Index number: AMR 25/005/2010, 35 p., In Cuba the state has a virtual monopoly of press and broadcast media and tight restrictions apply to the internet. Anyone who expresses views critical of the government runs the risk of harassment, arbitrary detention, and criminal prosecution. With dozens of prisoners of conscience continuing to serve long prison sentences in Cuba for exercising freedom of expression, Amnesty International calls on the authorities to stop the harassment and intimidation of dissidents, release prisoners of conscience, amend repressive legislation, and enable greater exchange of information through the internet and other media. Tables.
Beszterczey,Dora (Author), Fernandez,Damian J. (Author), and Gomez,Andy S. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
Aug 2010
Published:
Washington, DC: Latin America Initiative at Brookings
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
5 p., Last year, President Obama delivered the first step in his promise to reach out to the Cuban people and support their desire for freedom and self-determination. Premised on the belief that Cuban Americans are the best ambassadors for freedom in Cuba, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans; however, if US policy is to be truly forward looking it must further expand its focus from the Castro government to the well-being of the Cuban people. Tables.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
204 p., International adoptions are both high-profile and controversial, with the celebrity adoptions and critically acclaimed movies such as Casa de los babys of recent years increasing media coverage and influencing public opinion. Neither celebrating nor condemning cross-cultural adoption, the author considers the political symbolism of children in an examination of adoption and migration controversies in North America, Cuba, and Guatemala. The book tells the interrelated stories of Cuban children caught in Operation Peter Pan, adopted Black and Native American children who became icons in the Sixties, and Guatemalan children whose 'disappearance' today in transnational adoption networks echoes their fate during the country's brutal civil war. Drawing from extensive research as well as from her critical observations as an adoptive parent, the author aims to move adoption debates beyond the current dichotomy of 'imperialist kidnap' versus 'humanitarian rescue.'.
200 p., For Cuba's supporters, health is the most commonly cited evidence of the socialist system's success. Even critics often concede that this is the country's saving grace. Cuba's health statistics are indeed extraordinary. This small island outperforms virtually all of its neighboring countries and all countries of the same level of economic development. Some of its health statistics rival wealthy industrialized countries. Moreover, these health outcomes have resulted against all odds. This study of the Cuban health system finds that the country possesses an unusually high level of popular participation and cooperation in the implementation of health policy. This has been achieved with the help of a longstanding government that prioritizes public health, and has enough political influence to compel the rest of the community to do the same. On the other hand, popular participation in decision-making regarding health policy is minimal, which contrasts with the image of popular participation often promoted. Political elites design and impose health policy, allowing little room for other health sector groups to meaningfully contribute to or protest official decisions. This is a problem because aspects of health care that are important to those who use the system or work within it can be neglected if they do not fit within official priorities. The country's preventive arrangements, its collective prioritization of key health areas, the improvements in public access to health services through the expansion of health facilities and the provision of free universal care are among the accomplishments that set it apart. The sustainability and progress of these achievements, however, must involve open recognition and public discussion of weaker aspects of the health system.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
320 p., While most writing on Cuba seeks to analyse the island's socialist experiment from the perspective of either its internal dynamics or international relations, this book attempts to understand the revolutionary process as part of a counter-current against neoliberal globalisation. Now that neoliberalism is in crisis, Cuba's promotion of socialist values is finding a renewed relevance.
38 p., Analyzes total factor productivity growth in agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1961 and 2007. The results show that among developing regions, Latin America and the Caribbean shows the highest agricultural productivity growth. The highest growth within the region has occurred in the last two decades, especially due to improvements in efficiency and the introduction of new technologies. Within the region, land-abundant countries consistently outperform land-constrained countries.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
230 p., For almost five decades, the United States has maintained a comprehensive economic embargo on Cuba. U.S.-based travel to the island is severely restricted, and most financial and commercial transactions with Cuba are illegal for U.S. citizens. In the 1990s the United States tightened the embargo further, seeking to promote change in Cuba by depriving the Castro government of hard currency revenues. And yet the stalemate remains. This book argues that the embargo has not been particularly effective in achieving its primary goal. The United States has not only been unable to stifle the flow of foreign investment into Cuba but has actually contributed to the recovery of the Cuban economy, particularly from the deep recession it entered following the demise of the Soviet Union.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
178 p., By acknowledging that competing national identities, perceptions, and ideas play a major role in foreign policies, Perceptions of Cuba makes a significant contribution to our understanding of international relations. Contents: The exceptionalist and the Cuban other -- The independent international citizen and the other Cuba -- Exploring Cuba policy in tandem.
Allende,Isabel (Author) and Peden,Margaret Sayers (Translator)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
New York: Harper
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
457 p, The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
187 p., Looks primarily at Negrismo and Negritude, two literary movements that appeared in the Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean as well as in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. It draws on speeches and manifestos, and use cultural studies to contextualize ideas.
Klein,Herbert S. (Author) and Luna,Francisco Vidal (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
New York: Cambridge University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
364 p., Although Brazilians have incorporated many of the North American debates about slavery, they have also developed a new set of questions about slave holding: the nature of marriage, family, religion, and culture among the slaves and free colored; the process of manumission; and the rise of the free colored class during slavery. It is the aim of this book to introduce the reader to this latest research, both to elucidate the Brazilian experience and to provide a basis for comparisons with all other American slave systems.
México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe : Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos : Institut de recherche pour le développement
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Foote,Nicola (Author) and Horst,René Harder (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Gainesville: University Press of Florida
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
350 p, Introduction: Decentering war : military struggle, nationalism, and Black and indigenous populations in Latin America, 1850-1950 / Nicola Foote and René D. Harder Horst -- pt. 1. Soldiering and citizenship. Subaltern strategies of citizenship and soldiering in Colombia's civil wars : Afro- and indigenous Colombians' experiences in the Cauca, 1851-1877 / James E. Sanders -- Soldiers and statesmen : race, liberalism, and the paradoxes of Afro-Nicaraguan military service, 1844-1863 / Justin Wolfe -- Afro-Cubans in Cuba's War for Independence, 1895-1898 / Aline Helg -- Monteneros and macheteros : Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous experiences of military struggle in liberal Ecuador, 1895-1930 / Nicola Foote -- Race and ethnicity in the Guatemalan army, 1914 / Richard N. Adams -- Mayan soldier-citizens : ethnic pride in the Guatemalan military, 1925-1945 / David Carey, Jr. -- pt. 2. War and the racing of national boundaries and imaginaries. Indigenous peoples of Brazil and the War of the Triple Alliance, 1864-1870 / Maria de Fátima Costa -- Illustrating race and nation in the Paraguayan War era : exploring the decline of the Tupi Guarani warrior as the embodiment of Brazil / Peter M. Beattie -- The conquest of the desert and the free indigenous communities of the Argentine plains / Carlos Martínez Sarasola -- "The slayer of Victorio bears his honors quietly" : Tarahumaras and the Apache wars in nineteenth-century Mexico / Julia O'Hara -- Embattled identities in postcolonial Chile : race, region, and nation during the War of the Pacific, 1879-1884 / Joanna Crow -- Racial conflict and identity crisis in wartime Peru : revisiting the Cañete Massacre of 1881 / Vincent C. Peloso -- Crossfire, cactus, and racial constructions : the Chaco War and indigenous people in Paraguay / René D. Harder Horst.; Time: 1800 - 1999
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
361 p., Told through profiles of the men who have made it a reality, this is the complex story of the triumphs achieved by-and challenges faced by-Latinos who have risen to the heights of Major League Baseball.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
304 p., Exploration of literary and cultural exchanges between the United States and the Caribbean during the roughly eighty-year period of their greatest interaction, from the close of the Spanish-American War to the Cuban Revolution. The interconnected histories of colonization, migration, slavery, and political struggle thrust writers from both regions into a vibrant literary conversation across national borders.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
772 p., George Gershwin introduced Afro Cuban Music in America in 1926. Xavier Cugat during the 1930's introduced The Rumba dance. Three great innovations based on Cuban music hit the USA after World War II: the first was Cubop, the latest Latin jazz fusion. The rumbustious conguero Chano Pozo was also important, for he introduced jazz musicians to basic Cuban rhythms. Cuban jazz has continued to be a significant influence. The mambo first entered the United States around 1950, though ideas had been developing in Cuba and Mexico City for some time.
London; New York; New York: Pluto Press; Distributed by Palgrave Macmillan
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
215 p, The meaning of 'race' and 'ethnicity' -- Blacks and indigenous people in Latin America -- Early approaches to blacks and indigenous people, 1920s to 1960s -- Inequality and situational identity : the 1970s -- Blacks and indigenous people in the postmodern and postcolonial nation -- and beyond -- Black and indigenous social movements -- Studying race and ethnicity in a postcolonial and reflexive world.; "For over ten years, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America has been an essential text for students studying the region. This second edition adds new material and brings the analysis up to date. Race and ethnic identities are increasingly salient in Latin America. Peter Wade examines changing perspectives on Black and Indian populations in the region, tracing similarities and differences in the way these peoples have been seen by academics and national elites. Race and ethnicity as analytical concepts are re-examined in order to assess their usefulness. This book should be the first port of call for anthropologists and sociologists studying identity in Latin America." --Publisher's website.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi Jackson, MS, United States
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
The Brazilian berimbau, a musical bow, is most commonly associated with the energetic martial art/dance/game of capoeira. But the instrument has played a prominent role in several genres of Brazilian music from the 1950s to the present, including bossa nova, samba-reggae, música popular brasileira (MPB), electronic dance music, Brazilian art music, and more. Berimbau music spans oral and recorded historical traditions, connects Latin America to Africa, juxtaposes the sacred and profane, and unites nationally constructed notions of Brazilian identity across seemingly impenetrable barriers. The berimbau is discussed beyond the context of capoeira, exploring the bow's emergence as a national symbol. It engages and analyzes intersections of musical traditions in the Black Atlantic, North American popular music, and the rise of global jazz.