Back in April of 2018, I had a vision for Forgotten Lives of Latin America. I wanted to make a place where I could read, write, and share all that I had learned about Latin America, as a graduate student in Spanish Literature. I had written my dissertation on the Nahuas and how they preserved their culture after the Conquest, and I was anxious to share. I had received my Ph.D. in 2015, but like many academics towadays, I was languishing on the market. My wife suggested that I start a blog to give myself an outlet and build an audience. Now the time has come, not to stop, but to reorient this fascinating and inspiring project.

For nearly a year, Spring of 2018 to Spring of 2019, I worked on Forgotten Lives of Latin America as a brand. I had the website, a related MeetUp weekly in Claremont, California, and used the initiative to help find speaking engagements in Southern California. The results were very encouraging. Many of us have reasons to connect with Latin America, whether it is through relatives, travel, or just plain curiousity about one of the largest cultural regions on Earth and its importance in our history. As I said, this is not going away but mearly shifting to a new location.

I want to thank you deeply if you are taking the time to read this. Your presence and activity over these eight years have meant a lot to me.

The fascination with Latin America, particularly its Indigenous and Colonial past, continues fully alive. Now I would like to invite you to follow my wife Olivia and I on our Substack: https://substack.com/@viaheritagetravel

With time, our children have grown, and my wife has become ever more involved in this humble blogging project that eventually grew into small groups of people travelling to Mexico and Peru. As active Catholics, we have found a way to carry this work forward through blogging and pilgrimages to meaningful sites in Spain and Latin America. The project that we plan to persue as a married couple, as a family, is Via Heritage Travel, a travel company specializing in pilgrimages to Spain and Latin America.

If that interests you, I hope you will make the transition with us to Substack. If not, then again, I thank you for your participation in this small educational initiative and I wish you many years of inspiration and joy as we continue to learn and grow, each in our own way.

Sincerely,

P.S. The Forgotten Lives of Latin America YouTube channel will continue in operation. I continue to update it with new content periodically. Come and see we’re talking about: https://www.youtube.com/@ezekielstearforgottenlives8592