Amanda graduated with an M.A. in Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Illinois in 2014. Her research interests are centered around 18th-20th Century Luso-Hispanic Immigration, the Luso-Hispanic Atlantic, travel writing, transnationalism, affect, citizenship, and belonging. Some of Amanda’s academic awards include Spanish and Portuguese Department Small Research Fellowship, Summer 2017. My dissertation project aims to understand the notions of citizenship and belonging that emerge during Portuguese migration to Brazil from 1830-1914. With a steady influx of Portuguese migrants to Brazilian shores, their social and legal status became a recurring focus of diplomatic correspondence and newspaper articles. I argue that these documents show how Portuguese diplomats and other migrants articulated new ways of thinking about the relationship and ties between former colonies and colonial powers and emphasize the complicated nature of being “in-between” states. The focus of my project is two-fold as I ask both how Portuguese migrants negotiated citizenship and belonging, and how Brazilians perceived of Portuguese migrants’ attempts to belong. The following questions guide my research: To what extent did migrants’ status of being emotionally “in between” their places of origin and settlement hinder their attempts to belong?  How did migrant communities and intellectuals help reconstruct transatlantic bonds between the ex-colony and ex-empire as a new way to express their emotional ties to their homeland?