Angelli Garibaldi-Arias '26: Reading Migration Through Literature

Angelli Garibaldi-Arias is a first-generation student born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Denver, Colorado. She is double majoring in English and Romance Studies with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Her research focuses on medieval and early modern literature — particularly Dante’s Divine Comedy and Cervantes’ Don Quixote — exploring questions of ethics, migration, empire and human value. Through literary and philosophical analysis alongside interviews with immigrants, her honors thesis, “Global Inequalities: Migration, Ethics and Fiction” examines how literature can illuminate contemporary experiences of displacement and survival. 

Garibaldi-Arias is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and founder and president of The English Table, a student organization that supports multilingual and international students. She also serves as vice president, marketing lead and choreographer for Synergy Dance Company and volunteers as a catechist at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, leading high school faith groups in Spanish, Spanglish and English. Her work has been recognized with the Paol Keineg Prize for an honors thesis written in a language other than English and presentations at Mellon Mays conferences and the Triangle Undergraduate Literary Conference. After graduation, Garibaldi-Arias hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Romance Studies and continue researching the intersections of literature, philosophy and migration. 

With commencement on the horizon, Garibaldi-Arias reflects on her time at Duke, the experiences that shaped her and what she hopes to carry forward after graduation. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Is there a moment, experience, class, or person at Duke that changed you? 

A class that profoundly changed me was Don Quixote in the Real World, taught by Dr. Elvira Vilches, who has also been an important mentor throughout my academic journey. The course allowed me to connect personally with the characters and their journeys in ways I had not experienced before. Reading “Don Quixote” gave me a sense of hope and deepened my understanding of human responsibility toward one another. 

It also marked the beginning of my research path. With Dr. Vilches’ mentorship, I became more committed to centering migrant voices and lived experiences rather than allowing them to be judged or dismissed. The course pushed me to think critically about how human rights are often tied to citizenship and how literature can help us question and reimagine that reality. That experience shaped both my academic work and my personal commitments. 

What advice or message would you give to your first-year self — or to an incoming first-year at Duke? 

Don’t lose hope and don’t be afraid of the unknown. Take more humanities courses and learn a new language. Even when things feel uncertain, trust that everything will work out. 

As you prepare to graduate, what are you most grateful for from your time at Duke? 

I am most grateful for the people I met at Duke: the professors who challenged and guided me and the authors whose work shaped my thinking. I am especially grateful to Bruce and Martha Karsh and the KIPP Colorado Puentes Scholarship, which made my education possible. 

Duke taught me resilience, perseverance and the importance of not giving up. I found more than a community here, I found a family. Looking ahead, I hope to pursue a Ph.D. in Romance Studies and eventually become a professor, continuing to teach literature while creating space for stories and voices that are too often overlooked.