Chapter 40 Quiz: Whose Appalachia? Race, Class, Gender, and the Fight Over a Region's Story

Multiple Choice

1. The term "Affrilachian" was coined by:

a) Crystal Wilkinson, to describe the Black characters in her fiction b) Helen Lewis, as part of the founding of Appalachian Studies c) Frank X Walker, in 1991, to name the experience of being both Black and Appalachian — an identity that existed for centuries but lacked institutional language d) The Appalachian Regional Commission, to categorize minority populations

2. The chapter argues that the construction of Appalachian identity as white was:

a) An accurate reflection of the region's demographic reality b) A natural and inevitable process c) A deliberate project — undertaken by local color writers, social scientists, War on Poverty media, and contemporary media — that erased the Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities that have always been part of the mountains d) A recent phenomenon that began in the 2000s

3. Intersectionality, as coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, refers to:

a) The intersection of major highways in Appalachia b) The way multiple forms of oppression (race, class, gender, sexuality, disability) combine and interact, producing compound marginalization that single-axis analysis cannot capture c) The crossroads where coal roads met railroad tracks d) The overlap between Appalachian Studies and American Studies

4. The chapter's discussion of women in Appalachian history argues that:

a) Women played a minor role in the region's development b) Women's labor — paid and unpaid, domestic and public — was the foundation on which Appalachian communities survived, and any story that marginalizes women's experience is not just incomplete but wrong c) Women's history should be studied separately from Appalachian history d) Women in Appalachia had the same experiences as women in other American regions

5. Jeff Mann's writing about being gay in rural Appalachia primarily explores:

a) The desire to leave the mountains permanently b) The tension between love of place and the impossibility of being fully oneself in a community that does not acknowledge a fundamental part of one's identity c) The superiority of urban life to rural life d) The absence of LGBTQ+ people in the mountains

6. The Country Queers project is significant because it:

a) Proves that LGBTQ+ people do not exist in rural communities b) Documents the experiences of LGBTQ+ people in rural America, revealing a landscape of experience more complex than stereotypes suggest — including both rejection and unexpected acceptance c) Advocates for the relocation of LGBTQ+ people from rural to urban areas d) Studies the effect of tourism on LGBTQ+ communities

7. The chapter argues that class functions as the "through-line" in Appalachian history because:

a) Class is the only form of oppression in the region b) Class is more important than race in all circumstances c) The extraction pattern — outside capital exploiting local land and labor — is fundamentally a class dynamic that intersects with every other form of marginalization in the region d) All Appalachians are members of the same economic class

8. The War on Poverty's contribution to the erasure of Black Appalachians was:

a) Deliberately targeting Black communities for removal b) Producing iconic photographs of Appalachian poverty that showed exclusively white families, cementing the equation of Appalachian identity with whiteness in the national imagination while Black Appalachians — who experienced worse poverty — were rendered invisible c) Providing more resources to Black communities than to white communities d) Acknowledging Black and white poverty equally

9. Silas House's argument for LGBTQ+ inclusion in Appalachian communities is strategically significant because it:

a) Rejects Appalachian values entirely b) Frames LGBTQ+ inclusion in terms of Appalachian values that communities already hold — loyalty, community, and love of neighbor — rather than in terms that might feel imported from outside c) Argues that LGBTQ+ people should create separate communities d) Claims that Appalachian communities have always been accepting of LGBTQ+ people

10. The chapter argues that telling the Appalachian story is "always a political act" because:

a) Only politicians tell stories about Appalachia b) Every narrative choice about what to include and exclude determines who is seen, who is valued, and who receives recognition and resources — with material consequences for power and funding c) Academic writing is inherently political d) The region has more political parties than other regions

Short Answer

11. Explain the concept of "double invisibility" as experienced by Black Appalachians. Who renders them invisible, and why? How has the Affrilachian movement responded to this invisibility?

12. The chapter describes disability in coal communities as "endemic." What does this mean, and what were its causes? Why has disability been largely invisible in the Appalachian narrative, despite its prevalence?

13. Describe the field of Appalachian Studies — its origins in activism, its founding figures, and the ways it has expanded since the 1970s. What debates continue within the field about whose voices and experiences should be centered?

Essay

14. This chapter argues that the dominant narrative of Appalachian identity — white, Protestant, Scots-Irish mountain people — is "not false, but catastrophically incomplete." In a 600-word essay, evaluate this claim. What is true about the dominant narrative? What does it leave out? What are the consequences of its incompleteness for the communities it erases? Use specific examples from at least three different chapters of this textbook.

15. The chapter title asks "Whose Appalachia?" In a 500-word essay, propose your answer. Whose Appalachia is it? Is it possible to construct a regional identity that genuinely includes all of the communities described in this chapter — Black, Indigenous, immigrant, women, LGBTQ+, disabled, working-class — without diluting the specificity of each group's experience? What would such an identity look like, and how would it differ from the current dominant narrative?