The Hillybilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
In the book, The Hillybilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance, not only serves us a story of Vance’s personal experiences but also gives an extended explanation on an entire socio-economic class(The ‘White working class’). He was born in the New Middletown, raised by a single mother, living with his grandparents; Vance managed to study and performed well until he joined the Marines and paid for his Yale University education; unlike his peers who fell into the trap of drug addiction, crime, poor performances, and suffering from adverse anxiety, depression, and other diseases such as heart-related diseases. Cultural poverty was the song of the ears, and the welcoming sight of the eyes in the undereducated Hillybilly community. Despite the Appalachian community adverse living conditions, their patriotism is undisturbed. They aided in making Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States of America. Trump captured the Appalachian communities in ‘Making America Great Again’ giving him a margin to beat Hillary Clinton.
Vance makes it clear for their choice of Trump’s era. According to Vance’s grandmother’s words that the democrats were ‘Party of the Working man’, and indeed they supported a billionaire real estate developer running unusually as a republican. Again, Vance’s grandmother says, ‘not all rich people are evil, but all evil people are rich.’ Trump whose theme ‘Making America Great Again’ attracted largely the white working-class voters like those in Middletown. Vance addresses key issues in his book:
The general community of those residing in Middletown is overwhelmingly undereducated. Less than 16% have earned a Bachelor’s degree, this is less than half average for the United States of America. JD Vance an educated white collar professional clearly shows how his community with their culture did not prepare their children to embrace education. Vance elaborates how children embraced poverty, drug addiction, and high rate of unemployment all in their own immediate families. These poor models of adult manners made children to kill their hopes and never saw education as a long term investment that needed consideration. As Vance points out that he knew no single person who had gone to a four- year university or college; and 20% of high school freshman in Middletown would not join for a graduate program. Vance relates this poor record of education to the cultural system of low expectations.
JD Vance portrays a ‘culture of poverty’ as the dilemma affecting the mind-set of the Appalachian communities; ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly’ (229). The inefficient poor community which lack skills and momentum to succeed, have only themselves to blame for their own bad life choices. His argument connecting a retrogressive cultural mores, to the economic achievement that bred irresponsibility and shifting blame to the system. Vance says, ‘as a culture, we had no heroes.’ This justifies that, when someone fails, the fault is not his or hers, they believe that the system is tilted against them, hence yielding hopelessness and low productivity due to poor work ethic. The Appalachians do not to discover their full potentials by doing different things other than what their culture requires them to. Thus they are inevitably trapped in a ‘culture of poverty.’
The Appalachians are more conserved. Despite the Vance family having moved in the 1950s, to Ohio, where the grandfather found work in Armco Company with better wages and improved material gains; they still had a sense of dislocation. JD, throughout his time growing up, saw the infection of fatalism and unexplainable pessimism that reaped hope for better material gain. He says, ‘one foot in the new life and one foot in the old one’ (36). This attitude brings apathy and indifference among them and other Americans. Vance notices those whom he knows in Middletown think that, one needs to be coming from a fortunate family or be ‘exceptionally bright’ to go ahead and make something valuable out of this life. Apparently diligence does not have a role in this kind of mentality of the Appalachians. Although Vance brings out this conserved negativity, his experiences tries to validate Middletownians mentality; he performed well and even managed to join Yale Law School. Curiously, is he one of the ‘exceptionally bright’ as per the thinking of the Appalachians?
Moreover, Vance points out the drug and substance abuse and addiction as a calamity in the Appalachian region. JD mourned his grandmother, who had played a major role in shaping his life. She was a very longtime smoker whose lungs gave out at 71years of age when JD was in the Marines, posted in Iran. The drugs led to more complicated family relations, ‘seeing people insult, scream, and sometimes physically fight was part of our life’ (73). Vance shares a scary story as he details violent behavior by his grandparents, his angered grandmother poured gasoline and lit a match on his grandfather’s chest as he slept after binge drinking (43-44). The immediate family of adults gave the young a picture to engage in drug abuse. Heart-wrenching moments is having to remember his mother’s journey in drug addiction. Therefore, the lack of proper work ethics and the inability to embrace change in lifestyle, rendered the young to follow their role models footsteps. Due to this drug abuse becomes inevitable for the energetic, unskilled, and young people who have grown to see using drugs as a luxury or leisure activity. The drugs trap is already in place for the vulnerable young people set by their immediate families who are their models.
Vance features on the unstable family relations, there are several unstable marriages among the white working-class. Having being brought up by a single mother who unwillingly introduced JD to a number of her boyfriends. Vance examines his mother’s experience in trials to have a stable relationship but all was in vain; they came give it a try a shortly leave. The pain of a child brought up in an ‘imperfect’ family is unmeasurable. Being introduced to a ‘new’ dad every now and then destabilizes the young child’s growth. The earlier imprints to a child’s brain develops new adjustments that were not present before. This could breed hatred to men who cannot be responsible for a family, although the problem could be on the mother’s part. Since she was a drug addict the several boyfriends who came and left shortly could not keep up with Vance’s mother addiction. Most single-parented children feel out of place by missing a chance to receive love from both parents.
Finally, Vance explains the ‘culture of honor’ among the males which employs violence to anyone who offered insult or the slightest sign of disrespect. It was celebrated as a noble culture and JD growing up in this culture and having heard stories of his relatives shot or had beaten people, he became an ardent practitioner. For instance, when someone broke up with his sister he felt the ignition as his duty to violently avenge for his sister. Another instance is when his grandmother was insulted on the schoolyard, this compelled him to fight since his sense of family honor and loyalty could not rest. JD criticizes these acts and a society that cannot solve disputes without violence; he calls it a self-destruction behavior to hold grudges and injuring a fellow human or killing them.
In conclusion, Vance accomplishment is amazingly stunning. He uses his story to show how adverse childhood exposures reduces the overall performance in learning institutions and later lead to suffer from depression, obesity, anxiety and other related heart problems. However, JD Vance focused in his goals, overcame trauma, became confident of a better future, and worked diligently to achieve his dreams of a good job and a better neighborhood. He has given hope to the young hillbillies that everything is possible. We can also recognize real problems children face and help them eliminate success barriers and design policies to help the poor.