I am a cultural geographer who studies how stories shape the landscapes of race in the United States and the Americas, with particular attention to the structures of anti-Blackness. I have long been drawn to origins—the starting points of stories, the quiet ways they take root in everyday life and then grow into borders: who belongs, who is seen, who is granted legitimacy, and who is not. For me, stories are not just metaphors; they are maps. They chart boundaries, mark hierarchies, and, too often, make racial inequality feel natural or inevitable.

Much of my work focuses on the presence of whiteness, so ordinary it often escapes notice, yet it structures so much of our cultural and spatial life. I ask: what stories and origins made this order seem unquestionable? And what happens if we tell stories otherwise—ones that unsettle those hierarchies and gesture toward more just futures?