Black & Queer in Central Asia (aka Twerking in Kyrgyzstan)

Welcome back!

Black Diplomats is back from our hiatus with an update from Terrell about plans for the show and an all new interview.

Our guest today is Alexa Kellogg-Kurmanova, a PhD student in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Terrell met Alexa at the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies conference in New Orleans and they hit it off immediately. Kellogg-Kurmanova is a queer Black woman from Chicago, and her husband is a trans man from Kyrgyzstan. She speaks Russian and has spent a lot of time in East European communities, both in Central Asia and the US.

They go deep on how Kellogg-Kurmanova was introduced to the Russian language and babushka culture, and what it means to be your authentic self when you’re thousands of miles from home.

This is part one of a two-part conversation.