Student Bios

Arely Diaz-Loza:

Arely, a sophomore from Los Angeles, is studying International Politics here at Brown. While not engaged in discussions about Congress, the Supreme Court, or the impact of the United States over Latin American governments, you can find her reading comic books at your local campus eatery.

“Naivete is often an excuse for those who exercise power. For those upon whom that power is exercised, naivete is always a mistake.”

– Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Mia Gold:

Mia ​Gold ’17 is a sophomore from Philadelphia studying anthropology at Brown University. She identifies as a Chinese-American, Jewish woman and is a Minority Peer Leader at the Brown Center for Students of Color. Mia is impassioned about intersectionalities of identity and social justice, loves to study language and culture, and is an avid explorer.

“It is precisely the instability of memory that provides for its importance in pointing to the meaning of the past.”

– Fujitani, T. T., Geoffrey M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama, eds. Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s). N.p.: Duke University Press, 2001, 34.

Jasmin Jones:

Jasmin is a sophomore from Los Angeles, California tentatively double concentrating in Africana Studies and Public Policy. When she is not innovating digital exhibits of racial histories of violence at Brown, you can find her giving tours and info sessions to prospective students. She has a passion for art, public speaking and canned soup from Little Jo’s.

“. . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands.”

– Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Ryan Lee:

Ryan Lee ’17 is a sophomore from San Diego, CA studying International Relations. He is a Chinese/Taiwanese American interested in all sorts of social phenomena, but particularly those that engender inequality and structures of dominance. He serves as a Minority Peer Counselor for the Brown Center for Students of Color, and he wishes histories of violence were more often met with introspective honesty and compassion.

Andy Li:

Andy Li ’17 is studying Literary Arts and Ethnic Studies. He is a first-generation college student born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, a child of Cantonese immigrants. He is interested in the intersections of language and historicity, the relationships between violence and silence, and the power of home-cooked food to expose narrative truths.

“History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.”

– Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Liliana Sampedro:

My name is Liliana Sampedro, and I am a first year at Brown University. I was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon and intend to double concentrate in Sociology and Ethnic Studies. My journey in this class has taught me about the importance of history and uncovering silenced, ignored, misrepresented, or forgotten stories to preserve knowledge.

“It is never too late to reclaim your past or to acknowledge the past of your neighbors.”

– Gonzales-Day, Ken. Lynching in the West, 1850-1935. 2006.

Myacah Sampson:

Myacah Sampson is a Black and Navajo student from the Four Corners area of New Mexico. Their passion for social justice has led them to study Public Policy and Ethnic Studies and serve as a Minority Peer Counselor at the Brown Center for Students of Color. They avoid the comment section of YouTube and enjoy traveling.

“For what history is changes with time and place, or better said, history reveals itself only through the production of specific narratives.”

– Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Phoebe Young:

Phoebe Young ’17 is majoring in Public Policy and Ethnic Studies. She is Saginaw Chippewa (Ojibwe) from Brooklyn, New York and a member of Natives at Brown, CASARA (Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse) and Brown Political Review. She is interested in studying how social and political institutions in the United States affect the identities and perceptions of ethnic and racial groups and how that influences policies made in federal and state government. While at Brown she hopes to do work addressing the need for university acknowledgement and discussion of Narragansett and Native displacement in Rhode Island throughout the university’s history.

“The conflicted racialized dimensions of contemporary national grief, of whose death counts the most, and who is mostly commemorated, in America today.”

– Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, p. 97. 2012.

Professor Monica Martinez:

Monica Muñoz Martinez, is an assistant professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University. She received her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the American Studies Program at Yale University. While at Yale she co-founded the Public Humanities Initiative in American Studies. At Brown she offers courses in Latino/a History, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, the Public Humanities, and feminist research methods. In addition to developing her manuscript, “‘Inherited Loss’: Reckoning with Anti-Mexican Violence, 1910-Present,” she is also a Public Humanities Fellow at the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. She is from Uvalde, Texas and received an A. B. from Brown University.