Annie Robinson on How the Environment is Portrayed in Native U.S. Southwestern and Southern Mexican Literature
In winter of 2025, Annie Robinson travelled to Mexico to better understand literary culture for Indigenous authors as part of her research for her dissertation, which analyzes environmental themes portrayed by Native authors in the US Southwest and southern Mexico.
This trip allowed her to connect with writers, translators, and publishers, while also acquiring primary texts typically unavailable within the United States. She spent the first half of her trip in Oaxaca where she attended workshops on 1) creative writing for Indigenous authors and 2) translating Mexico’s original languages into Spanish and English.
In the photo above, Robinson is pictured with Zapotec author, Pergentino José Ruíz, along with Spanish-English translator, Wendy Call, after attending a poetry recital of texts written in original languages. Ruíz’s texts, in addition to Call's translations, comprise part of Robinson's corpus in her dissertation.
Robinson then spent the second half of her trip in Guadalajara at the International Book Fair, the largest literary event in the Spanish language. There, she acquired texts for her dissertation while attending talks by authors who write in original languages. This trip provided her with invaluable insights into writing, translating, and publishing in original languages of Mexico, allowing her to better understand connections between linguistic and biodiversity. She is applying the knowledge gained from her trip to her dissertation proposal, which she will defend later this year.