Memories of a redneck-hillbilly family.

Abstract

Memories of a Redneck-Hillbilly Family' is a memoir, but it functions more like an autoethnography rather than a strict memoir. Jeannette Walls' memoir the Glass Castle reveals a few painful family truths as mine does; however, my tale is not as chronological in form. It is not a mere tale about me or my family, but it is about examining the blood roots from the hillbilly line that originates from Eastern Kentucky. J. D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis would be closer to my story as he examined the hillbilly culture in his memoir. My thesis, though, stands a bit apart from other work of its nature. The goal of my thesis was to uncover why I am so different from my family. In this, I seek to understand how much of certain family traits are genetic. I examine the influence from the imprint of hillbilly isolation and living that created people that are family orientated but so set in their ways that even their language has changed little over the course of centuries. In fact, the hillbilly dialect stands virtually unchanged, and one of the only forms of dialect that mirrors Elizabethan language, its Anglo-Saxon roots obvious from the Scott-Irish history. However, I maintain the Rednecks are a separate group of white people living throughout America that have their own culture and values similar yet distinctly differ from their hillbilly cousins. I can see both influences in my immediate family. My work seeks to uncover why I do not follow the paths of my siblings or even many of my hillbilly cousins. Can understanding family members work to help a person understand who they are? Are some traditions or traits so much a part of us that no amount of education can eradicate them? If so, is that okay?