I was born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia. My cultural heritage is from San Basilio de Palenque. The first free African settlement in the Americas, and declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005. In our community, we speak the Afro-Hispanic creole, Palenquero. A Spanish-based creole with some lexical items from the Kikongo language of Congo and Angola. As someone who speaks and is part of the community, I knew I wanted to direct my research in the study of this unique creole language. Among the things I do, I investigate morphological aspects of the Palenquero language. In addition to this, I study the second/ heritage language acquisition of this creole, with particular emphasis on educational strategies for teaching this language.
San Basilio de Palenque
'Tiela mi, tiela suto'
My research interests
Pidgins and Creole Languages, Language Variation and Change, Sociolinguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Instruction.
My biggest satisfaction is to do research in my community and to study our language.