"And now, I'm going to tell you why I decided to go to my native village first. I didn't go back there so that the home could make admiration over me because I had been up North to college and come back with a diploma and a Chevrolet. I knew they were not going to pay either one of these items too much mind. I was just Lucy Hurston's daughter, Zora, and even if I had, to use one of our down home expressions, had a Kaiser baby, and that's something that hasn't been done in this Country yet, I'd still be just Zora to the neighbors. If I had exalted myself to impress the town, somebody would have sent me word in a matchbox that I had been up North there and had rubbed the hair off of my head against some college wall, and then come back there with a lot of form and fashion and outside show to the world. But they'd stand flatfooted and tell me that they didn't have me, neither my sham-polish, to study 'bout. And that would have been that."

Smart college girl returns to her Southern hometown to research the ways of her people—sounds like the setup for a bad horror film. But anyway, then she refuses to show off her college education. Why?

Because she just knows she'd be laughed out of town. Maybe even all the way back to the North. Or she'd just be ignored. Depends on how much sleep her former neighbors got the night before.

Remember when J-Lo made that video for "Jenny from the Block" to show off her street cred? You know, to prove just how down she was with her old neighborhood? Well, everyone despised it.

Because clearly, you can't sport a Bentley and spend time on yachts and still be "Jenny from the Block." Once you become J-Lo, you stay J-Lo. There's no going back.

Hurston's basically trying to avoid that same kind of backlash here. For her, it's a necessity to stay true to her Southern ways because this is what would happen if she were to flaunt her educated self at home: "They'd stand flatfooted and tell me that they didn't have me, neither my sham-polish, to study 'bout. And that would have been that."

Now, we're not experts in Southern dialects, but we're guessing not having her or her "sham-polish" to "study "'bout" is not a good thing. Certainly, we know she's not saying people would welcome her high-falutin' self home with open arms.

Plus, if she were to forget her Southern roots, she wouldn't have anything to study. And what fun would that be?

Hurston doesn't just tell us that she's going to mix "high" and "low" culture. She shows us.

Even though it's pretty clear that Hurston is well educated and knows her Standard English inside and out, she immediately launches into her hometown's dialect. Like the phrase, "had a Kaiser baby." If you're thinking, "what in the world does that mean?" don't worry. You're not alone.

In fact, that whole feeling of "huh?" might be just what Hurston was going for. Our inability to understand her completely when she switches dialects just goes to show how important Hurston's entire academic project is. If she doesn't recover and record the folklore and dialects of black Southerners, and then incorporate those dialects into her writing, we might lose these cultural elements completely.

Her passage just goes to show how ignorant we are about the incredible richness and diversity of the South.

Oh, and by the way, if you're still wondering about that phrase, "had a Kaiser baby," it basically means having a baby by a white guy. "Kaiser" refers to Germany's very white Kaiser Wilhelm II.

You see, these folk dialects can be just as academically savvy as your history professor. Just because it's folk doesn't mean it's ignorant. Thanks for reminding us—and some of our stuffier colleagues, cough cough—of that, Hurston.