I started as Latin American & Caribbean Collection Specialist in January 2024 and assist with management of the circulating collection with a focus on Brazil, Asian Migration, and Latinx Studies. I am a recent graduate of UF master’s programs in Latin American Studies and Museum Studies, focusing on the meanings of place at cultural heritage sites. As part of my studies, I was an intern at the Florida Museum of Natural History and worked with the Amazon Collection of Indigenous objects. Before going back to school full time, I worked at the Harn Museum of Art for eight years and various cultural organizations in both Boston and Cleveland before moving to Gainesville.
As a 2021-22 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Academic Year Fellowship recipient, I took courses in Brazilian Portuguese and now use my language skills daily as part of my work developing the collection. Materials related to Brazil are a particular strength at LACC, in addition to the Caribbean resources focusing on Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. With special collections from former UF faculty members and alumni such as Larry Crook, Jane Malinoff-Kamide, Peter H. Rolfs, Marianne Schmink, and Charles Wagley, LACC also has over 43,000 holdings in Portuguese (about 10% of the collection).
While researching resources for a display on Dia dos Povos Indigenas/Indigenous People’s Day in Brazil (April 19), I was excited to find that LACC has many books written in Indigenous languages and from Indigenous perspectives. It is an area I am interested in developing and it is great to see that we already have a foundation of these materials.
I particularly enjoy working with faculty and graduate students to both assist in their research and build our collection.