Three years ago I never would have thought that my college experiences would have taken me to West Virginia. I actually had to look at a map and refresh my memory as to where West Virginia is. Turns out it's sandwiched between Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It also just so happens that the Charleston (which was to be our meeting place with our site leader as we road tripped down to Kopperston) is not the Charleston of South Carolina, but is actually the capital of West Virginia. I think that, judging not only from my lack of geographical knowledge but from the responses of others as I told them where I was headed for Fall Break and the responses of fellow site mates, West Virginia is very much a forgotten state. It gets written off as being very rural and filled with uneducated backwards people who are still marrying their own cousins. One of the first things our favorite West Virginian named Donnie said to us was, "Here in West Virginia, even though divorce is allowed, you have to remind them that they are still brother and sister. Nothin's gonna be able to change that". Even though they may take such stereotypes lightheartedly and find room for jokes(we definitely spent a lot of time laughing with Donnie!), the image of West Virginia to some extent just perpetuates the hopelessness of the people and also the cyclical nature of the problem.
Moving on to talk about Kopperston specifically...I googled it before leaving and found a website that compares population demographics of any two cities that you type in. So I chose Kopperston and Upland, CA which is a suburb of LA and also happens to be my hometown. The results were intense: www.bestplaces.net/city/.
Kopperston has a population of about 3,400 and the median age is skewed upwards at 40.7. This hits on a point that many of the residents talked about. According to the residents, Kopperston used to be a model coal camp back in the fifties. It even had differentiated houses, making it seem like a real town and not just a place dominated by the mine. This was all fine and good until there was no more coal left, and they shut the plant down in 1997 (www.coalcampusa.com). Since then, jobs in Kopperston have been scarce. The only real jobs require commuting upwards of 30 miles away. Within it's zip code, there were only 804 employees in the year 2006. (business patterns) The largest industry naturally is retail. This blow to the economy has meant that the young people in the town either leave and never come back or they, according to residents, deal drugs, do drugs and bum around. It was really weird too because the only young people we saw when we were over there were small children and a few teenagers. This also leaves a lot of older folks without adequate care or social support. Once the older generation passes away, then the population will decrease even more unless there is something to rejuvenate the economy. The economy definitely plays into the social factors of the society, and I think a change in the economy is definitely necessary in order to bring about change in the society.
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