Mountain People: the truth about modern day Appalachia

Growing up in in a friendly, white, well-to-do town has provided me with a nice little bubble to live in where nothing bad in the outside world can penetrate it. I take a lot of things for granted; a nice home, parents with a steady income, the education I have recieved, all of the opportunities available to me for success, etc. When I hear about how bad things are in other countries and even places here in the United States, I feel bad and want to help, but with no real way of helping them, I don't worry about it and continue surfing the internet; I never actually took the time to imagine how hard it would be to live somewhere that didn't have quite so many opportunities for me to take advantage of. I had no idea that a place like this even existed but it does, and it's called Appalachia.

For people who live in the really impoverished parts of Appalachia, the norm is to not go to college, to do labor intensive, dangerous jobs or end up selling drugs, living with 8 or 10 or 12 people in one tiny house. They grow up with this, expect this, and don't dare to dream about being more or trying to get out because it will only lead to dissapointment.

I saw a video about Appalachia and the problems they are facing there. In the video there was a segment that followed a highschool senior. He did dare to dream about getting out. He lived in his truck so he could get away from his backwoods family, he tried hard in school and football so that he could get a scholarship and get a higher education. He didn't want to end up like the rest of his family, stuck in a tiny house with too many people, doing a difficult job for not enough pay. He did get a scholarship and was able to go to college, but ended up having to drop out because he couldn't keep up with the rest of his classmates socially. he tried to evade the Appalachian trap, but he got caught up in it anyway. The saddest part about his story, to me, is that he did everything he could to get away, but once he did get away, he succumbed to easily and ended up right back where he didn't want to be.

There was another part of the video that talked about how it isn't strange to see a middle aged person in Appalachia with missing teeth. I thought this was the most absurd thing in the whole video. If you were to walk through the halls of my highschool, you would see row upon row of straight, white, shiny teeth. I don't think that there is a single person in the school who is noticeably missing teeth. What is making the Appalachian folks lose their teeth is all of the soda that they drink, Mt. Dew in particular. They drink so much of it because it is cheap, and with not very much money, it is easier to buy Mt. Dew then worry about not having enough money for something else. They showed footage of Mt. Dew being put in sippy cups for little children. Little children! They drink so much soda, and then don't have proper health and dental care, so it's not really all that surprising that they have this problem. 

Over all, it is just disheartening to know that places exist here in the United States, and everywhere for that matter, that are so impoverished while there are other places that are just rolling around in the excess of wealth that they have. The huge gap that has occured in the wealth of this nation is ridiculous, frankly it's just plain unfair. If we were to distribute the wealth more evenly, a lot of these impoverished societies could be helped, more opportuinites could be given to help the children in these situations because they are the ones that are going to suffer without our help.

We live in a nation with so many powerful, prestigious, wealthy people, and none of them are doing anything to help the rest of us. Tell me, how is that right?

Misrepresentation Indeed.

In class we watched a documentary that covered the issue of how the media treats women called "Miss-Representation". It covered a lot of issues like how what we see makes us feel as women and what it makes us expect from ourselves, and how all of that makes men expect things from us and view us in certain ways. But what stuck out to me the most was how the media treats women with powerand women in politics.

What was brought up really frustrated me. The fact that there have only been 34 women as senators while there have been 2000 men, for one. There are many, many countries all over the world that have had women in power and continue to value them in their politics. The United States, for the first time since women have gotten the vote, is moving backward with women in politics, and the fact that the majority of congress is male it discourages women, particularly young women, from seeking a future in politics. But it isn't just history's fault. The way that media treats women with power is obscene. When you look at a male news anchor a male senator, the media talks about what was said. When the media is looking at the female version of either of those, they focus on what they wore and how they acted and whether or not they appeared bitchy. The only thing about women that matters, to the media, is look.

Take Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin for example:

When they were running in 2008, they both portrayed very different aspects of what people expect from women in politics. At one end, Hillary presents herself like all of the men out there, serious and willing to bust some balls to get her point across. Sarah on the other hand presents herself as effeminate and a family woman and basically lives up to everything the media has been wanting and taking steps back in our progress as women trying to live above those cruel stereotypes. There was a sketch on SNL that depicted this very well: Sarah Palin / Hillary Clinton SNL Open

The media wants to put us in these neat little boxes of how we are allowed to act and who we we are allowed to be and we let them.

It just horrifies me how large of a role the media plays in our perceptions of people. How can we assume anything about them based on the scued views of the media? If I can accomplish anything in writing this, it is to open up peoples' eyes to the fact that what you read and see and hear is only one part of the real story and not to judge someone based on one story that you hear. What will happen to the next generation and the generation after that if this is how women are being treated now?

Culture & Food

Food. We all eat it and we all enjoy it. But we don't all enjoy or eat t he same food from country to country. Why is Chinese food different from Mexican food? What is it that makes their food so different from ours and makes us wrinkle our noses when we come accross a foreign dish?

The answer to these questions is simple: most countries cuisines include the foods they do because of where they are in the world. An example of this would be how Japanese cuisine incorporates a lot of fish because they are an island and fish are easy for them to get. Sometimes the food that is eaten by a certain culture is not pallatable to other cultures because they are not accustomed to it, it might be too spicy or perhaps it is a type of fish or plant that would be poisonous to us but doesn't harm them.

Here is a photo essay that offers a wonderful look at how the food that we eat differs from country to country: What the World Eats, Part I

Let's Talk About Values...

We all know what they are; they help to make up our culture along with our beliefs, behavior and material objects. In America there are certain societal values that the majority of us have; personal control over the environment, change, time and its control, equality, individualism/privacy, self-help, competition, orientation, action/work orientation, informality, directiness/openness/honesty, practicality/efficiency, and materialism/acquisitiveness. There are also leisure time, religiosity, social interaction, and physical fitness.

It seems strange to be able to lump a group as large as the citizens of the United States into the same group with the same values, but the truth is, while there may be some variation here and there most of these values are held by a lot of people. And while all of these values may make sense in our day and age, they mightnot have made sense in another time. Values change and evolve with the other changes and evolutions in our society

Technology is an example of how our values change as our society does. With the introduction of the internet and social networks, people have come to value individualism and privacy more than physical social interaction. People talk more and are working more on the computer than face to face. This is just one example of the evolving values of our society, there are plenty more out there if you just take the time to look.

Lost Boys

When someone first mentioned the lost boys to me, I pictured in my head the lost boys from Disney's "Peter Pan"; a rag tag group of boys that never wanted to grow up and didn't want parents to tell them what to do. 

Now imagine, if you will, a different type of lost boy. This lost boy was driven out of his home, chased into the wilderness without his parents, any sort of food or shelter, and only kids his own age to count on. Unlike Peter Pan's lost boys, these boys didn't run and leave their parents by choice, they were driven out, "...when government troops and government-sponsored militias systematically attacked villages in southern Sudan, killing many of the inhabitants." Most of these boys became orphans.

We watched a video about some of these lost boys and their integration into American society to begin earning a living there and to establish themselves. It was culture shock to the max. One thing that I found particularly interesting about what I saw was how poorly they were desensitized to the fast paced, highly technilogical American life, and how quickly some of them picked up on everything. Another thing that was interesting was how after a few months living here, their families back home were pressuring them to send back money and to support their families that were still in Sudan, but what their families didn't understand was how the money they earned was just barely enough to support themselves.

The different values and norms of Sudanese society versus American society also played a role for the boys. In one scene we hear that one boy is paying the rent for his friends because they lost their jobs. He doesn't think twice about whether or not he is going to be repaid or how long he will have to pay for them, he just does it because helping your family and friends are highly valued by them. Unlike us who if faced with the same situation would have been more wary, making sure they would pay us back maybe even adding on soem interest, or even just flat out saying no because it is an opportunity to learn a lesson.

Over all I was incredibly inspired by the lost boys of Sudan. The fact that they lived through such an ordeal as what they did and then picking up their lives and taking them to a completely different country is amazing. That they had so much hope and so much perserverance moved me. I don't think I would have been able to go through what they went through and come out with my head held high.

To the lost boys, I wish you all the best of luck and much success in your futures :)

Freaks, Geeks, and the Homecoming Dance

This basically sums up the first episode of the 1999 television show "Freaks and Geeks." It's about a group of kids ranging from the nerdiest geek to the freakiest freak to the meanest bully and how they all interact with each other. I think this exemplifies the latent, and manifest, functions of school and what they mean to highschoolers. Obviously the manifest function of school is to learn. The latent function would then be learning to socialize and interact with people. In the show, for most people the most important thing was the latent function, socializing. Lindsay Weir, the main character, used to be one of the kids who was more interested in the manifest function, she was on the academic decathalon team and never skipped a class. But then she starts hanging out with "freaks" and starts skipping class and stops worrying about school as much.

I think that a lot of kids in this society have that sort of mentality, or at least a little bit. I think a big part of school is socializing and I believe that it is becoming more of a manifest function. The point of shcool is to educate us and prepare us for the future. Without learning how to interact with others, we wouldn't be able to function in society as well as someone who has learned how to socialize.

The big thing here is that while there are manifest functions and latent functions, the line between those can blur from time to time and overlap or maybe even switch and it's up to us to figure out what is most important.

Space Invaders

 

Personal space is important. It is defined as "the region surrounding a person which they regard as psychologically theirs." And for most people, there are about four layers of personal space to abide by; intimate, personal, social, and public. If a stranger came into our personal sapce, you would feel discomfort but if you're best friend came up and gave you a hug you would welcome it. We all have personal space, but it's how much or how little we have that spurs how we react.

Intimate and personal space is reserved to those that you have known for a long time and feel comfortable around. I observed that when interacting with people you are close to, you ave no problem getting into their space, standing close to them, or even touching them.

Social and public space is reserved for when you're, well, out in public. When you're shopping or running errands or at school or the movies, you have to remain a certain distance away from people. I would say about 12-18 inches would be appropriate, but the only way to know is to stay far enough away that you're comfortable and so you don't see any noticable discomfort in the other.

One thing the rules of personal space don't apply to is crowds. When you're in a large crowd or even a small crowded space, you have no option other than to stand too close to strangers. Crowd or no crowd, nobody likes a space invader. One way that we deal with this is by not making eye contact, not interacting with them, and basically pretending the person doesn't exist. For example, in an elevator, everybody faces the front and doesn't talk or look at each other. If the person next to you were to turn to you, you would feel a little awkward and they don't even have to say anything to you.

And interestingly enough, culture plays a huge role in our personal space and how we react. In countries with large populations, personal space is something you don't rarely encounter. When I was at Ikea with my dad one day, we were getting some lunch (and if you've never had lunch at Ikea you should know that it's kind of like a cafeteria where you get your tray and food and then follow the line). The lady in front of me, who was oriental, kept reaching back to get things (napkins, sauces, to refill her drink that she spilled) and she had no problem reaching over me and right in front of my face to get them. She wasn't being rude or mean, but she was invading my personal space and didn't seem to notice. I mentioned it to my dad when we sat down and he told me that she didn't realize she was encroaching on my space because personal space boundries are a lot different in Asia where there are a lot more people in a lot less space. I didn't harbor any negative feelings for the women, but I wished she could have altered her boundries a little to respect mine.

Getting back to the point, a person's space boundries depends on who they're interacting with, where they are, and how they define personal space. There are so many factors that go into it, there is no way to just know how someone is going to feel about you getting "all up in their grill." So don't be a space invader, respect peoples' personal space!