This summer I worked with Professor Hite on a book she is in the process of writing, titled, at the moment, Encountering Texas: White Supremacy and Remembrance in the Lone Star State.

It was an absolutely amazing experience to work with Professor Hite over the summer! Her book focuses on Texan ideas of relational encounters, violent white supremacy, frontier masculinity, trans-racial solidarity, collective political memory, and individual and communal identity, among a plethora of other supporting facets and perspectives.

It was so unique to read books diving into the ontology of seemingly innocuous social identifiers, like the collection of essays, On Whiteness: The Racial Imaginary Institute, in tandem with books like Seeds of Empire, by Andrew Torget, which uncovered Texas memories which implicate and imagine these social identifiers as large players in the formation of the State’s history.

It was a very special experience to grapple with these ideas, ever present in the current political landscape, with Professor Hite, and see how her book has shifted, and will continue to shift bit by bit, with every new article and book she reads. It was empowering and unique to be treated as an equal, in many ways, by Professor Hite as we discussed readings and bounced ideas off of one other. To rant for multiple minutes, spewing all my thoughts about a reading and more at Professor Hite as soon as we sat down to meet, and to watch her sit silently and carefully chew on and consider every word I said, was a very powerful experience. It is easy in a classroom of brilliant peers to shrink into one’s own thoughts, and going into my final year at Vassar, I will be ever grateful to have had this chance to re-orient myself in relation to what, and how, I learn.