Identity, Authenticity - Do they conflict?

[Dance-with-me]

Originally Posted by Martina

I have had a version of this one my whole life. Appalachian parents, raised in SW Ohio so less of an accent (none now) and higher education. The people being rudely surprised experience -- so been there..

My mom and her side of my family are all from the S/SW Ohio Appalachian diaspora -- mostly Ironton/Portsmouth area (ever hear of Franklin Furnace? it was my home base growing up, where my mom grew up and where my Granny lived until she couldn't take care of herself any more). More kin in Springfield, and many of the ones who "escaped" and "moved up" in the world went to Cincinnati (where I ended up going to college).

People say ignorant things to me about my lack of accent, as if it's some disability that I should be thrilled to not have to overcome, when there's nothing more that I'd love to hear once more than my Granny's thick accent grown in the hollers of eastern Kentucky. They don't get why I prize the sustenance scrap quilts my Granny made over the prize-winning magazine-cover quilts that my mom has made, or why the object I hope the most to inherit is the quilt my mom made from the bow tie blocks that my Little Granny pieced long after she went blind. They are quick to stereotype "trailer trash" and refuse to recognize that for many poor rural folk, a trailer is a big step up and a source of pride. They don't get why as a queer person and feminist and liberal I stay so close to cousins who are right wing conservative Christian, never getting that they are no more wholly defined by their political and religious views than I am by mine, and that I know sides of them that they can't fathom, including that any one of them would take me in, come rescue me, and be there for me no matter what if I needed that from them.

Sometimes the only way to be authentic to a part of your identity is to battle the stereotypes, but in can just get so exhausting when those stereotypes are so pervasive.