Katie R. Phillips,
Green Mountain, NC.
I might be white, but growing up in the Southern Applachians is definitely its own ethnic identity. I didn’t truly understand this until I went to college, and brought friends home with me for the first time. One of my friends actually asked me if my family was inbred ‘like on that movie’ (Deliverance) in all seriousness. Another confessed that she was afraid to come home with me because she didn’t know what kind of home we would have solely based on where we lived. I encountered a lot of in recent years, and it amazes me that perpetuating Appalachian and so-called hillbilly stereotypes is ok, and sometimes encouraged, simply because we are white.
