Oral History with Giannani Callejas-Torres and Anna Marie Smith, Part 1

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Good afternoon. My name is Rachel Muir. This is part of our interview process for the Blue Ridge oral history project. Today's date is the 12th of October. We're conducting the interview today with two individuals. Could you please introduce yourself?

Anna-Marie:

Okay. I'm Anna-Marie Smith.

Giannina:

My name is Giannina Callejas Torres.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Welcome and thank you for agreeing to have this interview today, it's a real treat. As we talked earlier, informally, first and foremost, this is your story. For example, how you came to meet each other, how you came to live in Asheville, what your experience in Asheville has been, what your experience within the 00:01:00LGBTQ community and or allies has been. This interview today will go for about 45 minutes to an hour and any direction you want to take this portion of the interview is up to you. So introduce yourselves and tell us, tell me a little bit about yourselves. I'll be taking notes by the way.

Anna-Marie:

Okay.

Anna-Marie:

All right. So again, my name's Anna-Marie Smith. I just go by Anna and I'm a native to Asheville and I've lived here my entire life.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Wow.

Anna-Marie:

31 years.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

You're a rare item. Most people are from someplace else here.

Anna-Marie:

Right? Transplants, right. So I'm native to Asheville, I've been living here my 00:02:00whole life. I believe that I am the fourth generation native to Asheville, I know that as far back as my great-grandmother was born here. I am currently self-employed as a financial coach here in town. I've formerly worked for a nonprofit that provided financial education and counseling to community, Western North Carolina community, and recently resigned that position. For about a year or so now I've been offering those services as an independent coach, counselor, consultant. I really enjoy representing Asheville in terms of just being native, being a black person, being a woman. And I don't think it's been really relative to my experience that I was a lesbian up until maybe like the age of 25.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. Are any of your family members still in the area?

Anna-Marie:

I have a few family members left in the area, some siblings, but majority of my family has been relocating to South Carolina because it's cheaper.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah. Okay.

Anna-Marie:

So I choose to stay here for now. We may relocate and we may stay. Is up for discussion still. But if I had it my way, I'd like to stay here for just a little while longer, because it seems like things are taking a turn and I feel like I'm a little bit more conscious and available to really witness the next wave of a change. I missed what happened to Asheville because I was kind of caught up in it. The transformation of... tourism came back and it blew up all 00:04:00the street traffic. Stuff changed. But I was still having fun and young and now I feel like I'm kind of getting a little bit more settled and I want to watch the next phase, or kind of observe it, more than just be caught up in it.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

What are the changes that you're talking about?

Anna-Marie:

Well, hopefully economic growth for people who're identified as living below the poverty line. I hope that there's an opportunity for... Either they acquire property or we continue to build up local businesses where we start those businesses and just make our own way. So I want to see the next economic wave nurture me and my people.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. About social change you see, is there something going on there that would keep you in the neighborhood?

Anna-Marie:

Myself, just how I choose to stick to it, to stay involved and not disconnect from that social aspect of things. I care about our economy but more so through a social lens, talking to people and connections. Most of what I do professionally is listen to people, they just talk about their relationship with money and I listen and offer a tad bit of advice. But that connection is, it plays a hand in both social and economics and so as long as I keep my passion and my interest in that I think I can serve a dual purpose in both.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. Giannina you want to introduce yourself?

Giannina:

Yeah. My name is Giannina. In a chat I sent you the spelling of both of my names.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay.

Giannina:

My name is Giannina and I am an immigrant. I was born in Columbia, South America, in Bogota. I came to this country when I was very young. I don't know how much of it is necessary to be said, but, came here when I was five years old and was raised in New York City, Queens.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Oh, wow.

Giannina:

Yeah. So I lived there until I was about 18. Then I moved to Buffalo where I got alma mater in SUNY Buffalo State College where I got a bachelor's in arts, in 00:07:00sociology with a dual minor in leadership and women in gender studies.

Giannina:

Then after graduation I knew I did not want to go back into the city because of the toxic city lifestyle, that constant running, there is no opportunity for self care, no opportunity to grow. So I knew that I needed to move elsewhere. At the time my partner had an opportunity to work here and we decided to move here. Shortly after that didn't work and I decided to stay here in Asheville. Then six months later I met Anna and that was about three and a half years ago.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay.

Giannina:

So that was June of 2017 that I moved here.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

So it sounds like a relationship brought you here. What keeps you here?

Giannina:

Well, Anna I think keeps me here for one since you heard her say that she doesn't even want to leave. That and to be honest, I am one of the co-executive directors for the Center for Participatory Change, which is a nonprofit organization that has been around for 20 years, providing support to local small nonprofits, doing trainings for black, indigenous, people of color. So honestly the work is super important.

Giannina:

Like Anna said, there's conversations of moving and staying and I know one of the reasons for moving is the opportunity to have access to my culture. Being from Colombia, here I don't have access to eating even a meal. Most of the food 00:09:00here is Tex Mex, which is not even like Mexican food. So it's a conversation for why I'd like to move. Definitely having access to more people, people who look like me, people who look like Anna, people who share our common interests.

Giannina:

In the past decade Asheville's black, indigenous, POC has been on a steady decline and white population has been steady moving forward. I think right now the population is like 87% white. So with that comes a lot of toxic whiteness and not having access. Then we're having to compete with tourists who come here. 00:10:00Asheville who says they're a liberal city and yet black, indigenous, POC people experience racism on a daily. So yeah, what keeps me here, I definitely would say is Anna and the work. And the fact that if we do move we would just be leaving the area... Like the problem is that there aren't black, indigenous, POC, that there aren't many. And then we would leave, we would just contribute to the very problem that we're talking about, so it's just balance.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

It's not for me to tell my story, but after I moved here... I grew up around the D.C. area and D.C. was majority black until recently, it's still pretty even. I 00:11:00have two kids and the high school where they went and the County that we lived in, there were 45 languages taught in the high schools, about the largest in the country. The amazing, the diversity, and particularly a lot of Asians, but a lot of folks from South American countries, Central American countries, extraordinary diversity. I moved down here because I love the countryside. I'm a field biologist. I worked for the park service for the fish and wildlife service, the department of interior. So I moved down here for the mountains and for the biology, if you will, of the region. But it took me awhile. I'm still 00:12:00getting used to the fact that it's so white. Why didn't I think about that? It's not as diverse.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I think part of it is also that the communities of color are kind of hard to find. Even if you're seeking out people who are different, I just found it's kind of hard to find them and the major way I've been able to do that is through the YMCA. The YMCA has been very proactive in trying to get people of different backgrounds to feel comfortable at the Y and I think they've been fairly successful with that.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Another aside, but four years ago, I went to pride and I saw the YMCA there and I kind of go, "What are you guys doing here?" They go, "Well, the fact that you asked that question probably tells you why we're here." Then the next year I volunteered to go there and some people ask, "well, why are you here?" And then 00:13:00I was answering the question "We're here because we want to have a diverse community and make everybody feel welcome." Then the last two years we did it everybody expected us to be there, which is kind of cool.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Particularly people in the LGBTQ community seem comfortable coming to the Y, now, where I volunteer and do things. So that's been my main avenue to become acquainted with people in other communities here, and some activism. I work with Blue Ridge Pride and with Campaign for Southern Equality, and my church, the Cathedral of All Souls, does a lot of outreach, particularly people who are 00:14:00homeless, so we host a Homeward Bound program there.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Anyway, it's not my story, but I'm just reflecting on what you told me and I've had some of the same impressions. But we've heard a little bit about your individual stories. What's your shared story? How did you meet and are there places... Tell me about the place you met or...

Anna-Marie:

Well, again, I'm really grateful that I've been here my whole life, because it's really easy to keep tabs on a dating scene, not just because Asheville's small, but you take a small city like Asheville, and then you shrink the city down to who it is that I would consider dating, and that gets smaller. Then you just put more and more specificities on top of it, and before you know it, you know everybody who swarms in that very small circle. So I broadened myself in terms 00:15:00of dating for a little while, because I had gotten so concentrated, so I opened myself back up to dating. I remember trying to date in the professional area in my life. So I was like, "Instead of my social... Who I grew up with, who I went to high school with, let me use my professional connections to try to date." So I did, and I tried to date this woman for 12 months because we had overlapping work. I was a financial educator and the person I was trying to date was a... Like a director...

Giannina:

Yeah. The Woman's Department director at the YWCA.

Anna-Marie:

We'll have to tell them.

Giannina:

Well, it's been many people since [crosstalk]

Anna-Marie:

Yeah, you'd have to figure out which one-

Giannina:

which one for their constant changes.

Anna-Marie:

I tried to date a director of another nonprofit and for 12 months she kept me on these really friendly dates, but they would be few and far between. So for 12 months, the schedule was we would go on quarterly dates and it was almost too structured. I would try to court her and take her out, cause I'm native I'm like, "I can show you all the best things here." And she was just the friendliest, too friendly of people because I couldn't get anywhere. There was no kissing, there was no handholding. It was the longest courtship that I ever experienced with no end.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Where did you all go?

Anna-Marie:

Oh man, we would go to West Asheville, primarily, up and down Haywood Road, coffee dates, galore. I love coffee. I tried to come off really easy going, 00:17:00again, I'm broadening my playing field. So coffee dates seemed appropriate being that we have professional overlap and I wanted to make sure that we still felt comfortable with one another. So you name the coffee shop on Haywood Road and we would probably have visited there. But where I tried to really strike gold was where I would offer her dinner dates and she would accept and I'm thinking, "Great, it's a step up from breakfast." And the dinner date would go just as casual as the breakfast date and I was like, "I'm getting nowhere."

Anna-Marie:

Somewhere towards the end of these, too friendly of a date, the person would say, "Hey, I really want you to meet somebody, we should all hang out." And lo and behold, who she was talking about was Giannina, but I had no clue of who Giannina was and she was being referred to by her professional title, which was 00:18:00the coordinator, "Hey, I want you to meet this program coordinator. She's great, you're going to love her." And I'm just not interested, I'm trying to date this woman and she's telling me about some other women, I'm not interested. So finally I dismissed it so much that we had to meet each other because of our overlapping in work.

Anna-Marie:

So now it was time for the director to step back and for me to engage with the coordinator who I had not met, I had no clue who she was and I was very dismissive of her and her title and I didn't want to meet any other person. So we had to set it up that we had a professional meeting where we talk about what our game plan is going to be when we go to educate these young people in the high schools, through a program called MotherLove. Giannina worked with MotherLove and I did education and so I was coming in to visit her students. Well, when I met Giannina along with the director of that program on the same 00:19:00day, I was kind of dumbfounded. I was caught off guard because I knew to expect the director and I still had a big crush on her, totally. But I wasn't expecting to be dazzled by two people. So they come into my office and, Giannina says I exaggerate this part, but Giannina looked godly, is what I say.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I can see that

Anna-Marie:

Very dramatic and the director looked normal, I'm still kind of like, "Oh, hi, nice to see you." But Giannina is showstopping. They walk in through this doorway, I'm standing up to greet them, "Hi, I'm Anna." And I just felt dumb, but she said it went well. And then I shook their hands and she said, I had a 00:20:00nice watch on. I remember that part. So we had our professional meeting and I was just googly-eyed. Fast forward, I'm still not catching the point that they are suggesting that her and I go hang out together. So I'm very much still ignoring all those subtle things that they might be pitching at me because I haven't been dismissed by the other person. I'm like, "she has not told me no yet. I am diligent, I'm patient. And wow." So I'm kind of... middle. They invited me to Giannina's 23rd birthday party is what it was. They said, "Hey, Giannina is going to have a birthday party. You should totally come. It's going to be great."

Giannina:

I didn't invite her, my boss-

Anna-Marie:

The person invited me because she didn't.

Anna-Marie:

And I'm like, "Great, sure, I'll show up."

Giannina:

Right. Because to me, I'm like, "No, she is obviously very interested in you." 00:21:00And I would read their text messages, I was like, "How, more . . . She's saying "I like you please go out with me.""

Anna-Marie:

So she's trying to tell her coworker that "No, Anna is really interested in you." The other woman. And the coworker is steady trying to be like, "No, Giannina, you should talk to Anna." And I have no clue that any of this is going on and when I hear it, I'm like, "wow!" To just know that I was being talked about, it made me feel great. I have a knack for ditching people, like showing up to social events, so I ditched Giannina's-

Giannina:

Birthday dinner

Anna-Marie:

Birthday dinner and they were like, "You should have come to the birthday dinner." And so later I was also invited to a party that she was going to have at her home. And I actually showed up to that party. That party was, don't think 00:22:00crazy as in party crazy, but it was the craziest series of events that happened to me in a very long time. I was 28 years old. So I was like, "Wow, nothing this exciting has happened in a really long time." So I go to her birthday party and I got there four hours late because I don't know what kind of impression I'm going to make. So I get there super late and her coworker's there too and lo and behold, this is what happens all on the night of Giannina's 23rd birthday. Her coworker finally tells me that she's in a relationship and that I don't have a chance. I'm like "What? It's been 12 months."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

No more quarterly meetings?

Anna-Marie:

No more quarterly meetings, right. She Finally breaks it to me that she has a girlfriend. I'm like, "Oh my God, thank you for telling me." But I'm a little crushed. Giannina is having this Epic party with all these really cool other 00:23:00professional people that I'm a little bit intimidated by, I'm like, "Wow, we all just going to party together, that's weird." So I had major anxiety at the party. But her friend had already told me that she's not interested in me. So I remember at one point somebody suggested "Let's all give Giannina a birthday lap dance." And I said "This is not helping my anxiety." I panic. And everybody started "Okay, Anna is the person they've been trying to hook up with Giannina." I still don't really know. They're like, "Anna, why don't you give Giannina a lap dance for her birthday?" And I can't explain to them that I'm over here having a damn panic attack, I'm in no condition to give a lap dance. So somebody flipped the script and they said, "Well, Giannina, why don't you give Anna a lap dance"

Anna-Marie:

And Rachel, it worked. On her birthday, I was dismissed by her co-worker, I got a lap dance from GG, it cured my anxiety so much that I didn't even pay attention to the other woman anymore. I was just like, "Huh, I feel relaxed and all these people are cool." And from that night on, I kind of stepped up to start courting Giannina because I was like, "All right, we do like each other." Now it's very clear that I am not going to be dating this other woman and that I can spend some time getting to know her and so we went on a date.

Giannina:

We went on our first date and Anna needed-

Anna-Marie:

I told her, I said, "I can't stay with you all day on my first date. I have something to do."

Giannina:

That was funny.

Anna-Marie:

She kept me all day long. I kept saying, "I got to go. I got to be somewhere. Like, I got to do something." I think I was just playing tough, like, "Ah, not giving too much." And we spent the whole day together. We went to Sunshine 00:25:00Sammies and I ate ice cream. Well, I got a cookie cause I can't eat ice cream, but I took her there anyway.

Giannina:

Cause I love ice cream.

Anna-Marie:

She loves ice cream [crosstalk]. So I took her to the best ice cream place, it was super bougie, Sunshine Sammies at the time. And I bought her ice cream. She was like, "You going to get one?" I'm like, "I can't eat ice cream."

Giannina:

I'm like, "Really?"

Anna-Marie:

She was like, "Why'd you come here?" I'm like "I heard you liked it." And so I got a cookie and she got some ice cream and we sat there and we talked and then we walked all over downtown and we ended up sitting near the Vance Monument and just hanging out and talking. I remember we took a picture together and we still got the... I love that picture. It's on the first date. Then we ended up going to for dinner. So we ended up having snacks and walks and talks and then dinner 00:26:00even though I kept telling her "I can't stay all day, I can't stay all day." We stayed anyway.

Anna-Marie:

I think the final thing that got her convinced was Giannina had told me that she loves seafood, shellfish, crabs to be specific, and that she used to love going to Joe's Crab Shack. And I was like, "Joe's Crab Shack. That places is shitty." To me. I was like, "We don't have one anymore, anyway." And so I showed up to Giannina house one day unannounced, didn't tell her anything. I was just talking to her on the phone and I was driving there while I was talking to her. I had gone to the grocery store and got everything to make this proper Southern crab boil, but at home. I brought all these groceries and I'm on the phone talking to her, I'm like, "what are you doing?" She's like "nothing." I'm like "open your door up." And she's like, "what?" And I was outside with groceries and I went in 00:27:00her kitchen and made a crab boil and...

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Oh, wow.

Anna-Marie:

I won, I scored.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I can tell you right now this might be three interviews or four. Such a great story.

Anna-Marie:

So I wooed GG after... But I have to be told directly that something is not... It's like, turn it off and finally, when it happened, I was like, I put it in third gear. I was ready.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Wow.

Anna-Marie:

It's been nice since then. Yeah.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

So how long have you known each other now?

Anna-Marie:

Every February marks a year. So in 2021 February, it'll be three years solid.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. There's probably a couple of gold stars on your birthday,

Giannina:

Right, our anniversary...

Anna-Marie:

Her birthday is Valentine's Day, so February is just bursting at the seams of 00:28:00just, like, ooey, gooey love.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I met my partner on April Fool's Day. And she never lets me forget it. Anything else you want to share about how you met and did you feel like you got support in... You've got a larger circle of friends, obviously, but do you feel like your friends were supportive of your relationship?

Giannina:

Oh yeah. It's like Anna was saying, we would have conversations with the group of people that were in my party and I had just ended a relationship, so I was not interested. I was, "Mm-mm (negative)." And I'm definitely not... She's over here googly eyeing you. I'm not competing. I know who I am. And I remember we 00:29:00went to a lunch date and we went to The Walk and your friends... Were they some of your best friends?

Anna-Marie:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Giannina:

Your best friends were there.

Anna-Marie:

Yup.

Giannina:

It's so funny, because where we're all, it's me and our mutual friend, who kind of got us together and Anna's best friend, we're all together hanging out, eating. We went to play games.

Anna-Marie:

I remember this.

Giannina:

Remember?

Anna-Marie:

Yeah.

Giannina:

That was one of the first... I think this was before my birthday party.

Anna-Marie:

That's right, because my friends whispered across the table at game night, "So, are you going to go to her birthday party?" I'm like, "Absolutely not. I'm not desperate. I'm not." I remember texting them, "Think I changed my mind. I'm going to go."

Giannina: . . . talk about your best friends. And it was so funny because, not 00:30:00to be cocky, but whenever there is somebody that I'm interested in, I'm going to give you the eye contact, just so you know.

Anna-Marie:

Yeah.

Giannina:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly, Rachel, just like that. I'm going to give you a little flirt and then that's it, then I'm going to need you to take that and roll with it. It would just be, oh no, no. She's looking at me. And I remember we were having a conversation about dogs and Anna was, "Nope, I don't date women with dogs or children." I don't have any children. And I had just gotten a puppy, an 8 week puppy. So Anna's like, "I don't date women with dogs." And my friends is like, "Yours doesn't shed..." Well, Anna's like, "I don't like them for it to be shedding..." "She doesn't shed, right G? Right G? She's not shedding" And she 00:31:00said it across the table and I'm looking at her like I'm really about to beat you up. Shut up, you're making me look bad.

Giannina:

Obvious, there was no more directness that needed to happen, which was super funny. On the night of the party, Anna met my puppy. Then my little girl was like 3 months. So, she was this tiny, cute little baby that is now not so tiny, she's 60 pounds. Anna was like, "You had a dog here the whole time?"

Anna-Marie:

At a party with 20 people and this little dog didn't make a peep and she's like, "Yeah, I have a dog. She's right there. You're sitting on top of her cage." And I was like, "This thing has been here the whole time." I felt so bad. We've been loud. We've been just obnoxious at this point and she had the best dog in the 00:32:00world. It was so crazy. And that same night where she was talking about the dog, before I met, I remember one of my friends said, "Anna, I think she gave you the eye." So, we're sitting there playing group games. Have you ever been there?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Anna-Marie:

Love that place. Was sitting there, playing some game and one of my best friends said, "Anna, I think she gave you the eye." And that's what Gigi was saying, she was giving me the look and I literally just felt so... And yet it was a lot of conversation going on at night, in person across, the table, in text messages, friends texting friends. It was a lot, that was a production put into this relationship. Just even hearing it, I forgot about that.

Giannina:

She met Savvy. After my birthday, then we started dating. And when I was at work, because Savvy was such a baby, I would have to come home every four hours.

Anna-Marie:

Yeah.

Giannina:

I would go to work every four hours and Anna would take her break on the same hour I would, to come play with me and my puppy. And she was well obsessed and we were both in love with our puppy. And she's like, "It's because I met her while she was a baby." And she didn't have to come, there wasn't a bond, it was a bond that we were able to create, all of us together, which me and my dog have a crazy, deep bond. And then Savvy's so in love with Anna.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Oh, wow.

Giannina:

It was one of those stories that came out, was like, "I remember that happening." Oh, what's interesting is that when Anna and I first met, my hair 00:34:00was below my waist. I had extremely long hair and then Anna seen me a second time and I had cut it really short, like up to my jaw line. And then a few months later I shaved it.

Giannina:

So Anna was really seeing... After that relationship, there's grief. So, Anna was seeing me through my grief. So it was great, just because we were able to really talk and get to know each other and really put into practice what we've learned from our previous relationships. Right? And I think when I started this relationship, I was going a hundred percent. So, whatever question you're asking, there is no lying, even if it's an ugly truth, I'm sharing. So it was, 00:35:00I'm going all out, I'm going a hundred percent. And all of my friends are also googly-eyed for Anna. Everybody has a crush on Anna. It's so funny, because they're all like, "Gia, how did you... You just walked here and you already have her. How did you do that?" You know? So it was really funny, because all my friends were just, "Oh my." And then we were together and started going out in town and then we just became this power couple, that's what people kind of reference us, because how we met. And in December, Anna dropped down on one knee and proposed.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Oh cool.

Giannina:

So we're engaged, we're going to be buying a house, soon, very soon. Nonetheless,we could 00:36:00really count the times on our hands where we've been in a disagreement.

Anna-Marie:

Which those are super helpful too. At the third interview we'll tell you about the disagreements.

Giannina:

Yeah.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Most of the people I interview are generally older folks in the community and usually one of the critical things we talk about is their coming out story. The one thing that I know, from experience with the community, is that it's not so traumatic to hear that story from young people generally, but would you like to share your coming out stories?

Giannina:

Yeah, actually I can start and then you can share yours.

Anna-Marie:

[crosstalk]. Makes so much sense.

Giannina:

Well, what's interesting is that, I think for my entire life and I don't call myself lesbian or bisexual, I call myself pansexual. Once I knew what that means, because I understand that I care for a person's personality, their 00:37:00emotional wellbeing, their mental state, their physical being. I care more about that than what genitals you have, basically. I really don't care for it. So my whole life and like I said, I'm an immigrant, I was born in Colombia, which is a very predominantly Catholic Christian, very religious and so being such thing, it's not okay.

Giannina:

And when Anna and I first started dating, I told her three things. I say, "Anna, don't think you're coming to family functions." I'm not out to my family and they don't know that I like women. And two, I said, "Do you have a passport? I like to travel." And she was like, "No." I'm like, "Are you willing to get one?" And she was like, "Yes." I think within two weeks, she had her passport. And then the third one was, "Are you willing to leave Asheville?" Asheville is not 00:38:00my home. And I'm like, "Are you willing?" And she was like, "Yes."

Giannina:

From before it was very even, we're going to do this long term, I was like, I need to know that these three things that are very important, that are non-negotiables, happen. So fast forward two and a half years later, on Anna's birthday, just recently in July, through COVID. July 22nd, my aunt sends me a text message, so my mom's sister and she goes, do you have a Tik Tok? Said I'd never get on this Tik Tok and during quarantine, I got bored and I was like, let me make up a Tik Tok. Again, I never call myself lesbian or whatever, but in the Tik Tok I was like, maybe I could become Tik Tok famous, or I don't know, whatever. And I was, let's make it a Tik Tok about us and our dog. And so I put 00:39:00lesbians and I put my name, I put Columbian hashtag. This is interesting, because since you've been talking about older folks, this is very younger folk focused, as to my coming out story.

Giannina:

And so my aunt proceeds and tells me, "I love you either way, be proud of who you are, don't put your head down." And then she goes, "For my birthday I'd like for you to come out to your mom." So I freak out, freak out, freak out. I am in full panic mode, because I was very afraid that I wouldn't have a family and because I'm here and most of my family's in New York, in Columbia or around the world, I didn't have any family here in North Carolina. So, to me I was just worried. I speak to my mom daily, even if it's just a 30 second conversation. I 00:40:00was afraid that I'd lose that conversation with my mom. It really had me in full panic mode and I remember speaking to my aunt, who then told my... Honestly, in seconds, my entire family knew.

Anna-Marie:

Multiple countries.

Giannina:

In multiple countries, in Spain and in New Jersey, New York, Columbia, everybody knew. So, fast forward, I call my dad. My dad just moved from Columbia and was just able to get his permanent residency and he lives in New York. So, I called my dad and I start crying and I'm like, "Dad, I really have something to tell you and I'm really scared, but you know what, here it is." And he's like, "Just tell me." And I was like, "I have a partner, it's a woman." And he was like, "You had me worried. I thought you were sick." And he's like, "That's okay, 00:41:00baby." He's like, "I love you. I figured." He's like, "As long as you're happy, that's what matters. I'm here." And he's like, "Don't worry about it." Yeah, he was just like, "That's nothing." He said, "That's normal," is what he said. He's like, "That's normal. I love you." and then he proceeds and he says, "What's my daughter's name?" So he was just immediately, "What's my daughter's name? How old is she?" Trying to really... And then I found out he was freaking out.

Giannina:

Then I found out he called his sister and his wife, crying. But it was really nice to hear that. To me he was, I'm strong, it's okay. He knew not to bring that to me, because it would probably hurt me a lot.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Wow.

Giannina:

So, two months later happened and Anna and I are having an argument about me not telling my mother and I was like, "I'm going to tell her this day." Then I would 00:42:00change it up, "I'd tell her this day." And to be honest, I just wasn't ready. I felt like I was being pushed, not in a negative way, but by my aunt, a little bit by Anna, a little bit by the circumstance I was in. So, Anna and I make an agreement, I'm a little... Sorry, it's work.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

That's okay.

Giannina:

I was like, "Let's please just like... I'm like, let's not talk about my mom and me coming out, just give me some time. I think about it and I'll rehearse what I'm going to tell her every day in the shower, I promise." And Anna was, "Okay fine, we'll stop talking about it." And then recently, two weeks ago, has it been two weeks now? I feel like two, three weeks. It hasn't even been a month, Anna had just left one of her jobs that she had and she's at one of her old 00:43:00boss's house, trying to work on like her current self-employment. And we're in a really great place, we're super, Oh my God, obsessed with each other even more, I'm so in love with you. I'm in the house cleaning and I sit down and I look up and I was like, today's the day. And I kind of felt that I'm ready. I feel like I'm in a good position, because to me I was like, "Anna, I'm going to break if my mom disowns me." I really need that support and that is a lot of pressure and I acknowledged that.

Giannina:

So I told my mom, I sent her a text... I couldn't even say it in... So, I sent her a text and I said, "Hey ma, I have a partner. It's a woman. I've been afraid to tell you, because I don't want you not to not speak to me. This hasn't changed who I am and who you've raised me to be. I love you." And then she sends 00:44:00me a message saying, "Baby, I love you. You're never going to lose me. I'll be with you forever. Whatever makes you happy, I'm there for it."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

So

Giannina:

Yeah. Are you about to start crying, maybe?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Just a little bit.

Giannina:

So it was super sweet. Then I called Anna and I was like, "I did it, babe."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

What the fuck is this? What are you talking about? I thought you were sweeping? Said you were going to clean the house, not clean your life.

Giannina:

Yeah. It's all good. So her reaction was very good. I knew that it needed to happen and Anna had kept telling me, "When am I getting my ring? I proposed, give me my ring. I want a ring." She kept coming and talking to me about this ring and I'm like, "Babe, I really feel like I can't give you this ring until I 00:45:00come out to my family. I feel like that's the first step of our lives together. Let me do that first." And then it happened and I'm like, "That's your first ring."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I'm trying to be professional here, but I'm going to start crying soon.

Giannina:

Yeah, like my baby started crying.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

It's nice to hear it. Wow, this is some hallmark shit right here, in Spanish.

Giannina:

Yeah. And my mom was like, "What does Anna look like?" And I shared some pictures and she sent it to my grandma and she was like, "Look, this is your new granddaughter." Oh no, what is it called?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Daughter-in-law.

Giannina:

Daughter-in-law. Granddaughter-in-law, this is my grandma. And she told one of her cousins, who in Colombia is gay and he was like, "Congratulations, cousin." 00:46:00Super hilarious, because she's telling all the people and everyone's sending her congratulations. My grandma's like, "We're going to love her." When I told my mom, she called one of my other aunts that she's very close to and I found out that she called her and she was like, "What do I do?" She's like, "Well, stupid, you support it. It's your daughter. What do you mean?"

Giannina:

She said, "No, I'm not going to support her," just to mess with my aunt. And she was like, "How dare you? How would you do that?" And she's like, "I'm just kidding. Yes. I'm going to support her." And now it's just little by little, there's definitely still a, "Are you sure you're not confused?" There's still the-

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Questioning.

Giannina:

The questioning of it, which I think is just natural and honestly, I'm just happy that I can just be, this is who I am. I didn't tell them I'm pansexual, 00:47:00because that's a whole other level. They're just I'm lesbian or you're heterosexual. Only thing they get.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Nicotine.

Giannina:

Right. Which is okay, because you Anna and I have promised forever and happily ever after, if it all works, as we continue to do our work.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah.

Giannina:

So that's my coming out story. That's very-

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

It's so fresh.

Giannina:

Fresh.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

So whimsical. That's so good. I've interviewed some other folks who grew up here and their coming out stories, growing up around here, haven't always been that happy. This one gentleman I interviewed, he was from a small town here. His dad was mayor of that small town and he had kind of a rough time of it, being in one of those smaller towns around here and his dad being somebody everybody. How is 00:48:00your story, being an Asheville native?

Anna-Marie:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). A couple of seconds ago you said it, it is the perfect transition, you said. Pick a team. My mommy told me, so I have always had... I remember being under the age of 10 and really feeling some sort of a connection, a sexual attraction to women and then turning into a preteen and then the teenager. Basically just playing the eyeball game of, yeah, if I was allowed to do what I can see on TV and the music, it would be her. If I was putting these roles together in my brain, it was always women. And so I had my, I won't say fair share, but I had my 5% allowance of a heterosexual experience.

Anna-Marie:

I dated two men before I ever dated any woman and those relationships ended really well, because I was just like, this ain't it. And it was great. I'm really glad I tried. What happened was that the first guy that I dated, was a part of a small friend circle. I have two older brothers, which in all I have seven siblings in total. Each of us have like nine months to maybe 10 months in between us. So, we're all Irish twins. So I grew up in this big old household, whereby it's really, really close and my brothers, being two years older than I am, I would share their friends. And so a lot of my first friends came by way of them. And then I would have my social group from school.

Anna-Marie:

But at home I always borrowed my brothers' friends. And so I grew up with this group of guys and then eventually we grow up and I'm allowed to date and so I choose one of the guys. This is the safest option for me. Him and I, we dated, it was so much fun, but then we had too much of a friendship to ever think about, if we're going to have our first sexual experiences at like 17 and 18 years old, which we did. And I'm like, eww, it was a friend. And so we broke up. It was awful, it was my first breakup, it was my first experience. It was my first everything. I was like, eww, ahh, oh man. My mom is totally there coaching me, "It's going to be okay."

Anna-Marie:

Then, what helped me rebound, was my brother had so many friends that even some of them were women. This one friend in particular, my brother wanted to date 00:51:00her. We were all friends and finally, he's like, "I want to date her." So, she would come around more often and I had googly eyes for her too. I know you totally here barking up my brother's tree, but I see you looking at me and I'm looking back at you. And I remember we would flirt with each other a lot, when she would come over, just hanging out either with the big group of guys, or just my brother. Anybody with vision could see it. And I just imagine two summers or so go by, in the same format where a bunch of people are always at our house, I'm looking at her, she's looking at me. Well, eventually my brother catches onto it and he ratted me out. He went to our mom and said-

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

To your mom or to her?

Anna-Marie:

To my mama. Well, the girl was just very adamant that, "I don't care that much about your brother. I like you." I remember she approached me in the kitchen one 00:52:00night and that was the first time I ever had a kiss from a woman. And I liked it. I remember she had to scurry away, until I was like, "Oh, that was magic." I remember my kitchen and everything.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Missed out.

Anna-Marie:

My brother rats me out a couple of weeks later and my mom says, "I want to talk to you about something." And I'm like, "Okay." I've always been optimistic. If something bad's coming, sometimes I don't see it, because I'm just all good. And so I bounce into her room and she's like, "Sit down." And I'm like, "What's up?" And she's like, "You need to pick a side." And I'm like, "What?" She's like, "I heard that you like that girl Daniella. And I'm not sensing any trouble here and I've noticed that she was totally neutral, she wasn't coming down on me and she had said the girl's name and huh, I've gotten in trouble for less. Eating a 00:53:00cookie could be like, "You ate that cookie, huh?" And I'm like, "I'm in trouble." I hear it, but she was like, "You like that girl," and there was nothing hurtful in it. Ah, no judgment.

Anna-Marie:

She was, choose which one it's going to be, because you've got your ex-boyfriend, he still hangs around. I'm like, "We're friends." She's like, "But this girl..." I'm like, "I like her." She was like, "Just pick a side because," she said, "it could get really dangerous." She said, "Hey, it's dangerous not choosing." I thought that she was talking about playing a heterosexual, homosexual, you don't know what side you want to be on. And she was just saying, "No, don't get caught up in between two things and think that you will entertain them both." She said, "Just pick whether it's apples and oranges with boys or girls, or girl and girl. Pick, so that is not dangerous." And she used the word, dangerous and I was okay, I respect this and I still didn't feel judged or 00:54:00threatened. So I was like, "I choose women." She was so supportive and I was just okay.

Anna-Marie:

I got into one more heterosexual relationship at the age of 18, right before I turned 19 years old and it lasted for a short while, until I turned 20, I think. Then I got out of it and I was just like, women. I'm so sure I got my mom's support. I tried with seeing a societal norm at that time and I was like, it's just not clicking. And even the last guy that I dated, was like, "You really do love women." And I was like, "Absolutely." And he was just like, "I don't get it." And I was like, "It's okay." And we grew apart. I remember hitting the club scene when I turned 19 years old, up until 20, I started going to Hairspray. 00:55:00That was our local.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah.

Anna-Marie:

It was just a room full of fun. I found out about Hairspray, maybe when I was 15 years old. So by the time I turned 19, I was like, I'm going to that damn Hairspray if it kills me. I remember the first time I went to Hairspray. I remember the last time I went to Hairspray and maybe every occurrence in between, because I would go every Saturday. Sometimes it would be Friday and Saturday, but particularly Saturdays were drag shows and so I wanted to see the shows, because I was introduced to this concept of straight women in drag, either masculine or feminine. And I was just like, wait a minute, I thought that women just were women and that was the only kind of flavor. Right? And the only way to mix that up is maybe culturally choosing other people. But I just thought 00:56:00women were women, but then I saw them portraying masculine women and feminine women and something in between. This place just seemed like a smaller world of what made me comfortable. Hairspray did it.

Anna-Marie:

And so I would go to watch the shows, but really get cultured. It was like a playground as well. So I could actually date people safely with no judgment, even fuck up the experience and just try all over again. Every weekend you can just try it all over again. I learned a lot, got super encouraged and empowered to be gay and then I-

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Other places that you would go besides Hairspray? Are there places you go now that makes you comfortable?

Giannina:

No, Hairspray was the best. It was a little bit of everybody was in there. It 00:57:00wasn't just women. I felt safe. When I would go to Scandals for some big event, it just felt like there was more of a-

Anna-Marie:

... it felt like there was more of an older group of people going to Scandals. There was more theatrics involved in Scandals. It was always a show, always a production. And I'm like, "I can't really tell who is who in here, because everybody's dressed up in costumes." So, it didn't feel like the place to neutrally socialize. And then, O.Henry's was explicitly, what I understood growing up, for gay men. And so I never went to O.Henry's until I was in my mid twenties or so, but Hairspray was just... that was utopia.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Sometimes, again I think it's mostly in older members of the community, but they 00:58:00tend to hang out or feel comfortable with their posse, their group. There's lesbians. There's an organization here called Lesbians in the Mountains, which is basically all older women. There's [inaudible], which are mainly gay men. And then there's basically queer spaces, queer communities. What's your comfort level? Do you have points of contacts across that spectrum, or is there a place you particularly feel comfortable, or what's your experience?

Anna-Marie:

I have points of reference across the entire spectrum. The first person that made me comfortable with gay men, just from being not so comfortable with older men in general, just bad experiences growing up. I had an opposition to older men in general, I don't care if you're black, white, Asian, I didn't care. Older 00:59:00men, you a creep. I think my first experience where I felt comfortable with an older men, who happened to be gay, was with Michael Harney. Remember Michael? Do you know Michael Harney?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I know the name. I'm trying to-

Anna-Marie:

Win Cat?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. Yeah.

Anna-Marie:

The Rubber Man.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

Anna-Marie:

Michael Harney, I met Michael when I was 21 years old, and he was just a local activist who would be everywhere. He would be in Hairspray, he would be at some panel discussion on Monday, he'd be in something even more formal than that on Wednesday, and then right back to the club on Friday and Saturday. But he would keep consistently delivering a message of positivity and safety and-

Giannina:

Still right?

Anna-Marie:

Yeah, still! I'm like that was 21 years ago that he was pumping his stuff to a 21 year old. So, now, I'm more comfortable with showing up in an event, if Michael invite me to it, I'm there. I know who majority of the people who are 01:00:00going to be there, because your posse's going to be where you at, right?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah.

Anna-Marie:

So, I can go wherever Michael Harney's events are, or I can go to transmissions events, because of overlap with some of their members and getting close them and being like "Oh man, you're the first trans woman I ever met in my life, and what the fuck have I been waiting for? And being native, and a lot of those people, across the spectrum end up being transplants, coming to a place where they feel safe. And then they meet a native, who was also just not privy to knowing how broad our community is, the queer community. So, I do my part, they do their parts, we overlap because of this small little Petri dish we live in.

Anna-Marie:

And honestly every one of them make me feel comfortable, because they always are willing to educate you. They're always willing to tell a story, they're willing 01:01:00to hear a story, and I can't really say that for a whole lot of people outside of the queer community, because maybe, they're all opposed to the first thing that they hear, which is why we identify as being lesbian or black or what we wore that day. And everybody's like, "You not my peoples. So, I'm like, "All right, you missing out, because I'm telling you this shit is fire. They're fire, I'm fire, she's fire. You're just missing out because of whatever lens that you wear so I'm totally comfortable with that."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Back to the pick a team thing. So, basically what I'm hearing from both of you is that, teams are not important to you. If you had to pick a term to identify yourself, you wanted to explain to somebody, what would that be? Or would it be 01:02:00nothing? Or you would say, I refuse to pick a term.

Anna-Marie:

For a long time, it was that. And I think, after I turned 30, I started identifying, for simplicity, as a lesbian. But for a long time, people would say, what is it? What do you identify as? And I would say, "I really love people." And like Gigi said it really eloquently, the genitalia really didn't matter. Hasn't really mattered a lot in my life at all. It's just the person, they matter. So, I've dated all kind of people. I'm pretty open, but what I really relate to the most is being attracted to women.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah. Awesome. We've run an hour and 15 minutes. We just got started. Is there a time when we could talk again soon? Do the same thing?

Anna-Marie:

Yeah. You want to just schedule a date? You know I'm available.

Giannina:

Yeah. I saw that the thing said I'm cool until 2:00, if you wanted to do one more question, and then we can schedule a time. I don't know if you have, just kind of sharing that out since I... When I read your email, I was prepared, since you were like, "Most of them have been going for two." I'm like, "Okay, why would I think that I'm any less unique?" So, if you want, I'm okay till 2:00, and we can schedule a time to talk.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. I've got the Zoom until 2:00. Can I take a very short break?

Anna-Marie:

Yeah, let's do. Should we do like a 10 minute break or a five minute break?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Sure. Just five minutes if that's okay.

Giannina:

Yeah.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I'll put it on pause.

Anna-Marie:

Okay. 1:21.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Awesome.

Anna-Marie:

Okay.

Giannina:

All right. We can schedule our next one, if that makes the most sense for a transition.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Whatever suits you all's schedule. Mine's pretty open. No, I'll be working with the Y but, we went from 30 people to three people with the pandemic. So [crosstalk].

Giannina:

Hi, baby!

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

He's a big boy.

Giannina:

Five?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

My little girl.

Giannina:

Are they five?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

What's that?

Giannina:

Are they about five?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

He's three, and she's two. And he's about 85 pounds, and she's about 55 pounds.

Anna-Marie:

I could see his teeth when he was in the camera, and I was like, "He is a baby, but not too babyish."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

They've been great company during the pandemic, because we haven't been out much. My partner is a little... She's got some medical history issues that makes us have to be really careful, which we should all be careful, anyway. But, anyway-

Anna-Marie:

They should get a stimulus package because everybody's dog worked overtime, during quarantine. They need some type of a tax write-off or something for these animals because, they're getting drained.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Oh, yeah. Most of the animal shelters across the country, they're empty now because everybody felt the need to get themselves some company, which is a good thing. I'm glad that they're all finding homes, but I'm going to have to shoo these guys out because, they always want attention. But I thought I'd introduce them.

Anna-Marie:

Which date works for you Giannina?

Giannina:

Do you want to take them out? I think she just said she wants to take them out.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

She's going to be okay. He's the one who's going to demand attention. Let me just get him outside, and I'll leave her in here.

Giannina:

Okay. This Wednesday or Friday?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yep.

Anna-Marie:

How do your Wednesday and Fridays look this week, Rachel?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Friday looks good. Wednesday, I've got a doctor's appointment at 10:30. It's probably going to last about an hour.

Anna-Marie:

Do Friday.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

What time?

Anna-Marie:

You got a preference for?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Best for me is late afternoon. 3:00 to about 5:00.

Anna-Marie:

Say that again?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

It's from 3:00 to 5:00.

Anna-Marie:

We get on at 3:00. Or is it too late? GT?

Giannina:

Honestly on Fridays, I'm checked out from the week of work, and I don't know if I'll be too... I'm just ready for like, it's Friday, you know? Late afternoons work. What-

Anna-Marie:

Yeah, that's what she's proposing.

Giannina:

What about a Wednesday, late afternoon?

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Yeah, that works for me.

Giannina:

3:30 Wednesday?

Anna-Marie:

I could do a 3:00 to 5:00.

Giannina:

Okay.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay. 3:00.

Giannina:

Awesome.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Okay, great. Let's see. I'll give you sort of an introduction to some of the questions that are the standard questions. We go over with everybody, but let's see. I think states like, well, in Western North Carolina, what are the public institutions that are of greatest interest or importance to you? And would it be education, would it be faith communities, food, shelter, healthcare, jobs, law enforcement, family, public policy? Are there communities or organizations that have been particularly helpful to you? Do you have any stories about those organizations? Oh, another thing that's extremely helpful in storytelling, and I discovered this, particularly when I went to a conference last year in Birmingham, Alabama with some of the professors and some students at UNC Asheville, it was called Queer in the South.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

And we talked about this. There's been a long-term oral history project in the South for the last 10 years to collect stories, very powerful movements and information. But, what other things that really contributes are basically what we call artifacts, photographs, material things that end up as part of the collection that goes into the archives. So if you have photographs, or if you've got, for example, there was a show at Hairspray that there was a flyer for, stuff like that, that you'd like to share, we'll make copies of and make sure we get the originals all back to you. But the things you can think of that you think help tell your story, that would be helpful. Give that a little bit of thought between now and Wednesday. And if there's some things, particularly is useful is photographs. I did an interview with a woman who was a real force in this area.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

And she kind of was, I think one of the first non-binary people I've met, and she was active in the art scene here. And she worked with the community players here, and she played male roles and she played female roles. And her name was Holly. I don't know if you ever met anybody with that name here. She passed, and it was actually her passing and her rich history that I felt might get lost, that inspired me to sort of start this project. And it turned out that having those photographs of her various stages in her life, and the various things she'd been involved in, was a really important element of telling her story.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

So, if you have things that are similar that you'd like to share, I just put in a request for that, if you got things that help tell your story. So, let me touch on one topic to start with, and that would be about your experience with either in any of those communities I mentioned, education, or faith communities, or public services here at Western North Carolina. Are any of those organizations that you've interacted with that you feel the way you were treated, or the resources that were provided to you, fit or didn't fit for somebody for yourself?

Anna-Marie:

Yeah, part of me wants to apply the whole Asheville. I just didn't know it. I didn't know this place. It doesn't work for me. It doesn't accommodate to me until I was, again, like 25 years old. And so, all of it, with me it always is that hindsight sort of vision. So, school? Yeah, we'll definitely talk about the education experience over the last 30 years here in Asheville being a complete, complete failure myself. I won't even speak on groups. I won't say it's a failure to every black person. I won't say it's a failure to every queer person or poor person. It's just that it failed me, given all of those things were variable layers that made myself part of the experience. It just seemed like our education system, for sure, benefits white people here in Asheville.

Anna-Marie:

And a lot of it has to do with representation. A lot of it has to do with a lack of acceptance of other cultures within these schools. Like you said in DC, how is it that they were speaking 45 languages in a school system, where here in Buncombe County, all those brown kids are considered Mexican. That's what I understood up until 25. They were all Mexicans. And then I meet Giannina at 29 years old, and she was explaining it that everybody in Asheville groups the Latina community as Mexican. And I'm like, "Well, I picked that shit up in school." That's what it was, the black people, the white people, and then the Mexicans.

Anna-Marie:

And so, it did a disservice to a lot of people, not just myself. But I picked up some pretty shitty miseducation through our education system. And it's taken to a normal life to undo it all. Nothing exceptionally has to be done for me to unlearn some of this bullshit, but this relationship really helps to kind of allure me to what Asheville is representing. You and Giannina had a similar experience with realizing, wow, this place is cool, but I didn't realize it was so white. Well, neither did I! Like, you just stick to your clique, and you think that there's a sense of community here. But when I backed up and took a kind of wider view of everything, I was like, "Wow, I didn't know that it was this white." I thought it was pretty representative. And then that is not true.

Anna-Marie:

And so just looking back over the educational experience, like social groups, all of it, and I'd say that it's not something to brag on at all. When we actually did have a really rich education history here in Asheville, particularly for black people, that gets washed out. And so, being black and being gay is a real challenge because it's advocating for both things at the same time. It's very important, and a lot of people don't have a lot of time to acknowledge both. And one of them seems easier to acknowledge than the other one, which is to identify as gay is more accepted than me bringing my black experiences to the table.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Wow.

Anna-Marie:

So educationally, neither one of them were acknowledged coming through this system here.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Now, getting a little bit of my experiences that, working at the YMCA, to try to help them with diversity issues, it actually seemed like getting LGBTQ and community involved was an easier thing to do than getting the black community involved. There does actually seem to be more resistance in this community to people of color than there are people who are gay, lesbian and the rest, which is the surprise. Maybe it's because I grew up in an area that half people were black. So just on something I've noticed here myself, is to see it to be a particular challenge.

Anna-Marie:

Yeah. I definitely acknowledged which pill was easier for people to swallow was the talking about being anything relative to queer. I met some really opposed people who will be more inclined to talk about me being gay than me being a black person. And so, whether that was like in rural, rural North Carolina, Western North Carolina, like Brevard, or deep back the other way, going out of Madison or something like, I would be more likely to have a client talk about, "Oh, my nephew is gay." And I'm like, "That's random as fuck" So, their neighbor or their postman or somebody being black. I would get more relation from a rural white person. They would connect to me being gay more than they could me being a black person.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Hmm. What about being Latina here in Asheville? What's your experience here from that respect?

Giannina:

Well, it definitely is an interesting conversation. I think like Anna said, there isn't such a thing as black, white, Latinx. It's like you're black, you're white or you're Mexican. And actually, it was really interesting in my journey when I'm like, "Why do people, why is that the first thing that they say, like Mexican. I'm like, "I'm not Mexican." they got to know it. I'm like, "I'm not Mexican, and I don't have anything against Mexican people, but I'm not Mexican. I mean, and I'm not Mexican." And I started doing research myself to understand why this thing has happened. And there's been conversations here in Asheville, and understanding, but something that I researched, like the largest population of Latinx people were Spanish speaking people in the United States are Mexicans because the South is Mexican territory or used to be Mexican territory.

Giannina:

And when the US took the southern lens, it adapted its people, right? And so it's people being what used to be Mexican people. So the most connection people have with Latinx or Spanish speaking countries are Mexicans, because that is the only people they've gotten to interact with. And here in North Carolina, has been super interesting. I've met people who are like, "You're the first Colombian I've ever met." And, like to me, that's crazy, right? I was born in Colombia, whole family is Colombian. I'm like, "I'm the first Columbia person you've ever met?" Countering the experience that I've had in New York, it'd be like, "Where are you from?" Which is a question of what Latinx country are you from, because I know you're Spanish or you're Latinx.

Giannina:

So here is just, having those conversations, I think for me, how I've reframed it, to not get annoyed, is, honestly, an opportunity to teach people to be like, "Did you know that the South is Mexico? The South, the part that you talk about, adapted its people. And it's why you think most Latinx people are Mexican." And in Asheville, has more so been a conversation about white and black, and where Latinx people fit within this spectrum of you're either white or you're black.

Giannina:

And that's also another interesting conversation because I know, even growing up in New York City, when taking the SATs, and they would be like "Are you white or black?" I'm like, "I'm not either. I'm not white and I'm not black. I'm from Columbia. I was born in Colombia." And so, I remember being frustrated, and here, having those conversation as to what it is, and what I've learned that the United States tends to put Latinx people in the white box so that the white continues to seem like the majority. And then there's a lot of anti-blackness all over the world, especially also in Spanish speaking countries, and this is where I've got the opportunity to learn more about the history of Columbia, and learn about its black communities, because there's a large black community in Columbia.

Giannina:

There's a large white community in Columbia. And this is like Afro Latino, Eurocentric Latinos. Right? Because when you learn about Latin countries, you learn that we are literally a mix between African, European, indigenous and Asian. And all of us have a little bit of all of these four. Some more than others. Some are more Eurocentric, some are more Afrocentric, some are more indigenous centric. So yeah, I think I've definitely had a difficult time finding friends I can relate to. That's been something else, because your Latinx doesn't mean that all Latinx friends have had the same experience as you. So moving to the South, being from a city has been a very big culture shock, because a lot of my friends here are, their parents are farmers. They know how to farm and this and that. And I'm like, "Oh, my mom don't even own a plant." "There's one tree in my entire block that has been cut. It was so sad.

Giannina:

Yeah. So, that's some of the experiences. I've had a difficult time finding friends culturally, and as you and Anna were speaking, something that came up is, right, we don't really have queer friends, even in the spaces where we enter, we're the only gay ones, and then all of our friends are in heteronormative relationships. I don't really, besides Brandon. So that was something else that came up. It's something I've been wanting to mention when you were mentioning Hairspray. I'm like, "Ah, Hairspray. I'm like, "For me, an organization." And this is not relative to Asheville since I've only been in Asheville for three and a half years. I haven't been here for much, but in New York, where I was able to be my full, authentic self, is an organization called The Fresh Air Fund, that has been around since the 1800s.

Giannina:

And it's a camp for inner city kids. And I used to attend an all women's camp, all girls camp, Camp ABC, Camp Anita Bliss Coler. And here you met people from all over the world from all different sizes, accents, sexualities. And then the kids were Asian, mostly black, and then, a few Latinx kids. And this is the place where you would have summer camp crushes, and you'd have crushes like other girls or kids. And that was where I was able to show up where you were like, I didn't go to Scandals because they were wearing costumes. In the Fresh Air Fund, they're at camp, was where none of us had to wear costumes because we're at camp, and I could be like, "Yeah, I am gay. And I'm queer. This is okay. No one's going to tell my mom after this." Yeah.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

You've used two terms, Latinx and Latino. Which do you prefer? And what do you think the difference is?

Giannina:

Yeah. So this is a great conversation, because when I started working for the nonprofit I work for now, that was one of the main things. I'm like, "Where did this Latinx thing come into play? Like who started it?" To me, I'm like, "Oh, it's another white person trying to change the language." And so I was really resistant to using it. So, in the Spanish language, Latino does mean all. The entire language as masculine and feminine. And so to me, I'm like, "Who is trying to change an entire language to create not."

Giannina:

To change an entire language to create these not gender words. I got challenged by my organization, by Aya, who was like, "The language you're speaking are both colonized languages." and I was like, "Oh man!" it just hit me. I'm like, "I speak two colonized languages," I'm like, "I don't speak my indigenous tongue." and she was like, "And in order to have this conversation," she's like, "the reason why we put an X is because it's a male dominance and there are people who are in any spectrum."

Giannina:

Then I learned more of the history of who came up with Latinx and it was queer, Latinx folks and gender nonbinary folks and I was like, I respect it. I respect people's feeling. I think what came up is not really the respect, it's the reality of an invisibilized history, because to be gender no binary is not new. It's just new to the conversation, but indigenous communities have a third gender or gender nonbinaries for all of history, just an invisibilized conversation or an invisibilized culture. I think understanding the history was very like, yeah. To me, I am Latina. I call myself Latina and when I'm speaking about an entire population, I say Latinx, because to break the cycle of the invisibilization that gender nonbinary folks have to experience.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I've given presentations about intersectionality and that is when you've got, everyone brings multiple identities to the table. I could say, "Well I'm Scottish, I'm white, I'm [inaudible], and I'm queer." if I were to choose those, but there always seems to be some danger in choosing labels or applying them, because it seems like there's always some assumptions, but I usually ask people what makes you comfortable? Pronouns too. What makes you comfortable? Personally, that's my first instinct, but I still want to understand all the terms so that I'm not ignorant about them. I only apply them when I know how the people I'm speaking to thinks about them.

Giannina:

When you say that, it makes me think of, so I don't consider myself a lesbian. I don't call myself lesbian and I don't do it, because of the negative association that the word comes with. Even my family, they're like, "You're lesbian." I'm like, "That's never came out of my mouth." and how I came out to both my parents, it was, "My partner is a woman." it's not, "Hey mom, I'm a lesbian." and it's because even having these conversations, being a lesbian equates in community, in my community, in some black community, as well as being promiscuous, hypersexual, doing drugs.

Anna-Marie:

Demonic.

Giannina:

Demonic, yeah. So negative. I don't want to adapt the label. That's going to give me these-

Anna-Marie:

Baggage.

Giannina:

This baggage. That's not who I am. I don't even party very often. I don't even do drugs. I only have one partner. I was having a conversation with my mother who was like, "It's promiscuity." and she talked about something she read or where a woman killed her girlfriend. I was like, "Yeah, well, let's talk about heterosexual relationships and how many heterosexual relationships killed their partners or abuse their partners." and still, she had the need to be like, "There is violence in your community" and X, Y, and Z, or to be lesbian equates to being like this macho. I'm like, "Nope, ma that's all fake." they immediately adapted and was like, "Anna has short hair." and I was like, "Nope, her hair is longer than all of y'all." these are conversations that I'm having to have with my parents and my family. Then still, I don't even consider myself a lesbian. I don't like the word. I don't want to adapt its negativity.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Do you think, probably because I'm older, that I recognize this, maybe you don't, but do you feel like there's a uniform that people wear to say I'm this or I'm that? For example, if you interact with it with the older lesbian community here, I distinctly feel like there's a uniform. I've got long hair, eh, I'm out. Or, I had a professional life in DC, which is pretty conservative in your dress.I'm still most comfortable in dresses, because they're comfortable to get a little air in there, but I remember I was showing up to a lesbian function here with my long hair and a dress. They're going like, "Who are you?"

Anna-Marie:

"Are you got the right event?"

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

"Excuse me, lady. The door's there." Anyway, is your experience, do you feel like there's way people present themselves to try and associate with the community or that they try to keep people out if they don't wear the uniform?

Anna-Marie:

Simply, yes and while y'all were talking about this in particular, what came up was that I was thinking where does this come from? Because I relate to this. Somebody told me a story a long time ago, when I was maybe 10 or so, but around that elementary, you care about what you learn, but it's still being brought to you. You didn't choose it. Some information that was brought to me when I was really young was there would be these, at camp or after school, there was always this attempt to bring us our culture, black people. I grew up on Burton Street, in terms of where I would spend my adolescent days. I would go to that community center every day of my life, except for the weekends. Summers included.

Anna-Marie:

They would bring us all sorts of programming and they would try to be really intentional about cultural programming. From time to time, we would get African drummers, or storytellers, or dance and they would give us these resources. I remember one story being about greetings in African tribes, how it was really detrimental to you to announce yourself as from where you came from. It was detrimental, because you could be out for a really long walk or some kind of journey or something and then you come across somebody else that is not from your tribe, the first thing you should do, was what I was taught was, introduce who you are, where did you come from, so that we could either figure out we do speak a somewhat similar language, or we can acknowledge that we're enemies quickly, either kill each other or get away from each other.

Anna-Marie:

I remember it being really important lesson that they were telling us that it was detrimental for you to identify what tribe you were from. I think that that shows up, when y'all were talking, I was like, maybe it's that. Maybe it's a bunch of other societal pressures for why we feel a need to grab hold to these identities or these terms and labels. I don't like labels, but I know that they've got me in quicker or they got me dismissed sooner.

Anna-Marie:

Either way it was an efficient practice of finding out where we might share something similar or just get it over with and be like, you don't like me and I don't like you. Bye. As soon as you see the person, "What's your tribe, who you from?" I got a pretty good habit of doing that still, "Who's your mama," or, "what side of town?" that tribal for, to determine if imma flee or if imma stay and befriend you and learn some more. For me, it just seemed necessary to identify myself with shit that I don't even like saying, but I know that it'll either get me dismissed quicker or in quicker.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Interesting. Have you had experiences with the faith communities in Asheville or grown up, or now, or anytime in your life?

Anna-Marie:

I grew up Baptist. We went to church every Sunday. We didn't do the extreme attending of church related things. We weren't there on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturdays. No. I only went on Sundays and it was very important for us to show up to church, as a family, so that-

Giannina:

In dresses.

Anna-Marie:

In dresses! I hated church, because of how it made us all show up in a shell. Everybody, you had to portray it every Sunday. Everybody had a different reality. That's the crazy thing, but on Sunday we could show up in a similar reality, but everybody, I knew it was false. This is not our norm, but we do it every Sunday. I remember the Sunday that my grandfather, instead of telling me to get up, every Sunday he'd say, he'd opened the door slightly, "Get up."

Anna-Marie:

Or if I was living at my parents' house, "Get up, you got how ever many minutes to get in the car." so for most of my life, it was like that. Then when I turned 16, I remember it was a question. I remember the day vividly that he peeked in and said, "Are you coming?" and I was like, it's an option? I said, "No?" kind of bashfully. I'm like, "Do I still got to go?" and he was like, "All right, I'll see you when I come home." and that was the first time I didn't go to church on a Sunday, was when I was 16 years old. I haven't gone back since. Unless it's like a funeral, I'll show up to the church for a funeral, but it was a facade. It didn't give me anything to really get through life with. It was everything I don't want to do.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

. . . the dresses.

Anna-Marie:

The morals! The values that they were instilling in me. Were good values, because I've heard them at other places outside of church. They're good values, but they weren't honestly living it. I refused the whole thing. It didn't match up. I'm being held to an expectation that nobody else's is honoring and it would be like that for every little thing. It would all be in the name of God and I was like, "Uh? I need a higher power," but I was like, "it doesn't seem like we pleasing God, because y'all are doing the complete opposite." so I'm like, "I don't want to go to the place where the sinners say that they go for repentance." I'm like, "Y'all all still fucked up!"

Anna-Marie:

I'm just going to work on myself. In the eyes of what they would call, I enjoyed all of that fun, AKA sin. It was just my human exploratory right. Now I feel like I know what I want. That way wasn't allowing me to discover who I am. It was telling me. It was deeming it already and I was like, "I didn't get to choose who I am." this is not fun. I know people to this day, they still drive the same route to that church. I still see them older people. I'm like, dang, man. I see that it's, for some people, that can sustain them, but for me at an early age, I was like, this can't be life. It couldn't be. I have family members that still go every Sunday. Me? No! I respect them and they respect me.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Is there are any welcoming churches in Asheville? Any welcoming Baptist churches?

Anna-Marie:

I would say hell yeah, but that's a contradiction, but heck yeah! Yeah, there's a bunch of welcoming spaces. I just don't choose to practice in that model anymore. If they could figure out a way to do somewhat like an infiltration, if the church could figure out how to put off the good words and the practices and the values in a way that didn't seem to be portraying what Christianity, as we know it, I would actually go for it, but they shovel it. It's easily identifiable. You know Christianity, you can smell it before I come around the corner sometimes. God, man, that stuff got a stench to it! Then they start shoveling it into you. I don't like the way that most Christians have chosen to maybe just share what's good in their life or their values.

Anna-Marie:

You can share them without pushing it off on somebody or judging the person who has values different than yours. Christianity hasn't done a great of it, but I would say the liberal Christian community and Asheville, they do have a really interesting way. Not the Baptists. The Baptists are stuck in their way, but in general, the general Christians, I like the Biltmore Baptist Churches. I like-

Giannina:

The UU, yeah?

Anna-Marie:

I like the UU church! The Unitarian Church. I sat in Quaker church one time, honestly, Rachel. This Quaker thing, the silence? This is how you worship! Shh, Q=quit telling other people what to do. You just feel the spirit and then you go there.

Giannina:

You?

Anna-Marie:

I did! I like exploring different things, but getting wrapped up in just any one of them? It didn't seem to help learn anything. I was like, man, how can you learn? You're not comparing it to nothing. You just judging everybody without learning. I want to know about everything.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

What about you, G?

Giannina:

I was raised Catholic. Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah I did. I did my baptism, my first communion, my confirmation, all that's missing is marriage, which I don't know if this one counts, but honestly, since what's cool is that I didn't grow up having to go to church except for when I needed to fulfill one of the things I just mentioned. [inaudible] one of those you have to go to Sunday schools. I was the one that very much questioned all of it. I was definitely the student in the class that was like, I remember going into my first communion and the father was like, "You're late." and I was like, "I'm sorry, sir." and he was like, "My name's Father." I was like, "You're not my father. I'm not calling him father. What? No. You haven't earned such title." I remember the entire thing. Honestly, I have a very bad experience with religion. Religion to me brings hate. Religion is just to me, personally, this isn't to come for anybody's being. I just think it's cult-like. It tells you to practice the very things that, the love the love one another. Then you teach after love one another to hate your neighbor, after you just told them to love each other. I think they're very contradictive, very patriarch, heterosexual.

Giannina:

Honestly to me, just not something I'm interested in. After learning the history of religion, and Christianity, and Catholicism, even more so the reason why I'm like, absolutely not. None of you mentioned [inaudible] organization in the entire world. None of y'all ever mentioned that you have committed the most murders in the entire history of our nation. None of you have mentioned a reason why there wasn't, gay marriage is allowed in the United States is because of religion. Until religion sits and tells me that they acknowledged these realities and that they don't have me praying to a white God, because how is God, or Jesus, from Jerusalem and he's white? Nope, that doesn't make any sense. Or from Egypt? From Africa? Why are we praying to a blue eyed God? To me, it's like manipulation.

Giannina:

For religion, I'm like, Nope, not! I'm a very, absolutely not kind of, but I've gone to the UU Church, more so work-related and one of my friends is a pastor at the UU Church. Her name is Claudia and she's Colombian. I have great experiences with people. I think religion is the one that's practiced at home. I think Anna and I practice a religion of like drinking coffee or just being kind to one another. I think that there's much more foundation when it's done at home and we'll be care to love each other and understand our histories, than when we go into these facilities that use a book that's been translated hundreds and thousands of times by men and think that's the word. Like, that's it, this is the history. As someone who's bilingual, I know what translation-

Anna-Marie:

Translation can get real messy!

Giannina:

One sentence in Spanish, you translate it word for word and it changes its entire message in its entirety. It doesn't make any sense why we think that this book that's been translated hundreds of time is the book that we should follow.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

If I could summarize on faith communities is that institutionally in your experience in Asheville is not as institutions, it's basically individual relationships you've had with people, associated maybe like with the Unitarian Church has been your principal experience with faith communities. For those people, your identities aren't an issue with them.

Giannina:

There's that one question of uniformity in gay communities. It really made me think of, because of its uniformity is where these and really made me think I had a conversation with my aunt, who's from Columbia now lives in Spain. I remember when we spoke that morning.

Anna-Marie:

Oh yeah. About sex!

Giannina:

About sex, but there's this uniformity of what they think that being gay or being in a homosexual relationship would like and that maybe this is a conversation for the next interview, but it's so interesting, because they're like, "Well, who's the boy?" and I'm like, "What do you mean? There's a reason why I chose a woman. There is no boy!"

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

No boys here!

Giannina:

"There's no boy!" "So you use toys?" "No!" "Well how does it work?" "The same way! Well, how does yours work? Tell me." She goes, "Well." I'm like, "Exactly, the same way, huh?"

Anna-Marie:

This was a 10:00 AM conversation we had with her aunt in Spain, like a week ago. They were having it in Spanish. I'm like, "Is she? She is talking about what I think she is talking about."

Giannina:

[inaudible].

Anna-Marie:

Tell her, yeah, that's right. We normal. We don't, mm-mm (negative).

Giannina:

It comes with that very notion of the uniformity of what people perceive such.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

They take cultural ideas that they've been given and then pose them, "Okay, well, if you're this, you got to act like this. You got to do this." my experience is that communities that are oppressed, actually, they will oppress themselves too. I had a friend who was in a black fraternity in college and he was real free-thinking guy, but when he rushed to be in this fraternity, they said, "You got to be like this, you got to dress like this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. That's what's you need to do to be a black man." and he said, "You don't tell me what I need to do to be a black man." but they explain, "Well, that's how we protect ourselves. That's how we recognize each other, because we wear the uniform." And he said, "I'm not, that's not my thing."

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

But anyways, it's interesting, because how communities tend to present themselves have a couple of reasons. One is it helps them feel secure in their community, but the other thing that happens, sometimes, it helps you recognize other people who say, "Okay, you're in my tribe." there's some of that going on for sure. I was in a hardware store and I witnessed two women who met each other for the first time. They were strangers, but they started a conversation and go "How'd that happened.?" and then I realized, well, they both look like they're a family. That's why they do that, because that's how people recognize each other. They were cooking up there in the hardware store.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

It was because that uniform allowed them to recognize each other, but we're past two o'clock. It's been so much fun. It's been very informative. I will see you again on Wednesday at three o'clock?

Giannina:

Three o' clock, mm-hmm (affirmative).

Anna-Marie:

Three o' clock.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

I will send you the more information on email. I will actually send you the outline of the questions. If you want to think about them ahead of time, you can, because those are the questions we'd like to use to better understand social needs of the community in the larger in Western North Carolina. I appreciate that in the meantime, if you want to call me about anything, or you have any questions, or if sometime you just want to hang together, that'd be awesome.

Anna-Marie:

Cool, thank you so much, Rachel.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Thank you. It's been great. Just you two and our dogs.

Giannina:

They're sleeping.

Anna-Marie:

She appreciated this too. She passed out, young babies passed out

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

She's asleep to the world.

Anna-Marie:

We're going to go on a nice, long walk now.

Giannina:

Thank you so much.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Thank you. We'll talk again on Wednesday.

Anna-Marie:

Bye bye.

Giannina:

Have a good one.

Rachel Muir, Interviewer:

Bye bye.