New Cumberland, Nova Scotia. We used to go to visit my great-grandmother once a month, driving back country roads on a trip that seemed interminable. I was always fascinated with the tar-paper shack, and especially the upstairs where I was never allowed to go. She left that house involuntarily in 1993 after a broken hip, and only lived a few years beyond that. After the death of my grandmother in 2018, I go to places like this to capture her history and the spaces she once roamed.
Crescent Beach is a mile-long sand bar that connects the Lahave Islands with mainland Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. My family has deep roots here, going back to the 1700s. We used to dig clams on the backside of the beach, listening to the tide-tables on the radio to pick the right time.
San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico (2017). I’ve always read about the dance between San Juan Chamula and nearby San Cristobal de las Casas (especially in the works of Rosario Castellanos), but I don’t think I fully appreciated it until I visited myself. In 2023, I will take students there, and I can’t wait.
Sancho, my pug. Because the faster I work, the faster he gets to go on walks. And yes, he is named after Sancho Panza because he looks like a pot-bellied pig.
The Alhambra. I had always been a Latin Americanist in the strictest sense, eschewing any connection to Spain and its coloniality. And then I visited Spain. I’m not about to start writing articles about Quijote and defending former King Juan Carlos, but I now appreciate Spain in ways I never believed possible.
Taken at a bodega in La Guardia, Spain, 2019. After the past few years, I think that the idea of kicking back at a Spanish vineyard would inspire even the hardest of hearts.