Phoebe Shea Pérez is a rising Sophomore at Wellesley. She’s native to Santa María Tzejá, Guatemala, but more recently has been living in Apopka, Florida. Being Maya K’iche’ on her mother’s side, she is particularly invested in researching and highlighting indigenous perspectives and experiences across fields and disciplines. She loves learning and unlearning history, challenging the frameworks she employs for making sense of the world around her, and rendering the learning process simultaneously communal and intimately personal. When she’s at Wellesley, she loves taking ~dramatic~ walks around Lake Waban, volunteering at the Natick Community Organic Farm, and spending way too much time at her professors’ office hours. In general, she enjoys writing poetry, studying K’iche’, and learning to cook iconic Guatemalan dishes.

After moving to Wellesley in September, and unexpectedly developing a close relationship with the natural composition and the selective historical aliveness of the Campus, Phoebe developed a fascination for questions regarding place, identity, and the histories we choose to guard in our collective memory. This summer, she looks forward to deepening her understanding of, and relationship with, the plants, animals, and living beings that have been members of her community in Apopka for far longer than she has, and to learn more about the black and indigenous histories of Central Florida.