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"Gettin' above your raisin'" is a phrase I've heard
all my life. The notion is you want to change social
classes. You try to change social classes, there's
this feeling that you're forsaking the family, you're
forsaking place, you're forgetting where you came from…and
here's this real fear that if you leave, that you'll
become ashamed of where you came from.
— Michael Birdwell, historian
Dana Felty is a young woman from a small town in
western Kentucky who has moved to Washington, DC.
to fulfill her dream of becoming a journalist. One
of only three people in her high school class of 150
to move away (even going to college in Ohio was an
act of cultural defiance), Dana struggles with the
feeling that leaving her working class roots behind
means distancing herself from her family and friends.
In Appalachia, and in other heavily blue-collar communities,
there is often a widely held suspicion that those
who aspire to move beyond their families or their
class are rejecting their roots. To "get above your raisin'"
means forgetting where you come from, something that Dana
worries about frequently, and which we see her struggling
with on an extended trip home to visit her father.
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