Thanks! Yes, my background is in Africana studies. I got research funding as an undergrad to do fieldwork in Kampala, Uganda for a year and document the daily lives of sexual and gender minorities. I wrote/am writing my thesis on that (as I'm currently a graduating 4th year). I'm proposing to build on that research in my PhD work.
As for Berkeley, it was an email directly from a specific faculty member I identified to work with in my app.
What about you? What are your research interests?