Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Pennsylvania and a Penn Presidential Ph.D. Fellow. Her work examines how the presence of people of color shaped ideas and understandings of race, ethnicity, and nationality policy in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and post-Soviet space. She is a regular commentator on Russian, Ukrainian and American affairs in national media outlets.

How did African American visitors and residents of Soviet Central Asia imagine their Central Asian counterparts? Through an exploration of their writings, we can see how African Americans envisioned a shared historical and racial bond between themselves and Central Asians.