Working with archival materials in quiet reading rooms for many hours during my spring residency at the UMN Libraries' Archives & Special Collections was a contemplative, productive, at times intense, surprising, and overall gratifying experience. I conducted research primarily in two collections: the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) and the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine. My research objectives broadly included the Guatemalan Civil War, migration and trauma, historical conceptions of 'The Tropics,' mosquito-borne illnesses, indigenous treatments, and the confluence of race and disease.