Dissertation Acknowledgements

I am publishing the Acknowledgements Section of my Dissertation here so that I can thank my friends and family who supported me throughout my PhD journey.

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Dr. Katie Cortese, my Chair, for her unwavering kindness and support throughout every step of this process. Thank you for listening every time I had to think through every detail that felt like an insurmountable obstacle. This project would not have been possible without my committee, Dr. Sara Spurgeon, Professor Marcus Burke, and Dr. Nathan X. Osorio. Each of you helped me with inspiration, feedback, answered (at times silly) questions, and met with me when I stressed myself out. 

I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Callie Kostelich for her mentorship; I would not have earned this degree without her. I also want to thank Professor Nick Butler, in whose class I wrote the original short story that became this novel. He challenged me to stick with this project when he told me: “If you don’t write this novel, you’re leaving money on the table.” I would be remiss in not mentioning the faculty who celebrated my successes and encouraged my work: Drs. Michael Faris, Monica Norris, Wyatt Phillips, Ryan Hackenbracht, and Eliza Zellinger. 

This research and writing were made possible by the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. I also want to thank Olga Herrera, Daniel Borzutzky, and Deanna Ledezma for organizing Crossing Latinidades, and Drs. Monica Muñoz Martinez, Ana Elizabeth Rosas, and  Julian Lim for welcoming me into your research group. 

I would like to thank the peers who supported and challenged me in class: Court, Marcus, Jessica, Samantha. I don’t think fondly of coursework, but I’m glad it brought us together. To Nimalah, Jenn, Kristi, and mónica: thank you for being my friends despite my attempts to be a hermit in our department. To Alexia, thank you for helping me with my academic writing and supporting me through the end of this journey. To Rosa, Alex, and other Crossing Latinidades homies, I’m glad that we met in Chicago. Each of you has shown me what it means to be an academic who is still grounded in community. Y’all are who I want to do this academic work with, and I hope we keep meeting up for conferences and chisme. To all of the friends listed above, thank you all for being in community with me, for challenging my work, and for making this degree feel like the product of community. It takes a village, and y’all are mine. 

I am also indebted to my mentors, Laila Lalami & Michael Jaime-Becerra, who have supported me long after I left their classrooms. Y’all are my inspiration for my role as a teacher, and I hope to do for my students what y’all did for me. 

To my family: thank you for your love, support, and kindness over the last six years. To those distant friends who saw me spiraling via Close Friends (y’all know who you are), thank you for supporting me with endless calls and memes. Even at my most stressed, y’all reminded me that there’s more to life than my desk (but that I had to finish this degree before it finished me). To Hali and Steven, thank you for making Lubbock feel like home. Y’all are the best part of Lubbock, and a piece of my heart will be in this city as long as y’all are here. To my friends in TTUHSC Family Med, thank you for inviting us into your homes and helping ours feel like a haven. A special thanks to my pets for keeping me sane through every single draft. 

Most importantly, thank you to my wife. You were my first reader, my biggest believer, and the steady ground that made this degree possible. Even with the support I found at TTU, writing this novel often felt lonely and pointless. I struggled with ideas and drafts and revisions and deadlines; but you were with me for every step of this process. Thank you for moving to Lubbock with me, for supporting me when I struggled, and for celebrating every success with me. If this novel is a product of my love for Salinas and the farmworkers who raised me, then it only exists because I’ve learned how to nurture and hold and express love with you.