I have lived in 16
States
But of all I ever saw
There is no place like
living
Down in old Arkansaw
They all wear homemade
clothing
Both the men and
females
While the children with
dirty faces
All go in their
shirttails
The men drink moonshine
whiskey
The women chew and dip
And the big gals go
barefooted
With tobacco on their
lip….
All are free-hearted
And respect the moral
law
Is the reason I love to
live
– Marion Hughes,
Three Years in Arkansaw (1904)
I am a hillbilly. Born and
raised in Appalachia, I have lived in the foothills of the
Appalachians in Southern Ohio all of my life – now 68+ years. While
existing among widespread stereotypes of Appalachian people as being
backwards, ignorant, and lazy, I deny the derogatory portrayal of
local residents as yokels, bumpkins, and rednecks.
Granted, having a sense of
humor and being able to laugh about yourself are desirable character
traits; however, embracing negativity can also lead to self-defeating
behaviors. I claim no part of the clownish connotations of a
hillbilly rube. My connection to the rural culture involves a deep
commitment to preserving the wisdom of the resourceful people who
pioneered this land.
Despite disproportionately
adverse living conditions in severely distressed counties,
Appalachians continue to embrace positive values such as
self-reliance, faith, love of family, and humility. “Hillbilly”
is a descriptive term penned to typecast residents of Appalachia,
particularly those in the Southern region. Most of the negativity
associated with the word is a product of published generalizations
formulated to feed a colorful and wild American caricature.
The word hillbilly
(noun, from hill + Billy/Billie, popular or pet form of
William) has two early references believed to be the first in print.
One appeared on July 1892:
“I would hate to see
some old railroad man come here and take my job, and then, I don't
think it is right to hire some Hill Billy and give him the same right
as I just because he was hired the same time I was.”
(The
Railroad Trainmen's Journal," Vol. IX, July 1892.)
The journal article
focused on the political importance and autonomy of mountain folk who
happily accept free liquor and campaign payouts from one candidate
only to vote for his rival. Clearly derogatory and accentuating the
poverty and improper social behavior of its subject, it also suggests
more admirable attributes of freedom, self-identity, and
independence.
And, another reference
appeared in 1900 in a New York Journal article describing the
"hill-billie" as …
“In short, a
Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled (sic meaning “not
confined, limited, or impeded”) white citizen of Alabama, who lives
in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as
he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires of his revolver
as the fancy takes him.
(New
York Journal. April 23, 1900)
Starting as a regional
label with a specific localized significance, the term and persona
were soon spread by jokebook writers, professional linguists and,
above all, the new mass medium of motion pictures. In hundreds of
action shorts, directors such as D. W. Griffith (himself a
Kentuckian) depicted a violent and lawless people whose feuds and
drunkenness posed a serious threat to the “proper” late-Victorian
social order.
By the mid 1910s, however,
silent films and other popular culture media began to present a
parallel but distinct interpretation of the mountaineer as a comical
foil for bumbling urban naifs. Despite its evolving meaning,
“hillbilly” remained a relatively uncommon and thoroughly
ambiguous label throughout this era.
The "classic"
hillbilly stereotype reached its current characterization during the
years of the Great Depression, when many mountaineers left their
homes to find work in other areas of the country. The period of
Appalachian out-migration, roughly from the 1930s through the 1950s,
saw many mountain residents moving north to the Midwestern industrial
cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Akron, and Detroit.
In the 1930s, that icon
was solidified through the hillbilly characters of Paul Webb's
“Mountain Boys” cartoons in Esquire
magazine, Al Capp's “Li'l Abner,” and Billy DeBeck's “Barney
Google and Snuffy Smith.” These characters and their cartoon-world
antics forever etched the hillbilly caricature into popular culture.
The origin of the term is
disputed. Some etymologists cite the origins of the word hillbilly
in a reference to Scottish and Ulster-Scottish (Scots-Irish)
people whose songs and ballads dealt with William, Prince of Orange,
who defeated the Catholic King James II of the Stuart family at the
Battle of the Boyne, Ireland in 1690.
Others like Michael
Montgomery, in From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage
of American English, posit it was coined In Ulster to refer to
followers of King William III and brought to America by early Ulster
emmigrants.
Anthony Harkins, in
Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, states that
the most credible theory of the term’s origin is that it derives
from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, “hill-folk”
and “billie” which was a synonym for “fellow,”
similar to “guy” or “bloke.”
Speculation? The proof of
usage offered in the journal articles previously cited stands as the
published origins in America. The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain
English says of the word hillbilly – “origin obscure,
attested only since 1900” – which makes it a modern term. That,
to me, is the origin that speaks volumes.
Middle-class Americans
imagined hillbillies as an exotic race, akin to blacks and Indians,
but still native and white, as opposed to the growing influx of
immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. Crude caricatures
of Southern mountaineers persisted long after similar ethnic and
racial stereotypes had become socially unacceptable.
I am a hillbilly. I have a
distinct hillbilly Southern accent. I live my hillbilly life in
Southern Ohio, not in West Virginia or Arkansas. As a hillbilly, I
have weathered all of the attempts of others to pigeonhole me into
ambiguous Appalachian stereotypes.
As a hillbilly, I love my
humble home and the hills of my natural environment. I am connected
with my past. I am not like Jed Clampett or Li'l Abner – these
hillbillies are products of somebody's income-seeking imagination.
However, I don't deny my regional folk roots – they are full of
stories and myths. Some are painful tales of the reality of living in
an impoverished area where opportunities seldom come knocking. Others
tell of the boundless spirit of poor people facing seemingly
insurmountable obstacles.
Call me an American
“hillbilly.” I like the term even though some still use it for
derision and laughs. You see, I understand the origin of the word,
and I also understand the false representations are misguided
over-generalizations that encourage prejudice – prejudice based on
a sensational ignorance meant to promote class structure.
The criticism of an entire
culture, a group that has suffered from negative stereotypes
seemingly forever is something to which we hillbillies have grown
accustomed. You see, I live in the hills – not around them,
not below them … and certainly not above them. Appalachia is
a part of me, a fact of which I am exceedingly proud. If you are a
hillbilly, I think you know exactly what I am saying.
“I’m a
hillbilly, a woman and a poet, and I understood early on that nobody
was going to listen to anything I had to say anyway, so I might as
well just say
what I
want to.”
– Irene
McKinney, West Virginia Poet Laureate
Sources:
Rudy Abramson and Jean
Haskell, Editors. Excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Appalachia.
National Public Radio
Anthony Harkins.
Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon. 2005.
Dave Tabler.” The word
‘Hillbilly': Linguistic Mystery and Popular Culture Fixture.”
appalachianhistory.net. March 5, 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment