African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
247 p., Describes how black Cubans experience racism on two levels. Cuban racism might result in less access for black Cubans to their group's resources, including protection within Cuban enclaves from society-wide discrimination. In society at large, black Cubans are below white Cubans on every socioeconomic indicator. Rejected by their white co-ethnics, black Cubans are welcomed by other groups of African descent. Many hold similar political views as African Americans. Identifying with African Americans neither negatively affects social mobility nor leads to a rejection of mainstream values and norms.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
311 p., Focuses on conflict and convergence among African Americans, Cuban exiles, and Afro-Cubans in the United States. Argues that the racializing discourses found in the Miami Times, which painted Cuban immigrants as an economic threat, and discourses in the Herald, which affirmed the presumed inferiority of blackness and superiority of whiteness, reproduce the centrality of ideologies of exclusivity and white supremacy in the construction of the U.S. nation.
The news media showed pictures of the immediate family and family friends. What I found amazing is that it appears that only light-skinned Cubans are trying to escape from their homeland. I saw the Cuban basketball team in the late Olympics. I have also seen pictures of Cubans in a television special one by Harry Belafonte. What I saw were dark-skinned Cubans having the time of their lives. It made me wonder, in light of what I have been told by African people living in Florida, that the light-skinned Cubans are more racist that some southerners. What is really going on in Cuba, and what is this Elian Gonzales issue about? The more I got into thinking this way, the more questions were raised. Why are most of the people trying to escape from Cuba light-skinned? Why are the majority of the athletics in the Olympics dark-skinned? The women's basketball team and the volleyballs teams were the bomb. They were some big, pretty sisters. I also thought of the Haitians. Why are Haitians sent back to Haiti and Cubans allowed to stay in America? They are both supposedly oppressed people. The Haitians are dark and the Cubans, who are trying to escape, light. Is there something more than meets the eye?
Argues that the bedrock of U.S. policy is an ideology of benevolent domination. Created at the time of the Spanish-American War, President Theodore Roosevelt captured this ideology perfectly in 1907 when he explained, "I am seeking the very minimum of interference necessary to make them good," and it is seen today in the 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. Adapted from the source document.
Cubans are wildly optimistic about the transformations that will occur once the United States lifts its long-standing embargo on Cuba. Overlooked in these discussions, however, is how Cuba's health-care industry may be harmed by any serious easing of trade and travel restrictions between the two countries.
Lopez-Levy,Arturo (Author) and Lopez,Lilla R. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Washington, DC: New American Foundation
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
19 p., Explores the historic reform process currently underway in Cuba. It looks first at the political context in which the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress took place, including the Cuban government's decision to release a significant number of political prisoners as part of a new dialogue with the Cuban Catholic Church. It then analyzes Cuba's nascent processes of economic reform and political liberalization. To conclude, it discusses the challenges and opportunities these processes pose for U.S policy toward Cuba.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, have been taking it on the chin in some quarters for a fact-finding trip to Havana, Cuba, to meet with that nation's president. Since the Kennedy administration in the 1960s in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tiny island 90 miles off the coast of the U.S. has been embargoed and isolated.
53 p., Since 1996, Congress has appropriated 205 million dollars to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of State (State) to support democracy assistance for Cuba. Because of Cuban government restrictions, conditions in Cuba pose security risks to the implementing partners -- primarily nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) -- and subpartners that provide US assistance. GAO (1) identified current assistance, implementing partners, subpartners, and beneficiaries; (2) reviewed USAID's and State's efforts to implement the program in accordance with US laws and regulations and to address program risks; and (3) examined USAID's and State's monitoring of the use of program funds. Tables, Figures, Appendixes.
5 p., During most of the last half century, discussions aimed at normalizing relations with Cuba have been rare and mainly unproductive. Due to Obama's optimism for political change toward Cuba during his presidential campaign, there was considerable hope that policy would be altered in a more constructive direction, but after a year, it is argued that "change" in Latin America policy has been more in reverse than in fast-forward. Tables.
