Annie Gibson (agibson3@tulane.edu)
My interest in Latino immigration to New Orleans began in 2005 when I was a graduate student at Tulane University. When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, I found myself translating on job sites and in courtrooms for a large number of Brazilian workers who relocated to work in reconstruction. Those contacts would later become my informants for my first book, Post-Katrina Brazucas: Brazilians in New Orleans, published by the University of New Orleans Press in 2012. I am currently a Professor of Practice in the Latin American Studies Department at Tulane University where my areas of specialization include Cuban and Brazilian performance cultures and Brazilian immigration to the United States. I teach a diverse range of courses in Spanish and Portuguese language and literatures, Latin American migrant cultures and literatures, and performance cultures of Latin America. I also coordinate academic and international programming for Tulane’s Center for Global Studies in Cuba, Costa Rica, and Brazil and have worked as a country specialist in Cuba for National Geographic.