SX Blog

Laura Berríos is a PhD student in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. Her research examines representations of violence and narcoculture in contemporary literature and popular music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. She holds a B.A. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Puerto Rico. As an undergraduate, Laura was a Mellon Mays Fellow and worked as a youth tutor with the community-based initiave Huerto, Vivero y Bosque Urbano de Capetillo in Río Piedras.

Luis Frías is a New York-based scholar and writer pursuing a PhD in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the CUNY Graduate Center. Luis’s interests revolve around Mexican literature and cinema, archives, feminism, masculinities, violence, and neoliberalism. He splits his time between parenting his 4-year-old son, Leo, writing his dissertation, teaching Spanish and Portuguese languages, and wrapping up a book of tales. His current obsession is improving his times to run the 2025 NYC Marathon.  

Caprie Hughley is a student at Queens College earning my bachelor’s degree in English. Reading and writing are two things she enjoys doing. Which is why she loves creating content on authors, books, and my opinions of the books I read. "Having a platform to help up in coming writers is needed and is why I create the content," she says. "Becoming a part of the Small Axe team is an honor and I am excited about what this semester has in store for me." 

Dantaé Elliott is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She has a particular interest in contemporary Caribbean Art and its relation to migration within the Caribbean diaspora and region, while examining the phenomenon “barrel children syndrome.” She is a featured artist in Volume 4 of Forgotten Lands, titled Currents of Africa, released in June 2022. Dantaé is a returning editorial assistant.

Tyler Grand Pre is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and ICLS affiliate at Columbia University. His research revolves around poetic responses to the infrastructure of race—that is, the networks of technologies, materials, and, as he argues, representational practices that structure the social, economic and spatial hierarchies of race. Tyler examines the way different writers and artists respond to the built and mapped environment to reimagine community both within and without the borders of language, race, and geography.

Mayaki Kimba is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, specializing in political theory. His research interests concern the legacy of empire in shaping ideas around race and migration in twentieth-century Western Europe. Other and related interests include Black political thought, anticolonial political thought, (social) citizenship and the welfare state. He was born and raised in the Netherlands, and graduated with a B.A. in political science from Reed College in May 2020. His essay on T. H. Marshall, late imperial ideology and racialized migrant exclusion was selected for a 2020 award by the Undergraduate Essay Prize Committee of the North American Conference on British Studies.