Overcme bias

It's been almost 30 years since Debra Holmes quit going to a Cincinnati middle school rather
than be teased about where she came from and how she talked. Now, she's proud to claim her heritage as a member of what some sociologists call the "invisible minority" - urban Appalachians.

'Couldn't take' being called stupid

"I was shy and when I did talk, the other kids called me a hillbilly or cracker," said Holmes, 44, who was born in Cincinnati to Appalachian parents but spent most of her childhood in Clay County, Ky. "When I moved back to Cincinnati at 14, some teachers treated me as if I were stupid. I just couldn't take it." Urban Appalachians are migrants and the descendants of migrants who have moved to urban areas from the Appalachian Mountains region. Many settled in cities such as Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit. Sociologists say they share many of the socio-economic problems of other minorities without receiving the same recognition as an ethnic group. "Many of the migrants who settled in the industrial centers came with few skills and little education and ended up in impoverished areas, where they often had to struggle to survive," said Michael Maloney, the foun-ding director of Cincinnati's Ur-ban Appalachian Council and a first-generation Urban Appalachian. "They also had to fight against negative hillbilly stereotypes that labeled them as ignorant or lazy.'' The migration to in-dustrial centers has been underway for more than a century. Appalachian scholars say it reached its peak between 1940 and 1970, when more than seven million Appalachians left the region in search of jobs and a better life.

'Long way to go' in spite of improvements

While conditions have improved, many Ur-ban Appalachians in inner-city neighborhoods are still struggling. "Things are better for my children, but we still have a long way to go," said Holmes, who earned a high school equivalency diploma at age 30 with the encouragement of the Urban Appalachian Council.

UAC founded in 1974

Maloney, who was born in a log cabin in Eastern Kentucky in 1940, came to Cincinnati in the 1960s to study education at Xavier University and became involved in a grass-roots effort to help Urban Appalachians. That effort led to the 1974 formation of the Council, which helps Urban Appalachians with education, family services, employment and job training. Similar efforts were started in the 1950s and 1960s in various Northern industrial cities, but few if any of those groups still exist, Maloney said. Human Services Coordinator Phyllis Shelton was raised with eight brothers in Cincinnati by their Appalachian mother, who came to the city with her husband when he was looking for work. He returned to Kentucky, leaving his wife and children behind. "When I was a kid, a policeman who ticketed me for playing ball in the street once told me I was a dumb hillbilly who would never amount to anything," said Shelton, 43, who went on to earn a law degree. "There are more opportunities now, but the problem is how to help our people get those opportunities." Larry Redden, executive director of the Council's Appalachian Identity Center, also was born in Cincinnati to parents who migrated from Appalachian Ohio and Kentucky. "We lived in cold-water flats with 10 or 12 people in one or two rooms and six or seven families sharing a bathroom - if there was one," said Redden, 55, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

Education is key to real improvement

Redden, who went on to earn a college degree, said education is the key to improving Urban Appalachians' lives. "A lot of my teachers had good intentions, but telling me that the way I talked was stupid made me ashamed of my origins," Redden said. "A lot of that hasn't changed." Council officials say school dropout rates among Urban Appalachians are high. The 2000 census showed that among Cincinnati neighborhoods, the highest dropout rate of 58 percent was in Lower Price Hill, which is predominantly Urban Appala-chian, Maloney said. Charlene Dalton, who runs one of several Urban Appa-lachian Council-affiliated community schools that provide classes for teenagers and adults trying to earn their high school equivalency diplomas, said public schools can do more to keep students from dropping out.

Understanding Appalachian culture

"We help those who have quit or been put out of the public schools and have no place else to go," Dalton said. "If the public schools train their staff and teachers to understand the Appalachian culture, maybe it might help the dropout problem." For more information about the Urban Appalachian Council and its work, please contact EAM President Mike Maloney at 513-531-8799 or meamon@aol.com.