Last fall, Tulane University and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans hosted the traveling exhibition, the Guantánamo Public Memory Project. This exhibition, which featured panels created by students at universities across the United States, asked viewers to engage with the long history of the U.S. naval base in Cuba, from its founding immediately…

When the teacher asked who had heard of Trujillo, half of the students raised their hands. “When you think of the violence that Haitians refugees fled in the ’90s,” she said, “think of Trujillo.” The students nodded knowingly. In the months leading up to the exhibit opening, we — the student organizers of the Guantánamo…