Mississippi Native: Laura Heller

"I know I am lucky that my family is part of what makes Mississippi home for me, as well as a circle of friends who continue to stay here to fight for LGBTQ+ equality."

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from archivist, poet, and preserver of Mississippi stories, Laura Heller.

Featured contributor Laura Heller, pictured here on the day she and her wife applied for their marriage license.

Where are you from?

I grew up during the 1980s and 1990s in Madison County, near but not in Gluckstadt. I had the whole Madison County experience of public schools, merged high schools, and growing communities bursting at the seams. 

Why did you leave Mississippi? Where did you go?

After earning a library and information science degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, I accepted a grant-funded position at Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky. I loved the arts community of Berea, which also welcomed people from all faiths, cultures, and backgrounds. While in Kentucky I felt I had the freedom to discover who I truly was.  

I easily found the closest LGBTQ bar in Lexington and visited it with the intent of making friends and maybe finding a love interest, which I did, briefly. I’ve since read that young queer twenty-somethings of my generation often didn’t come out until they left their hometown or even home state. This was the case for me. Thankfully my family accepted my new revelation when I came out to my mom in 2004 as bisexual. It was the label at the time that I felt comfortable taking on; however, my love interest had self-esteem issues and broke up with me after four months. Nonetheless, I knew my super-selective attraction to women was as real as my occasional attraction to men. 

I continued to feel at home in Kentucky, and was even a faculty sponsor of the college’s Gay-Straight Alliance for students.  I never had that experience in high school or college, but felt proud to provide a space where students could be themselves and celebrate at a Pride Dance each year.

Left: Laura playing Atari with her father in the 1980s. Right: Baby Laura with her older sister Beth and their mother in the 1980s.

Why did you return to Mississippi?

I did not return to Mississippi right away after the grant project ended in Kentucky. I accepted an archivist position in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and lived there for five years. I felt out of place even though I was accepted as a bisexual by new friends; I did not feel comfortable being out at my new place of employment, though many coworkers seemed open and accepting of the diversity in that metropolitan city. 

When my position ended, I returned home to Mississippi. Honestly, I was conflicted about coming home. I wanted to see more of the world, visit cities that are diverse where I may not have to be guarded about who I love and why. But I missed my family and I also wanted to be closer to home, to Southern landscapes that inspire my writing and art. I also ached to continue learning Southern history that was not taught in my high school history books. I wanted to work for an archives that actively preserved everyone’s histories and stories. After working for a little over a year as a public librarian, I accepted my dream job as an archivist in the Archives and Records Services Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 

Mississippi is a jigsaw puzzle of every social, economic, and political group imaginable and somehow we are working to fit together.

Was the Mississippi you returned to the same one you had left?

Mississippi is both an ever-evolving place and a place that constantly looks back and reveres its history. This is a love-hate relationship for me. When I left in September 2004, I was leaving a place that gave me wonderful summers wandering by creeks and climbing trees and books filled with stories by Eudora Welty and poetry by Natasha Trethewey. Though I was not fully aware of it as a somewhat naïve 28-year-old, I was also leaving a political landscape that was not welcoming to a young person seeking to understand her sexuality in a safe environment. 

When I returned in 2014, my personal worldview had grown. I had befriended people from so many backgrounds in Kentucky and Oklahoma. I understood more about my own rights at risk, but I especially learned of the civil and human rights that others who did not look like me still unfairly lacked. In both states, I participated in protests at state capitols, human rights marches, Pride marches, legislative writing campaigns, and voting registration efforts.