M Y R O O T S are among the Portuguese of California and Hawai`i. I received a B.A. in Anthropology and U.S. Government from the University of Virginia and pursued a Ph.D in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University. My awards, scholarships, and fellowships are from the Luso-American Development Foundation, National Library of Lisbon, Orient Foundation, and the Camões Institute. I was a 2017 Luso-American Fellowship Finalist for the Disquiet Writing Program in Lisbon. The Cultural Institute of Macau and the University of Macau published my academic papers, and my ethnographic work was adapted to one act of the banned play Macau 1, 2, 3. More recently, my writing and translations may be found in Prairie Schooner, The Brasilia Review, and Yellow Chair Review, and the anthology: Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada.
Representative works are below.
B O O K R E V I E W S
“Capturing a City: Abstraction and the Desire to Catalogue Macau”
In: Macau Pages, 1998. A Book review of Um Olhar Sobre Macau and Macaenses em Lisboa: Memórias do Oriente; touching on the institutionalization of politically “safe” memory prior to Macau’s handover to the People’s Republic of China.
C O N F E R E N C E P R E S E N T A T I O N S
“Neither Meat nor Fish: Three Macanese Women in the Transition”
In: Macau and Its Neighbors Toward the 21st century: Proceedings of the International Symposium Organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Macau, 2-3 June 1997, 1997. Discussion of what means to be a Portuguese creole in Macau on the eve of Macau’s handover from Portuguese colonial rule to control by the People’s Republic of China.
T R A N S L A T I O N S
“Poems of Camilo Pessanha tr. by Ian Watts”
From: The Brasilia Review. English translations of two of Camilo Pessanha’s poems: “Soneto de Gelo” and “Foi um dia de inuteis agonias”. “Sonnet of Ice” was re-published by Prairie Schooner in “Poetry News in Review” (September 7, 2018).
C R E A T I V E W R I T I N G
Fiction: praça do comércio
In: Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada: An Anthology, 2015. A Luso-American’s experience in Lisbon.
Poem: “Micuçú’s Journal”
From: Macau Pages, January 1998. Poetic response to Elizabeth Bishop’s ballad, “The Burglar of Babylon.”
Fiction: “sagres”
From Yellow Chair Review SUPERHEROES Special Issue – 2015. A young Luso-Hawaiian visits the Portuguese Navy’s training barque Sagres while she is moored at Aloha Tower, Honolulu.
Fiction: “Cinema King“
From The Brasilia Review ISSUE 9 – November 2014. A sketch about falling for someone.
Poem: “gossip”
From Inkstone Literary Magazine – Spring 1996.
P A P E R S
Naval Reserve Insignia”
In: Kings Pointer, Spring 2017. pp. 12-18. A discussion of the history of the U.S. Naval Reserve Insignia (USNR/MMC badge) wear at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy by members of the USMMA Cadet Corps.
“Identidades miscigenadas, estatutosbiculturais: duas órfãs chinesascriadaspelas irmãs canossianas em Macau”
In Review of Culture (Macau), ser.2, no.31, April to June 1997 (Portuguese version). trans. Bi-racial identity, bi-racial status: Two Chinese orphans raised by the Canossian sisters in Macao Review of Culture (Macau), ser.2, no.31, April to June 1997 (English version).