Latina/ o and Central American literatures in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on U.S. Latina/o and Central American literary and cultural production. Her book Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Literatures and Cultures (University of Texas Press, 2009) examines narrative geographies of economic, symbolic, and human excess in Central American isthmian and diasporic texts.