Education
- B.A., (History/Africana Studies) Cornell University, 2002
- M.A. and PhD, (History/Latin American, Caribbean, and Latina/o Studies) University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2011
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, (Africana Studies/Critical Caribbean Studies) Rutgers University, 2011-2013
Biography
Research and Teaching Interests
- History of the Caribbean, the Americas, and African Diaspora
- Resistance, Agency, and Political Acts
- Memory Studies and oral history of silenced and ignored minority groups
Scholarship:
I am writing my manuscript, “Haiti Fights Back: Charlemagne Péralte and the Structures of U.S. Empire.” For this historical work, I utilize Haitian Kreyòl, French, and English sources to reveal U.S. and Haiti’s political relationship. I rely on records from both nations (legislation, murals, oral history, and military sources) to examine their diplomacy from the Age of Revolution to the first U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915. Additionally, I document Haitians’ contemporary understanding of the occupation in Haiti and among Haitians in the U.S. Diaspora.
Recent Publications
- “Remembering Charlemagne Péralte & His Defense of Haiti’s Revolution,” in The Idea of Haiti: History, Development and the Creation of New Narratives, edited by Millery Polyné (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
- Review of Millery Polyné. From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan Americanism, 1870-1964, The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, 2013
- Mayes, April, Martín, Yolanda C., Decena, Carlos U., Jayaram, Kiran, Alexis, Yveline. “Transnational Hispaniola: Towards New Paradigms in Haitian and Dominican Studies,” Radical History Review 115, 2013
- “Pran Kouraj: The Courage to Face Haiti’s Restavek Dilemma” in So Spoke the Earth/ Tè-a Pale edited by M.J. Fievre (Lominy Books, 2012)
Affiliations
- Haitian Studies Association (http://www.umb.edu/haitianstudies)
- Caribbean Studies Association (http://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/)