Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South

Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South

Schrift, Melissa

Hardcover

AnthropologyGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesRegional: South

ISBN10: 0803271549
ISBN13: 9780803271548
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: May 1 2013
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.90
Height: 1.00 Width: 5.70 Depth: 8.60
Language: English

Appalachian legend describes a mysterious, multiethnic population of exotic, dark-skinned rogues called Melungeons who rejected the outside world and lived in the remote, rugged mountains in the farthest corner of northeast Tennessee. The allegedly unknown origins of these Melungeons are part of what drove this legend and generated myriad exotic origin theories. Though nobody self-identified as Melungeon before the 1960s, by the 1990s Melungeonness had become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, resulting in a zealous online community and annual meetings where self-identified Melungeons gathered to discuss shared genealogy and history. Although today Melungeons are commonly identified as the descendants of underclass whites, freed African Americans, and Native Americans, this ethnic identity is still largely a social construction based on local tradition, myth, and media.

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