Turning despair to hope

Blog Post 7 Kiki He

When I was preparing for my presentation on Hillbilly Elegy, I thought it would be better if I inserted some photos to my PowerPoint so that people can more clearly see how serious the Appalachian issue is. However, when I saw those pictures, I myself was shocked. The American Environment Photographer Shelby Lee Adam’s photographs of the people and culture of Appalachia struck me completely. His poignant black-and-white images reveal the most essential yet problematic side of Appalachian lives. From every subtle detail on those photos, I can see despair, misery, indifference and hopelessness. 
From my different perspective, the poverty issue in Appalachia is very different from the poverty issue in China. The presence of complacency and cynicism is the major difference. Since China is much more ethnically homogeneous comparing to the U.S., poverty is almost purely caused by the unfavored geographical disadvantage including the inaccessibility and harsh weather, making those regions extremely hard to exploit and develop. However, for Appalachia, the social isolation caused by misunderstanding, condemnation, and discrimination worsens the Appalachian lives, causing Appalachians refuse to speak out, act, and make any changes simply because they do not wish to be judged. They prefer to be forgotten by the society rather than to be always mentioned and emphasized. 

This kind of attitude is probably one of the biggest obstacles on the way to solve Appalachian problems. Solving Appalachian issues needs people outside and inside Appalachia to cooperate together, trusting and supporting each other. And people both inside and outside Appalachia have to put their own efforts to reach the goal. While Appalachian people need to eliminate their cynicism and complacency, opening their lives up to others, people outside Appalachia also need to gain better and more objective understanding of Appalachian issue, making some real contributions to improving Appalachian economy.


Professor Viglione’s comments on how she views individual efforts to solve Appalachian issues as a long-term process gave me a very insightful and unbiased answer of the purposes of our school’s Appalachian programs. Students get the chance to go to Appalachia, talked to people there and saw all the despair and hopelessness. And years after, they might go back to Appalachia and to use what they had learnt in college to help people there. And this time, the help would not be the meaningless 5-day house construction or feeding chickens. The help will be real and concrete, making a real difference in Appalachian people’s life.

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