Dr. Alai Reyes-Santos is an independent scholar, consultant, and an Iya-priestess of Afro-Caribbean regla de osha and regla conga. She teaches as a Professor of Practice at the University of Oregon’s School of Law and is the Associate Director of the PNW Just Futures Institute for Climate and Racial justice. Her scholarly work centers on Dominican-Puerto Rican Relations, Afro-Latinidad, and Environmentalism. In 2020, Reyes-Santos received the Woman of Recognition award from the NAACP Eugene-Springfield Chapter and previously, with the Distinguished Woman of Achievement and Black Women of Achievement awards from the University of Oregon. Among Reyes-Santos’ publications is Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles, published by Rutgers University Press in 2015. The CUNY DSI award will allow Dr. Reyes-Santos and Dr. Ana Maurine Lara to expand the groundbreaking digital humanities project, “Caribbean Women Healers: Decolonizing Knowledge Within Afro Indigenous traditions”—which showcases interviews with healers, ethnobotanical resources, and curriculum and bibliographical resources—to engage Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban healers and traditional ecological knowledge holders. During August 2022, both Reyes-Santos and Lara will host conversations in 11 cities/towns and 17 communities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon, documenting the experiences, stories, and traditional ecological knowledge of Caribbean Latino and other peoples in these areas.
Last Updated: 05/08/2023 12:21