Greetings: A woman named Terra Vance (Marked Melungeon) wrote about JD Vance's misrepresentation of his heritage that of fellow Appalachians on facebook. Here is the text in case you are not able to see it:
Oh, I’ve got a lot more to say about JD Vance, born JD Bowman.
In case you missed it— yes, we share some ancestors.
But, I was born and raised an actual Vance in the actual hollers of Appalachia. My family has been in Central Appalachia for centuries or millennia.
We’re not, as JD Vance fictionalizes, “Scots-Irish.”
But first, let me introduce you to some of my ancestors and still-living relatives.
See those first two pictures? These are some of my direct ancestors from the Hatfield-Vance clan. The woman is Mary Elizabeth Hatfield. The man is Jacob Marcum.
They’re from what’s now Wayne County, WV. That’s where the family reunions were.
We never saw JD Bowman “Vance” at the family reunions.
But let me ask you…
Do they look Scots-Irish to you?
I’m from Island Creek where Bad Jim Vance and Devil Anse Hatfield are from. We have been in this area since before anyone was called “Vance.”
JD Vance is not even from Central Appalachia, and neither were his parents.
His grandparents with a Vance surname moved from Kentucky to Ohio.
JD Vance assumed the name of his maternal grandparents to siphon off the Hillbilly credentials of my actual Vance family while erasing my family and doing a thoughtless job of characterizing Appalachians.
JD Bowman “Vance” didn’t do a thoughtful job of explaining why Appalachians are Poor.
Let me break that down for you.
My dad worked 60-72 hours a week in the mines for 40 years. Three times, mountains collapsed on him. One time, a two-ton rock in a collapse fell on his head and caused his chin to go down with such force that it snapped his sternum.
Another time, he saved a man’s life by pushing him out of the way. His steel-toe boots were not rated for mountains, and that steel toe collapsed and basically cut off his toes. They managed to save the toes but now he doesn’t have toenails.
Now, he has tons of improperly-healed remodeled bones that cause him tremendous pain he never mentions, he has total black lung (but no black lung “benefits”), and no cartilage left in too many of his joints.
JD Vance claims Appalachians are Poor because they don’t want to work. We work ourselves to the grave and then get bragged on at our funerals for our work ethic.
JD Vance would know that if he had been to all those family black lung funerals.
But no amount of work ethic can make a man comfortable if the only jobs are mines, and when a seam of coal ran out, the mine shut down. Any savings was depleted.
It wasn’t for lack of effort or initiative.
His dad, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, inhaled a mine blast that scarred his lungs.
His dad’s brother, also a real Vance actually from Logan, WV, was crushed in the mines a month later.
His grandfather, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, which is actual Appalachia— and the best friend and cousin of Cap Hatfield, had to go head-to-head with the KKK— hired thugs of mine operators— with a pair .38s in Logan, WV.
You could read about that from my great Uncle William Preston Actually-Vance’s memoir and ACTUAL-hillbilly elegy, The Way It Was.
Many of the men in my actually-Appalachian ancestry died in or because of the mines. I put a couple of my recent ancestor documents in this slideshow so you could get an idea of how actual Appalachian poverty came to be.
You could read my still-living 96-year-old grandmother, Bertie Lou VANCE’s actual-hillbilly elegy. It is also set in Logan, WV, because she has a about a century of lived experience as an actual Appalachian.
I, an Actual-Vance, wrote the forward to that book. My birth certificate has Vance on it. I didn’t even have to tokenize, appropriate, erase, or dehumanize a single ancestor in order to write it.
I didn’t have to philosophize [poorly] about anything. I just wrote about my lived experience because I have actual-lived experience.
I didn’t mention the word “hillbilly” because Actual-Vances don’t talk about ourselves that way.
Mamaw Bertie’s daddy was killed (likely poisoned) when she was 7 years old. Her mom was pregnant with her 7th child when that happened. He was a weights and measures man— the guy who made sure mine companies paid their workers accurately without cheating them.
So, she grew up starvation-Poor because her dad was [almost-certainly] murdered by the mines— and not because he was lazy and had no drive. In fact, he invented and installed exhaust fans and blast doors in the mines that have saved countless lives.
He was a prolific musician and banjo picker, but Mamaw Bertie recalls that after he died, they only had any music in their home until the battery died in their radio.
They never could afford to replace it, so the music died, too.
That local union hat from Stirrat, WV? That was my dad’s. He’s an Actual-Vance. Stirrat is where Devil Anse Hatfield was from. It is 1-2 miles from the holler where I grew up. That was my maternal grandfather’s union branch.
You can see my great grandfathers’ documents, too. Note the occupations and locations.
See that family photo with the matriarch, kids, and grandkids? Those are my Vance-Hatfield ancestors from Logan, WV. Do they look Scots-Irish?
I’ll comment under the images, but close to the end are some of my direct actual-Vance ancestors, Sarah Ellen Actual-Vance and Mary Actual-Vance. Do they look Scots-Irish?
The Vance/Hatfield clan was not Scots-Irish. They were European-born Romani (largely French/German), Cherokee, Shawnee, possibly-African, likely Middle Eastern, and maybe other things. They were mixed.
Most of the people who are old-mix actual-Appalachians in the coal camps are descendants of Melungeons. They’ve been treated like expendable cheap resources because of structural racism being the norm.
You can’t talk about Melungeons without talking about why they have such profound generational trauma. You can’t do that when you don’t talk about white supremacy.
The one authentic thing that JD Vance did that is keeping up with Melungeon tradition is changing his name and appearing to be from somewhere he’s not in order to obscure his ethnic heritage.
That would maybe have panned out for him a little better if he’d gone further than Wikipedia to learn about his ancestors.
But we are not the Irish Vances. That name was a Whiteness costume originally, and so it’s fitting JD Vance would put it on.
Incidentally, I have Bowman ancestors, too. Some are on JD Bowman “Vance’s” paternal side. I put their photos as the final two so you can tell me how much they beam with “Scots-Irish” pride.
JD is an Outsider, and he knew that before he tried to put on the hillbilly costume just to distance himself from actual-Vances and other coal camp Melungeons.
He put MY family name on in order to benefit off a legacy that he has not lived through the consequences of… he just whitewashed it, fictionalized it, and then condescended to as he set himself up as a supreme harbinger of rising above his hillbilly white-trashedness.
We actual-Vances can define ourselves, and we don’t have to whitewash ourselves to do that.
If you want to learn about real Appalachian history, you can follow my page. My ancestors and living family deserve better than Hillbilly Elegy, and I try to do my due diligence to tell their truths as closely as I can. https://www.facebook.com/markedmelungeon
Greetings: A woman named Terra Vance (Marked Melungeon) wrote about JD Vance's misrepresentation of his heritage that of fellow Appalachians on facebook. Here is the text in case you are not able to see it:
Oh, I’ve got a lot more to say about JD Vance, born JD Bowman.
In case you missed it— yes, we share some ancestors.
But, I was born and raised an actual Vance in the actual hollers of Appalachia. My family has been in Central Appalachia for centuries or millennia.
We’re not, as JD Vance fictionalizes, “Scots-Irish.”
But first, let me introduce you to some of my ancestors and still-living relatives.
See those first two pictures? These are some of my direct ancestors from the Hatfield-Vance clan. The woman is Mary Elizabeth Hatfield. The man is Jacob Marcum.
They’re from what’s now Wayne County, WV. That’s where the family reunions were.
We never saw JD Bowman “Vance” at the family reunions.
But let me ask you…
Do they look Scots-Irish to you?
I’m from Island Creek where Bad Jim Vance and Devil Anse Hatfield are from. We have been in this area since before anyone was called “Vance.”
JD Vance is not even from Central Appalachia, and neither were his parents.
His grandparents with a Vance surname moved from Kentucky to Ohio.
JD Vance assumed the name of his maternal grandparents to siphon off the Hillbilly credentials of my actual Vance family while erasing my family and doing a thoughtless job of characterizing Appalachians.
JD Bowman “Vance” didn’t do a thoughtful job of explaining why Appalachians are Poor.
Let me break that down for you.
My dad worked 60-72 hours a week in the mines for 40 years. Three times, mountains collapsed on him. One time, a two-ton rock in a collapse fell on his head and caused his chin to go down with such force that it snapped his sternum.
Another time, he saved a man’s life by pushing him out of the way. His steel-toe boots were not rated for mountains, and that steel toe collapsed and basically cut off his toes. They managed to save the toes but now he doesn’t have toenails.
Now, he has tons of improperly-healed remodeled bones that cause him tremendous pain he never mentions, he has total black lung (but no black lung “benefits”), and no cartilage left in too many of his joints.
JD Vance claims Appalachians are Poor because they don’t want to work. We work ourselves to the grave and then get bragged on at our funerals for our work ethic.
JD Vance would know that if he had been to all those family black lung funerals.
But no amount of work ethic can make a man comfortable if the only jobs are mines, and when a seam of coal ran out, the mine shut down. Any savings was depleted.
It wasn’t for lack of effort or initiative.
His dad, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, inhaled a mine blast that scarred his lungs.
His dad’s brother, also a real Vance actually from Logan, WV, was crushed in the mines a month later.
His grandfather, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, which is actual Appalachia— and the best friend and cousin of Cap Hatfield, had to go head-to-head with the KKK— hired thugs of mine operators— with a pair .38s in Logan, WV.
You could read about that from my great Uncle William Preston Actually-Vance’s memoir and ACTUAL-hillbilly elegy, The Way It Was.
Many of the men in my actually-Appalachian ancestry died in or because of the mines. I put a couple of my recent ancestor documents in this slideshow so you could get an idea of how actual Appalachian poverty came to be.
You could read my still-living 96-year-old grandmother, Bertie Lou VANCE’s actual-hillbilly elegy. It is also set in Logan, WV, because she has a about a century of lived experience as an actual Appalachian.
I, an Actual-Vance, wrote the forward to that book. My birth certificate has Vance on it. I didn’t even have to tokenize, appropriate, erase, or dehumanize a single ancestor in order to write it.
I didn’t have to philosophize [poorly] about anything. I just wrote about my lived experience because I have actual-lived experience.
I didn’t mention the word “hillbilly” because Actual-Vances don’t talk about ourselves that way.
Mamaw Bertie’s daddy was killed (likely poisoned) when she was 7 years old. Her mom was pregnant with her 7th child when that happened. He was a weights and measures man— the guy who made sure mine companies paid their workers accurately without cheating them.
So, she grew up starvation-Poor because her dad was [almost-certainly] murdered by the mines— and not because he was lazy and had no drive. In fact, he invented and installed exhaust fans and blast doors in the mines that have saved countless lives.
He was a prolific musician and banjo picker, but Mamaw Bertie recalls that after he died, they only had any music in their home until the battery died in their radio.
They never could afford to replace it, so the music died, too.
That local union hat from Stirrat, WV? That was my dad’s. He’s an Actual-Vance. Stirrat is where Devil Anse Hatfield was from. It is 1-2 miles from the holler where I grew up. That was my maternal grandfather’s union branch.
You can see my great grandfathers’ documents, too. Note the occupations and locations.
See that family photo with the matriarch, kids, and grandkids? Those are my Vance-Hatfield ancestors from Logan, WV. Do they look Scots-Irish?
I’ll comment under the images, but close to the end are some of my direct actual-Vance ancestors, Sarah Ellen Actual-Vance and Mary Actual-Vance. Do they look Scots-Irish?
The Vance/Hatfield clan was not Scots-Irish. They were European-born Romani (largely French/German), Cherokee, Shawnee, possibly-African, likely Middle Eastern, and maybe other things. They were mixed.
Most of the people who are old-mix actual-Appalachians in the coal camps are descendants of Melungeons. They’ve been treated like expendable cheap resources because of structural racism being the norm.
You can’t talk about Melungeons without talking about why they have such profound generational trauma. You can’t do that when you don’t talk about white supremacy.
The one authentic thing that JD Vance did that is keeping up with Melungeon tradition is changing his name and appearing to be from somewhere he’s not in order to obscure his ethnic heritage.
That would maybe have panned out for him a little better if he’d gone further than Wikipedia to learn about his ancestors.
But we are not the Irish Vances. That name was a Whiteness costume originally, and so it’s fitting JD Vance would put it on.
Incidentally, I have Bowman ancestors, too. Some are on JD Bowman “Vance’s” paternal side. I put their photos as the final two so you can tell me how much they beam with “Scots-Irish” pride.
JD is an Outsider, and he knew that before he tried to put on the hillbilly costume just to distance himself from actual-Vances and other coal camp Melungeons.
He put MY family name on in order to benefit off a legacy that he has not lived through the consequences of… he just whitewashed it, fictionalized it, and then condescended to as he set himself up as a supreme harbinger of rising above his hillbilly white-trashedness.
We actual-Vances can define ourselves, and we don’t have to whitewash ourselves to do that.
If you want to learn about real Appalachian history, you can follow my page. My ancestors and living family deserve better than Hillbilly Elegy, and I try to do my due diligence to tell their truths as closely as I can. https://www.facebook.com/markedmelungeon