On Hillbilly Elegy, 9 years later.
What hath the liberals wrought: J.D. Vance
The original essay can be found here
I wrote this essay as a guest post for S-USIH in 2016. Much of my analysis of the text stands, but what I want to expand on, think with, think through and theorize is how did Vance go from tech bro “culture of poverty” provocateur, the liberal answer to the first Trump administration, to the VICE PRESIDENT. This is not something I can answer fully, of course, but instead I can add thoughtful questions and more books for you to read.
In 2016 I wrote
“I, admittedly late to the game,1 recently read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. I knew it had a “culture of poverty” tone to it and refused to buy it even after more and more people suggested I read it. But finally, my advisor let me borrow his copy. And I couldn’t help but thinking, why are people reading this book? So many people have told me they are reading it so they can understand the rise of Trump (which perpetuates dangerous and class-based myths that Trump was elected solely because of lower-income white voters). But there are also so many other books to read on the subject, ones that don’t borrow from outdated sociological trends like the “culture of poverty.” Vance attributes qualities of his family, qualities he identifies as “hillbilly” like alcoholism, violence, accents, and early pregnancy, to those who traveled from Appalachia to the Midwest on the hillbilly highway.
Vance’s use of the term “hillbilly” is problematic.2 Of course, the word was developed to describe people from Appalachia, but he uses the term to describe only those from Appalachia. Vance, of course, is considered a “hillbilly” in his telling because he spent his summers there. Vance then ascribes traits like anger, alcoholism, violence, and instability to “hillbilly” culture. More than that he ascribes it to a “culture of poverty” rather than side effects to poverty. To Vance, these traits are those of hillbillies, which doesn’t include low-income residents of cities, of the rural Northeast, of the real deep South3. Many of the negatives that Vance ascribes to hillbillies aren’t unique to a monolithic “hillbilly” culture as Vance portrays it.4
Vance repeatedly mentions the trope of “the welfare queen.” Vance had many intellectual influences, including his grandmother who he claimed “saved him” but the two that stick out to me are William Julius Wilson and Charles Murray. Vance’s intellectual lineage is rooted in ideas about welfare contributing to and even CREATING poverty and poverty as a cultural vice, rather than a systemic injustice. Vance’s argument is premised on widely controversial and discredited scholarship, yet has made the New York Times bestseller list. It has been lauded, by liberals and conservatives alike, as an explanation for the rise of Trump, an explanation that blames his election on the cultural values of lower-income white voters (who are not responsible for Trump’s election).
Interestingly Vance writes “Wilson’s book spoke to me. I wanted to write him a letter and tell him that he had described my home perfectly. That is resonated so personally is odd, however, because he wasn’t writing about the hillbilly transplants from Appalachia-he was writing about black people in inner cities. The same was true of Charles Murray’s seminal Losing Ground, another book about black folks that could have been written about hillbillies-which addressed the way our government encouraged social decay through the welfare state.” (144). In attempting to include “hillbillies” in narratives about the culture of poverty, he inadvertently made comparisons between “hillbillies” and “inner city culture” that many conservatives would find disconcerting. Even still, Vance has perpetuated dangerous myths about America’s poor by repackaging them in a memoir with a catchy headline and a well-timed theme. In that vein, I would like to suggest books to read instead of Hillbilly Elegy (please include more in the comments).”
So just a reminder. For the most part, it was liberals who couldn’t comprehend the election of Trump who made the success of Vance possible, who made Vance a household name. Because conservatives knew or didn’t care HOW Trump got elected and leftists (hopefully) realized white Appalachians and other poor white people were the scape goat, taking attention away from the upper middle class white people (including lots of women) who voted for Trump as well as liberals who assumed an easy victory for Clinton.
Books to Read Instead of Hillbilly Elegy:
One of the few things that the rise of Vance did, I guess, is grow an interest in the actual stories of Appalachia and the so called White Trash. This includes my original list as well as more recent books that are queerer, less white and far more interesting than much of what people assume they know about the region. Many of these books are not actually about Appalachia (though quite a few are) but they are all about disrupting normative ideas of region, of challenging the stereotypes of the South, a place that has the most queer people, the most Black people, and the most immigrants in the Nation.
All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
Two or Three Things I Know Before by Dorothy Allison
North Toward Home by Willie Morris
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenburg
Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness by Matt Wray
Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy by Stephen Kantrowitz
The Populist Vision by Charles Postel
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hoschild
Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie
What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy
Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll
Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place Neema Avashia
Appalachian Elegy by bell hooks
100 Days in Appalachia. Just the whole thing.
I can’t help but giggle at what this energized child felt was “late to the game.” I feel like 9 years is what it takes for me to gobble down something like this, something that I don’t want to read but should maybe.
oh, the overuse of problematic. Maybe the term is simply ill fitting but I am now thinking it is even more an intentional misuse of the phrase to confuse people about his origins, about what a “hillbilly” is and was, about boot straps and the “nature of people.”
nor the Southwest, a notable absence.
Something else I have been thinking about is, what exactly is Appalachia? It’s not a monolith of course, which I wrote about for both Teen Vogue and 100 Days of Appalachia. But the Appalachians, the mountains my west coast friends call hills, are ancient and wondrous, and of course reach far beyond the West Virginia Vance wants to associate with them,