“Readers may be Indian, Appalachian, and queer or they may be some or none of these things. “A timely collection that begins to fill the gap in literature focused mainly on the white male experience.” “A graceful exploration of identity, community, and contradictions.”
“This book lives beautifully in the gray area of trying to navigate a divisive environment while growing up queer and Asian American.”
With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, Another Appalachia mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles.Īnother Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia’s identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. When Neema Avashia tells people where she’s from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving “There are Indian people in West Virginia?” A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. Named a New York Public Library Best Book of 2022 Named the BEST LGBTQ+ MEMOIR of 2022 by Book Riot Teaching and Learning in Higher EducationĢ023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Lesbian Memoir/Biography.Nevertheless, Avashia fully embraces her West Virginia identity and heritage and makes the case that even if people like her are only a small portion of West Virginia’s population that they are nevertheless fully West Virginian. This is contrasted with how those same white West Virginians who helped her family on arrival support the MAGA ideology that discriminates against immigrants and LGBTQ people. Avashia describes the warm memories of white West Virginians and how the Appalachian and Indian cultural traditions became commingled in her childhood. Her family emigrated to India as part of a small but significant group of Indian ex-pats who worked in West Virginia’s chemical industry. In this short collection of essay-length memoirs she reflects on growing up in West Virginia and her present day life in India. Neema Avashia is a Boston teacher who I know through her activism and her Twitter account. Publication Info: Morgantown : West Virginia University Press, 2022. Title: Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place
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