This summer, the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress hosts its fourth remote internship and volunteer program for the Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents crowdsourcing campaign. Herencia interns and volunteers are responsible for reviewing, transcribing, and promoting this collection of Spanish legal documents from the 15th – 19th centuries, with the goal of making these historical documents better understood and more accessible to researchers. You can find examples of original research performed by previous Herencia interns here. Here is a look at our impressive summer 2022 cohort!
Grislean Palacios is a public history graduate student at the California State University, Fullerton. She received her bachelor of arts in global cultures, with a double minor in history and biological sciences, from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Grislean is a trilingual first-generation college graduate who is passionate about advocating for immigration issues, both as a Spanish translator for Respond Crisis Translation and through her graduate degree focus on American immigration history. In fall 2022, she will be interning with the Bowers Museum as a printed materials collection intern helping archive local California historical artifacts. In her free time, she loves baking, crocheting, traveling, and all things Disney.
Olivia Case is a second-year student at Northwestern University, where she is pursuing majors in political science and history and a minor in Spanish. During her time at Northwestern so far, she has taken part in several research projects concerning international law, particularly in the subfield of international human rights law. Outside of the Herencia internship, she is currently working as an America Reads tutor as well as volunteering as an election judge for the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In her spare time, she enjoys backpacking, playing classical guitar, and watching arbitrary documentaries.
Anna Song is a recent alumnus of Indiana University-Bloomington. She received her interdepartmental B.A. in linguistics and anthropology with a minor in comparative literature. Anna dedicated her time after graduation to serve at an under-resourced high school in Washington, D.C. She is excited to intern with the Herencia Crowdsourcing Campaign to transcribe legal documents, while exploring multiple career paths. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and experimenting with her cooking.
Katherine Munnecke is a rising third-year undergraduate student at Occidental College. She is majoring in diplomacy and world affairs. She is interested in the law and the evolution of legal documents over time. This internship provides a wonderful opportunity to use her Spanish in a way that is connected with other academic interests. In her spare time, she can be found reading or dancing.
Cassidy Langenfeld is a rising senior majoring in linguistics and minoring in computer science at Cornell University. She is currently an intern at the Law Library of Congress. Cassidy has a special interest in subjects at the intersection between technology and language, particularly natural language processing and computational historical linguistics. In her free time, she enjoys reading and studying languages.
Unathi Machyo is a third-year undergraduate student at Barnard College majoring in urban studies with a concentration in Latin American history. Her interests within these fields include Latin American colonial urbanism and urban slavery in the Americas. Unathi is excited to be interning with the Herencia Crowdsourcing Campaign and to be spending time with such a fascinating collection. In her spare time, she enjoys playing guitar and cooking with her family.
Callie Belback is from Chicago, Illinois. In the fall of 2022, she will begin her master’s program at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In May of 2021, she received a B.A. in history, political science, and Spanish from Tulane University where she completed an honors thesis on Cold War U.S.— Cuba relations. After graduating from Tulane University, Callie worked for an immigration law firm, focusing on humanitarian law. This summer, she is excited to work with the Herencia Collection and bring all of her intellectual interests together: history, law, and Spanish. When not working, Callie can be found reading, playing her viola, or running on the trail.
Guagui Vallejos is from Florida and a sophomore at Kenyon College where she majors in international studies and Spanish with a concentration in Latinx studies. This allows her to have an extremely interdisciplinary education providing focus on many of her interests. She is the child of a father from Chile and mother from New Jersey who instilled love for the Spanish language in their household. She is invested in Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) movements on her campus and that translates to her work as well. At Kenyon College, Guagui is also a member of the women’s soccer team. Outside of her academic and athletic commitments, she is an avid tea drinker and appreciates a good shot of espresso.
Maxwell Poruban is a sophomore undergraduate student at the University of Delaware. He is majoring in anthropology and Spanish-political science, which combines his interest in human culture and its intersections within the global, legal, and political spheres. Maxwell has spent the summer interning for the Law Library of Congress Herencia Crowdsourcing Campaign and honing his Spanish language skills. When he is not working, Max can be found hiking or cooking for his family or friends.
Lena Cavicchia is a rising junior at Stanford University majoring in classics with a focus on Latin studies. Before interning for the Herencia program, she worked for the Corpus Synodalium research project, which involved the digitization of Latin ecclesiastic legislation from the 13th-15th centuries. She has also previously interned with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Currently, she is an editor for her university’s undergraduate classics journal, and enjoys reading, cooking, and playing the piano in her free time.
Bruno Jardim is a Brazilian-American who recently graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a B.A. in history. He spent most of his childhood and early teenage years in Brazil and his adult life in America. His favorite things to do are reading and listening to music. Bruno can speak three languages and enjoys bragging about it.
Maria Woodward is a master of science in library science student at the University of North Texas. She is a bilingual school librarian in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She also holds a master of arts degree in Hispanic American literature from the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in metadata, digital content management, and knowledge institution community engagement. In her spare time, she enjoys rooting for her alma mater, the University of Alabama, supporting the Dallas Mavericks, and visiting small public libraries.
Aldeo Aparin-Buck is a rising sophomore at Mount Holyoke College currently working with the Herencia project to transcribe Spanish documents. They are using their proficiency with the Spanish language to understand the legal processes and effects of interactions with other civilizations in 15th to 19th century Spain. Their introductory Arabic class has inspired an interest specifically in the interaction between Spain and the Arab world. Outside of work and school they enjoy gardening and reading – specifically fantasy and science fiction.
Carolina González Gutiérrez is a current third-year undergraduate student at Wake Forest University, majoring in history with minors in women, gender, and sexuality studies and cultural heritage and preservation studies. Motivated by a passion for the archives, she is thrilled to be working on the Herencia collection for the Law Library of Congress. In her spare time she enjoys caring for her plants, crocheting, reading, and going on walks with friends.
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