Why yes sir...I have seen a microscope before!

OK. So if I’m writing a blog about how growing up in Appalachia has affected my life. I’m at some point going to have to address how I’ve encountered stereotypes of Appalachia over the years. The instances are probably more than most people would expect…I know I’ve been shocked every time something has happened to me. But I’m just going to really talk about one...one that stands out the most to me and I still laugh about today.

For my first year of college I went to a small, southern school outside of Appalachia. Sure everyone down there loved to talk about my accent, but it wasn’t until my first night in Biology lab that I had to deal with the common perception of Appalachia.

We were going through the normal first night of any class. You know, the go around the room and introduce yourself thing. It got to me and I did my thing…”Hi. I’m Sarah, I’m from London, Kentucky…blah blah blah.” After I was done, the professor just kind of stared at me. I had no clue what I had done.

We moved on to the next part of class…familiarizing ourselves with the lab and where all the equipment was located. While this was going on, the professor walked over to me. Dead serious, he looked at me and said, “I just wanted to make sure you were finding everything OK,” then proceeded to point at a microscope and ask me, “Now have you ever seen one of these before? This is a microscope, I don’t think you guys have these where your from in Kentucky…let me show you how it works.”

I was speechless. I couldn’t believe this guy thought that just because I grew up in Southeastern Kentucky, I wasn’t worldly enough to have ever seen a microscope before. So, being my father’s daughter, I fired back with the most sarcastic comment I could come up with at the time.

“No sir, I haven’t,” I replied. “Our school thought raising the money to get running water was a much higher priority than buying the school microscopes.” He spent a moment fumbling around trying to decide if I was serious or not, until I started laughing. After that, the class proceeded on smoothly, and he turned out to be one of my favorite professors during my time at that school.

Anyways…I guess the point of me telling this story is to address that yes, I have been stereotyped because I grew up in Appalachia. I used to get mad and defensive about it when people would crack jokes about no shoes and outhouses. Now, I’ve just learned that when people genuinely think this stuff, it’s because that’s the only way they have ever seen Appalachia portrayed. So when I encounter that, I laugh about it, and jump at the chance to teach people that’s not all Appalachia is. It gives me a chance to teach them about MY Appalachia.