good tree, little spider
Mercedes Annaís Estévez Cruz (they/she) is a Dominican multimedia storyteller, oral historian, land defender, and spiritual practitioner of mixed Afroindigenous and Sephardic Jewish descent. Born in New York City and raised between Washington Heights and the Dominican Republic, they returned to the island in 2012, where they have been learning from the land and their Elders ever since.
Their work—across fiction, nonfiction, and community organizing—centers Afro-Indigenous rebellion and resilience from the island of Ayiti (Dominican Republic & Haiti). They explore how past, present, and future coexist, and how place, story, and cultural practice become sites of collective memory. Through oral history, land-based practice, and archival research, they uplift histories often erased by migration, colonial violence, and displacement.
They have been published in The Paris Review, Fodor’s Travel Guide, and Remezcla, among other outlets. In 2024, they received the Folger Shakespeare Library’s first long-term artistic fellowship.
In their spiritual practice, they walk with the Vulture, Hummingbird, and Hurricane.