The Spanish Empire (and its poetry) forged transatlantic metaphoric and allusive structures that endure in both Latin American poetry, exposing economic and labor hierarchies that outlived formal empire.

Language and Labor is an digital translation archive founded in March, 2025 with a focused mission: to reveal the embedded labor and economic systems created by the Spanish Empire that persist in Spanish-language poetry by expanding accessibility of Spanish poetry to non-Spanish speakers.

By translating these poems, I hope to make the connections between the Spanish Empire’s economic residue and Spanish-language poetry more accessible. Many of the poems in this archive are first-time translations. There is so much we can learn from these poems. Allowing more people to read them by exposing them to a new group of readers, English-speakers, creates a more accessible and comprehensive archive of Latin American history.

Though this archive originated as a personal translation project, it has grown far past that. I expanded it to include contributors and guest translations, further spreading the accessibility of Spanish poetry and its themes.

Thank you so much for checking out our site!