Elspeth is a senior Spanish major at UC Merced. Faculty who have taught her have recognized in her the talent and sophistication of a more mature scholar, and comment on the brilliance and subtlety of her writing. In one particularly memorable essay, Elspeth argues that evidence of coloniality can be traced in the behavioral patterns of the leading characters in Sol Ceh Moo’s novel Sujuy k’iin/Día sin mancha (2011; A day without stains). Elsewhere in her analysis, she noted how the coloniality of gender oppressed Maya women, and highlighted the racialized division of labor depicted in the text. She concluded that Maya spirituality, though it has evolved and adapted to colonialized belated modernity, survived the trauma of the Spanish invasion and is still embedded in the values configuring modern Maya life.
