I am an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Studies in the Department of Languages at Xavier University. My research looks into the subjectivity, intellectual creativity, and the political imagination of enslaved and free men and women of African descent, who lived in colonial Cuba, during the nineteenth century. My work seeks to highlight the black intellect and to unveil their contribution and active participation in Latin American and Caribbean literary cannon. Furthermore, my research traces how enslaved and free Black men and women’s political actions contributed to the freedom of Black consciousness and the end of slavery. While my work is anchored in the nineteenth century, I trace how the sequelae of implicit, insidious, and discursive forms of violence from that past, still linger and perpetuate devaluation and racialization in our present days.
I am a Dominican woman of African ancestry and I am also a person shaped by larger worlds. Thanks to a never-ending desire to learn, I studied and lived in Spain, Colombia, and Brazil. My early passion for teaching did lead me to earn a Bachelor’s degree at Queens College City University of New York in Spanish and Secondary Education. I have lived for many years in the Northeast of the United States. In Amherst, Massachusetts, I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures and Linguistics with two concentrations in Afro-Latin American Studies and Afro-Diasporic Studies. I also obtained a Master’s degree in Latin American And Caribbean Studies.
