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Summary Of Vance's Hillbilly Elegy

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“Very few people at Yale law school are like me. They may look like me, but for all the Ivy League's obsession with diversity, virtually everyone-black, white, Jewish, Muslim, whatever- comes from intact families who never worry about money.” (Vance 203) Throughout the end of Vance's book he discusses his life in college at Ohio State and the ivy league school, Yale. He talks about its difficulties. However, these difficulties weren’t found in his school work. In fact, he says that “Classes were hard, and sometimes required long nights in the library, but they weren't that hard.” (201) The difficulty to Vance seemed to come from the lack of people in his school that understood or came from his background. There are two events, the first takes place at Indiana University in 1987, where a class was sent out to be immersed in and expand their education on cultures exactly like Vance's. The second article talks about a student who in 1988, like Vance, escaped his hillbilly background and became successful at Yale. Both of these events occurred before Vance's time in Yale and are examples of people attempting to understand or do what Vance did in Hillbilly Elegy. “For four months, the students eat, sleep, teach-and sink or swim-in another culture. They go to inner cities, Appalachia, Indian reservations, Hispanic areas, and overseas.” (Clark 1) A class at the University of Indiana is sent out in 1987 to different cultures as part of Cultural Immersion Projects. It is the
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