Appalachian Struggles: A Tunnel Runs Through It

[theHandpuppet]

1. Some things never change, do they?

The hostility of the locals against black and Chinese workers for the fear they were coming to take jobs sounds so familiar to the hostility today against Hispanic workers and immigrants.

My grandfather and a number of his cousins migrated during the depression from Pike County, Kentucky to Scioto County, Ohio, where they found work on the Norfolk & Western, now Norfolk Southern. Eventually my Dad became a superintendent for the N&W line between Cincinnati and Williamson, WV. (Though I don't think the line extended all the way to Mingo.) Occasionally we'd ride the train to Williamson where we also had relatives. It was during those childhood trips that I first became fully aware of the poverty and isolation of West Virginia's hills & hollows. I still have some images from those childhood trips seared into my memory.