diverse and broad region spanning 13 states,’ McCarroll explains.

One essay in it, written by Ivy Brashear in response to Vance’s book, reads: ‘My Granny Della was gregarious and outspoken, once telling a man to “get a life and get a job,” and another time telling Lone Pine’s preacher he was wrong about God not giving people talent they didn’t have to learn.

‘She was one fierce mountain woman, and it showed. But, I would never, ever — in my wildest dreams or imaginings — disrespect her in any format because of her fierceness by calling her a lunatic, as J.D. Vance so often refers to his Mamaw in his memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’.

‘It displays a willingness to sell out his family members by tapping into a long history of distorted, false, and intentionally made stereotypical images of central Appalachia that have been imposed on the region by outside media makers for nearly three hundred years, ever since the first white land prospectors were sent into the region by George Washington himself.’

Now, the Appalachia region is getting attention after Vance was elected as Trump’s vice president – and those negative stereotypes are coming back up again, too.

‘I think that the best approach is to offer counter narratives that complicate any one story,’ says McCarroll.

‘Books like Elizabeth Catte’s ‘What You Getting Wrong about Appalachia’, Willie Carver’s poetry collection ‘Gay Poems for Red States’, Frank X Walker’s ‘Affrilachia’ along with our collection to resist the simple narrative of one person.

‘There is incredible pride in being Appalachian, and talking to more people with that pride and who represent diverse perspectives can help.’

Dr Harkins adds: ‘I hope that Vance’s appointment provides an opportunity for voices critical of the perspective that he has on Appalachia to come forward and to share their views.

‘But in today’s political climate, I find it difficult to believe that all sides are going to be listened to.’

JD Vance was contacted for comment.

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