Meet Sam Del Toro

Meet Sam Del Toro

SamDelToro-PresbyterianCollege

Meet Sam Del Toro, a senior history major with a minor in Latin American studies. When she isn’t in the classroom, Del Toro plays for the volleyball team, works as a resident assistant and with the sports information office, and serves on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. Ironically, Sam’s research topic arose as she was conducting research for her senior capstone. “As I was doing research for my capstone, I struggled to find background information on the drug trade in Latin America, especially information from a historical perspective. This made me decide that I wanted to dig deeper and historicize how the drug trade came to be,” she said.

Combining her passion for history and Latin American studies, Sam focused her research upon how the social and cultural construction of narcotics as commodities have shaped the drug war in Latin American as well as the Latin American countries that the drug trade has consumed. Del Toro hopes to turn her Summer Fellows project into an honors project this upcoming year. “Not many historians have been willing to touch the subject of the drug trade, so by researching this summer, I am hoping to be able to publish an article that will spark an interest for the historical community,” she said.

When she graduates, Del Toro hopes to enter into the Drug Enforcement Administration, and she believes that her research will help her to that end. “The drug trade directly influences individuals around the world, especially in the United States,” she said. “These Latin American countries are facing a massive criminal insurgency due to the drug war, and in order to find a solution, we must first be able to understand how drugs were produced and their origins.”

Be a researcher. Be a Blue Hose.

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