ASA Internship

Fall 2023

Yndiana Montes-Fogelquist is an older student who will be the first Latina holding an M.A. in Appalachian Studies. After a successful career as a journalist in the Caribbean, she moved to North engaging immediately with the community, in person and through social media and online campaigns, using her local social media platforms to support projects and nonprofits such as the Cape Fear River Watch, Wilmington Vegan, Working Narratives, NC Stop Gen-X in our Water, and others.
 
During her time as a graduate student at Appalachian Studies, she has been managing the Center for Appalachian Studies’ social media platform with an institutional mind but a compassionate heart for all things Appalachian, “in accordance with my mentors in our program,” she says. She has been reporting about every effort that faculty and graduate students have undertaken to support the sustainable systems in Appalachia, adding her experiential media production efforts. The program now has extensive documentation of the majority of the important events in which the center has participated in these last years. “I have been able to quadruple our followers and increase community interactions with my assistantship”, she says.
 
Her internship with the Appalachian Studies Association as a social media expert and translator (English to Spanish) is supporting our efforts of reaching the Hispanic market.
 
This year marks the 20th anniversary of BRWIA, and together with Judith Phoenix, she made this video, now located on their website.
Dr. Pat Beaver, a founding mother of BRWIA, is featured:
https://www.brwia.org/founding-mothers.html
 
Additionally, she’s committed to starting the High Country Spanish Conversation MeetUp. This gathering will occur twice per month in the Watauga County Agricultural Conference Center beginning the first Saturday of each month starting October 7th. Counting on the support of the director of Watauga Agricultural Conference Center, Dr. Jim Hamilton, Sydney Blume, the new BRWIA's Double Up Food Bucks & Market Manager of Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture, and her husband Dr. Jim Fogelquist, (who teaches Spanish in Appalachian State University and is semi-retired.) The initiative is for folks who want to learn how to speak Spanish, but also it will work in another way, “I’m planning to teach, in Spanish, what I have learned in our program, specifically what is related to music, preservation, environmental issues, literature, and the culture of Appalachia. The language and cultural barriers do not allow that, in many cases, the Hispanic population embraces the rich culture of Appalachia. Without a deeper knowledge of Appalachian culture, it is not possible to feel a real sense of community,” she concludes.