Margaret McLeod Leef, WV Gazette Mail (Courtesy Photos)
Neema Avashia, author of "Another Appalachia, Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place."
Author Neema Avashia says even the cover of her book ‘Another Appalachia’ is an example of interrupting the national narrative about Appalachia. According to Avashia, many families in West Virginia have a photo taken in front of Babcock Park at some point. Her photo shows her Indian family, often erased in national dialogues about Appalachia, enjoying a day in West Virginia’s wilderness, just like every other family from the region.
Neema Avashia, author of "Another Appalachia, Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place."
How do you love a place that doesn’t always love you back?
This is the paramount question in Neema Avashia’s memoir, “Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place. Avashia, a writer, civics teacher, social justice advocate, and Boston’s 2013 Educator of the Year explores intricate ties to her birthplace, West Virginia, through a collection of poignant essays.
“Another Appalachia” resonates with a wide readership. Avashia has heard from people inside and outside of Appalachia about the book's themes, including the complexities of relationships, the politics of rural America, and strength through community, many of which are experienced by people near and far.
​
“I heard again and again that people saw themselves — people who had nothing in common, who weren’t queer, weren’t Indian — who said, ‘I didn’t expect to find myself in here, but I found myself in here.’”
​
Raised in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, by parents who immigrated from India seeking opportunities in the chemical industry in the early 1970s, Avashia calls West Virginia her home despite having lived away from Appalachia for more years than she lived there.
​
Living in Boston, Avashia observed how outsiders often misunderstand Appalachia. Her identity as a queer person of color from West Virginia elicits surprise from many. “Their analysis of what was happening in Appalachia was wrong ... it didn’t align with my reality,” she said.
According to Avashia, recent misconceptions about Appalachia are further entrenched by JD Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was on the New York Times bestseller list for 54 weeks.
Ann Pancake, an esteemed writer exploring Appalachia, commended Avashia’s ability to deliver multi-faceted viewpoints.
​
“She’s able to really get a nuanced and complicated look at these issues across to the reader. And because they’re nuanced and complicated, I think she has more readers,” Pancake said.
Billy Wolfe, communications director of ACLU-WV, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of narratives like Avashia’s in showing diversity and fostering understanding. “I think it’s so important to read narratives like this, because we just kind of get erased.”
Professor Rachel Peckham taught “Another Appalachia” in her creative writing class at Marshall University.
“Appalachia is not a monolith. And that’s something that comes up a lot in our discussions,” said Peckham, whose students, particularly LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color from Appalachia, found solace in Avashia’s unapologetic pride in her West Virginian roots.
Madison Graves, a queer student in Peckham’s class, was moved by the book. “I was absolutely enthralled ... . There are such ingrained human experiences in this book, and they are amazing. She makes me want to be a better writer.”
​
In “Another Appalachia,” Avashia explores the culture of solidarity and care she experienced in Appalachia. Raised in a region facing various challenges, she learned the values of mutual support from her family and surroundings, including the importance of showing up for one another and using whatever you have to help others.
​
“At no point in Appalachia’s history has anyone in a position of power moved in a way that centered the needs of Appalachian people,” says Avashia. “You don’t grow up in the heart of union organizing and not have some of that just seep into you.”
​
According to Avashia, it is an outlook that informs how we help each other. “We look out for one another in that we protect one another’s rights, and when we feel like people are not being protected, we stand up. I think those are pretty core ideas of my childhood.”
Using what you have to help others is another central idea from her childhood.
​
“I think a lot about what Ann Pancake says about folks in Appalachia operating on a kinship economy,” said Avashia, who realized that she could give through writing as a way to challenge prevailing narratives about Appalachia. “The only way you interrupt a single narrative about the place where you’re from is to add another narrative."
​
“If you get enough of those other stories, then people can’t just flatten the place that I’m from anymore,” Avashia continued. “They can’t see it as just one thing. They can’t see the people in just one way because there are too many narratives that show how actually rich and complicated the region is. And so that’s why I started writing.”
​
Writing allowed Avashia to explore mixed feelings about her birthplace. Home is where we find our truest selves, but emotions can be complex when your place of origin is at odds with your identity as perceived by the wider world.
​
But the book is especially poignant to LGBTQ+ people in Appalachia, which is perhaps the most treasured part of the book’s success to Avashia. “The comfort that I think young [queer] people have gotten from the book has felt like maybe the most important thing I could have done.”
Avashia says she is alarmed by what she sees as West Virginia’s politics of limiting the freedom of LGBTQ+ people in the state. And yet, she is proud of her roots and credits the region for shaping her into the person she is today. Despite difficulties in the region and the systematic denial of the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Avashia says she also sees hope.
​
“Is there a volume that is being turned up really high right now in West Virginia? On hatred, yeah. There is. Does that mean that every single person in West Virginia holds that hatred? Absolutely not.” Avashia wonders instead about other values that she knows exist in the state.
“My question is, how do we turn up the volume on love? Because I really, firmly believe that that is there. And I believe that because I have felt it.”
​
Nowhere does she feel more herself than when she is in West Virginia. It is a place she shares with her partner and daughter by visiting West Virginia often and maintaining traditions from her childhood when she is away. Avashia pickles and cans vegetables from her patio garden in Boston, including chow chow, dilly beans, dilly carrots, cucumber pickles and jam, just the way she did growing up in West Virginia, all the while listening and dancing to bluegrass and country music — Bill Withers, Rhiannon Giddens, Dolly Parton, and the Highwomen — with her daughter and partner. Avashia’s ties to home are shared, transformed, and repeated.
​
For a writer who grapples with the complex dynamics in her home state and who sometimes questions whether her love for the area is returned, it’s clear it’s returned from many.
The author continues to feel the pull of the Mountain State tugging her home. “I often tell people the minute I hit the mountains, I feel a whole other part of myself that I can’t access when I’m not in the mountains, and that draws me back; and also the relationships I’ve built draw me back.”
​
How do you love a place that doesn’t always love you back? Through resilience, understanding, and the beauty of embracing multifaceted identities in a world that yearns for more compassionate narratives.