Ranjan Adiga, a professor of creative writing at Westminster University, isn’t afraid to talk about the experience of being an immigrant in the United States and all the moments that come with it — the harrowing ones, the moments of accomplishment, and everything in between.
For example, he is used to people mispronouncing his name as “Ron Jon,” when it should be pronounced “Ruhn Juhn.”
“I wasn’t sure how I felt about that in the beginning, but you just kind of go with the flow,” Adiga said, “because it’s very hard to constantly keep correcting people.”.
Tales of these varied experiences are what Adiga captures in his upcoming collection of fictional short stories, “Diversity Quota,” out on Thursday. Ahead of the book’s release, Adiga will take part in a Tuesday event hosted by The King’s English Bookshop at The Neighborhood Hive, 2065 E. 2100 South. The event is free but those interested must register beforehand.
Although they are fiction, the stories are rooted in the realities of an immigrant’s life and community — in this case, of Nepalese immigrants.
Adiga was born and raised in Nepal and came to the United States in 2003 as a graduate student, studying creative writing at the University of North Carolina. He moved to Salt Lake City in 2013 and has taught at Westminster for 11 years.
When talking about his home country, Adiga describes it with the keen observations of a writer.
“In land mass, [Nepal] is smaller than Utah,” he said. “It has 30 million people, but it has over 100 different languages … Everything is different: the climate, the language, cultural values, the food. … For such a small country, it’s also an exciting country of heterogeneous, diverse cultures and peoples.”
Adiga’s own immigration journey has gone through different phases.
From coming here on an international student visa, which later changed to a work visa, to eventually becoming an immigrant, Adiga said his entire identity has been defined by paperwork.
“I’ve always felt a sense of dislocation and displacement,” said Adiga, who now has to apply for a visa for when he returns to Nepal. “I don’t ever remember feeling like I fully belong anywhere.”
His constant search for who he is, Adiga said, is one of the reasons he is drawn to writing. All 10 of the short stories in his collection pack a powerful, emotional punch.
On displacement in its many forms
Adiga said he started writing “Diversity Quota” when he was on sabbatical in 2021. He wrote eight to nine hours a day, though some of the stories were imagined years prior.
“One of the challenges of writing a short story collection is that there are different, disparate stories, but they also have to sort of come together in some sort of a thematic thread,” Adiga said.
For this collection, Adiga said the theme is displacement.
“In each story, the central character finds that they’re displaced by society in some ways,” Adiga said, “whether it’s experiencing physical displacement as an immigrant or just feeling marginalized in their own communities or families.”
When it comes to writing, Adiga said his stories start with a general idea for a character or scene, and are then fleshed out through larger societal issues. He’s interested in race, class and gender issues.
“Stories are a mirror to society,” he said, “and they’re not isolated from society.”
The story “Spicy Kitchen” follows employees at a fictionalized Indian restaurant in Cedar City and is told by main character Bikram, who is jealous of Ali, another employee who is a refugee from Somalia and who has a work visa. When a white couple comes to the deserted restaurant and the woman misplaces her purse, she suspects Ali stole it.
They call the police, and Bikram blames Ali, even though the purse is eventually found in the couple’s car.
The story winds through the themes of finding work to pay bills as an international student, the geopolitical tensions that exist between different countries, and colorism/racism in those places, Adiga said.
‘Living on the edge’
Setting the story in rural Utah, Adiga said, was intended to “accentuate this sense of isolation that the characters are feeling.”
“Immigrants have complicated relationships with each other, because even though we find community with each other, we’re also fighting for the same resources,” Adiga said, “and especially when those resources are scarce and hard to come by, alliances and allegiances can very swiftly turn into animosity.”
One of Adiga’s favorites from the collection is “Kali,” a story about a family getting a dog and the effect it has on their next-door neighbors in Kathmandu.
“The dog becomes a source of envy and jealousy in a neighborhood that is struggling to put two meals on their table,” Adiga said.
In the story “Student Visa,” a young man is so close to achieving his family’s dreams for him, he lies about the result of his visa application interview to his parents.
Visa lotteries for H1-B visas are notoriously difficult, particularly for graduating international students. Those on student visas also face limitations on where and how long they can work.
“It’s hard when your existence and identity is constantly determined by paperwork … you’re always living on the edge,” Adiga said. “We constantly bend backwards to fit in and to please people and to be able to come out of that and be confident about who you are is also a process that a lot of immigrants go through.”
Ultimately, Adiga hopes that readers will think of Nepal in a more holistic way, because, he said, it is often referred to as a third-world country.
“When you keep saying third world, you’re also implying that the people in those countries are third world, meaning they’re inferior, poor, their lives are not worth the same,” Adiga said. “I wanted to crack open a stereotype and stigma like that and present Nepalis as multifaceted, interesting, complex humans like everyone else.”
