People

Nieves Romero-Díaz's main area of research is gender and race in Early Modern Spain. She has authored and edited/co-edited 4 books and more than 30 articles, reviews, and book chapters. Making historical and critical connections between the past and the present, her courses include Black Spain, Spain and Islam, and Gender Violence in Spain. She has received numerous (inter)national grants and awards and has presented her research at conferences, invited lectures, and symposiums in England, France, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the US.

Dimaris Barrios-Beltrán is a Visiting Language Instructor in Spanish. Her research focuses on First and Second Language Acquisition, Spanish Heritage speakers, Syntax-Semantics Interface, Communication Disorders, Specific Language Impairment, and Autism. She teaches Spanish language courses at a variety of levels.  Her dissertation is on The acquisition of argument structure and functional categories by monolingual Spanish children with Specific Language Impairment.

Esther Castro Cuenca is a Senior Lecturer and the language program director of the Department of Spanish, Latina/o, and Latin American Studies. Her research focuses on second language acquisition, cognitive linguistics, and interfaces between psycholinguistics and language learning/teaching. She teaches various levels of Spanish language as well as courses on linguistics, translation, and second language acquisition and pedagogy.

Professor Crumbaugh’s courses have addressed subjects such as Latin American cinema, (under)development as it has been questioned in the Global South, transnational fascism, memory of war, the films of Pedro Almodóvar, and the writings of Michel Foucault.

Flávia Cunha is a Language Instructor at the department of Spanish, Latina/o, and Latin American Studies. Her main research interests are second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and bilingualism, with a focus or heritage speakers of Portuguese and Spanish and on the relationship between cultural identity and heritage speakers’ level of proficiency in their minority language.

Verónica Dávila Ellis (they/elle) specializes in Latinx and Caribbean popular music, with a focus on gender performance, queer theory and sound studies. Their dissertation, “Uttering Sonic Dominicanidad: Women and Queer Performers of Música Urbana,” analyzes how reggaetón, dembow and trap artists negotiate with the hegemonic scripts of identity, race and gender through sound and bodily performance. As a public scholar, they have published articles in The Washington Post and NACLA, in the Puerto Rican cultural journal 80grados, have been interviewed for NPR’s “Here and Now” and “Code Switch,” and collaborated with local Dominican music publications.

Elena García Frazier is a Language Instructor at Mount Holyoke College. Her current research interests include Sociocultural Theory of Mind, The role of Instruction in Spanish Second and Heritage Language Learning and Development, Second Language Teaching Methodology and Pedagogy, Spanish Modality, Heritage Speaker Identity Formation and Spanish Sociolinguistics (languages in contact).

David Hernández is Associate Professor of Latina/o Studies at Mount Holyoke College. His research focuses on immigration enforcement, in particular, the U.S. detention regime. He is completing a book manuscript on this institution, titled "Alien Incarcerations: Immigrant Detention and Lesser Citizenship," and he is also the co-editor of Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader (Duke University Press 2016). His work has appeared journals such as Border-Lines, Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, Journal of Race and Policy, Latina/o Studies, and NACLA: Report on the Americas.

Antonio Illescas is Language Instructor in Spanish. His area of interest is Applied Linguistics, with an emphasis on Intercultural Acquisition, Study Abroad, Stereotypes and Linguistic Tourism. His research focuses on the acquisition of intercultural competence and on how culture is included in the syllabus and in L2 textbooks.

Dorothy E. Mosby is the chief academic officer at Mount Holyoke College. She is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership for the College’s academic mission and for supporting the 35 academic departments and programs; Library, Information, and Technology Services; academic centers; and the academic support offices, including the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Student Success and Advising, and the Teaching and Learning Initiative.

Adriana Pitetta’s interests range widely from Latin American literature and cinema to Afro Uruguayan history and culture, gender and sexualities, cultural consumption studies and political movements. At this point in her academic research, she is particularly interested in the transformation and internal dynamics of social and political movements in their relationship with activism and cultural production during the post-postdictatorship period in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

Vanessa Rosa is an assistant professor of Latina/o Studies. Her research interests include the study of race and ethnicity, citizenship and national identities, and social stratification in cities. Rosa is currently completing a book manuscript titled Diversifying Cities: Between Gentrification and Revitalization which investigates the national-identity making effects of the urban revitalization of two public housing projects in Toronto, Ontario. Rosa teaches courses on housing, cities, and Latina feminism and incorporates community-based learning and civic engagement in her teaching, including projects with various local organizations in Holyoke and Springfield.

Megan Saltzman’s research focuses on contemporary urban culture of Spain with a transnational and ethnographic approach. Her forthcoming book, "Cultural Politics and Everyday Agency in the Public Spaces of Neoliberal Barcelona," exposes how everyday practices in public space (loitering, sitting, playing, remembering…) not only challenge the city’s policed image but also serve to carve out autonomy from below. She has published on urban themes such as gentrification, spatial in/exclusion, nostalgia, trash and DIY recycling, immigration, urban furniture, and “artivism.” Since 2002 Saltzman has been teaching a wide variety of courses in Spanish culture, literature, and language. She is visiting Mount Holyoke College from West Chester University.