Evan Fernández is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of California, Berkeley. He works on modern Latin American history, with particular focus on Chile and Peru. Tentatively titled, "Chile’s ‘Key to the Orient’: Commerce, Labor, and Latin America in the Pacific World, 1897-1943", Evan's dissertation explores the Chilean sodium nitrate fertilizer (salitre) industry and the sale of nitrates to Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The dissertation focuses on the stories of the diplomats, businessmen, and laborers involved in this industry in both states as a case study for writing the history of Latin America as part of the Pacific World. Evan also work on US-Latin American relations in the twentieth century