The Appalachian Asian Advocacy Journal (AAAJ) was co-founded by two Chinese American students—Vic Chen and Ethan Liu—from Morgantown, West Virginia. While growing up in the heart of Appalachia, we witnessed a vibrant Asian culture in the mountains. Fusion cuisine, tight-knit neighborhoods, and local traditions flourished yet were rarely acknowledged or celebrated. Frustrated by the absence of Asian representation in mainstream narratives of Appalachia, we launched the AAAJ to both uplift the existing Asian-American communities of the region and foster greater awareness of our cultural contributions to the world as a whole.