Discusses how ephemeral artifacts of daily material culture, such as marquillas -- the colorful lithographed papers that were used to wrap bundles of cigarettes during the second half of the nineteenth century in Cuba -- partook of the symbolization of emergent forms of racialized governability towards the end of slavery on the island.
A trade accord spearheaded by the NAACP worth $1.5 billion between the Cuban government and black farmers was heralded on Nov 17, 2002 by the Rev Al Sampson, who called the accord an "international window of opportunity" for African Americans. Sampson, who works with African American farmers, said this agreement gives black farmers an "international window" through Cuba into the Caribbean.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
284 p., Explores Cuba's hip hop movement as a window into the racial complexities of the island's ongoing transition from revolutionary socialism toward free-market capitalism. Centering on the music and lives of black-identified raperos (rappers), the author examines the ways these young artists craft notions of black Cuban identity and racial citizenship, along with calls for racial justice, at the fraught confluence of growing Afro-Cuban marginalization and long held perceptions of Cuba as a non-racial nation.
207 p., Explores the expression of Afro-Cuban identity and its illustration by Afro-Cuban writers and filmmakers within the context of the Cuban Revolution. It answers two questions. First, how does Afro-Cuban artistic expression of Afro-Cuban reality change from the 1970s to the 1990s? and second, how can we reread works from Afro-Cuban writers and filmmakers within the context of the Cuban Revolution in light of the ideological disconnects between Revolution, racial discourse, and artistic expression? To answer these questions the author looks to a diverse group of Afro-Cuban artists who produced groundbreaking works during the 1970s and 1990s. Beginning with Nancy Morejón as an example of a well-known literary figure in Afro-Cuban arts, the dissertation delves deeper into the evolution of Afro-Cuban aesthetics with the cinematic works of Nicolas Guillen Landrian in the 1960s, Sara Gómez and Sergio Giral in the 1970s and finally Gloria Rolando in the 1990s. These are all artists whose work has previously never been considered in concert, but together, their works engage in an interesting dialogue and provide a collective answer to the research questions on which this project is based.
The 28 year old [Bingham], who grew up in Alameda and attended Encinal High School, first became interested in speaking Spanish at the age of 10. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Spanish Language and Literature, a co-worker informed her about the Latin American Medical Program in Cuba after she found it advertised on the Internet. She applied and got accepted in 2001. Kenya realizes that a lot of young people from the Bay Area and elsewhere in the U.S. still are unaware of the free medical program in Cuba, which was originally offered to 500 students in the U.S.. Some 200 applied and almost 100 are still enrolled. Kenya would encourage young people of color to apply for this program. "This is not some get rich quick scheme to get a free education and go and make money as a doctor. I am doing this to go back and serve the community," she said.
Cuba's rulers, say activists, see the growing dark face of the opposition as "ingratitude" that requires harsher punishment. They point to the case of Black Communist leader Juan Carlos Robinson, sentenced in 2006 to 12 years in jail for "corruption," an offense for which former foreign minister, Roberto Robaina, who's white, was arrested in 2002 but placed under house arrest. [Orlando Zapata Tamayo]'s ordeal is being spun from the other side of the coin, too - the predominantly white and U.S.-based, right-wing anti-Castro opposition who clearly stand to score political points from the case of a Black martyr. Righteous declarations can be expected from organizations such as Democracy Movement, the Cuban American National Foundation, the Cuban Liberty Council and, especially, the Cuban Democratic Directorate. Many Cuban civil-rights activists accuse these groups of working to corral and control the new internal opposition forces on behalf of interests linked to Cuba's former Jim Crow oligarchy. That's why they see U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart's "indignation" over Zapata's death, as much as president Raul Castro's "regrets," as a double farce. A staunch supporter of the tiny; white elite of wealth that was overthrown in 1959, Diaz-Balart can cry crocodile tears, but during his time in Congress his right-wing, proembargo agenda has only hindered the ability of Black Cubans to improve their lot.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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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.
Ms. [Adona] is a photographer utilizing the visual medium to tell stories of cultures from around the world, with the hope of creating a better understanding of diverse people through the visual arts. Last summer Ms. Adona introduced "CUBA, Reflections of Life" during a speech at the United Nations in Geneve, Switzerland, where she spoke on the necessity utilizing a single, powerful image to tell the story of a nation.
282 p., Challenges how critical scholarship on race and racism in Latin America has traditionally understood racial subalterns in Cuba and Puerto Rico as people who are prevented from acting as black political subjects because of the hegemonic power of discourses of nationhood premised on ideas of mestizaje and racial fraternity. By providing an intellectual history of several important yet largely ignored Cuban and Puerto Rican activists intellectuals of color who lived and worked between the Caribbean and the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century, the author shows that instead of being tricked by creole elite national narratives, they attempted to redefine ideas of nationhood to challenge racism, colonialism, and imperialism at local, national, and transnational levels.
237 p., Free people of color held an ambiguous place in Caribbean slave societies. On the one hand they were nominally free, but the reality of their daily lives was often something less than free. This work examines how free people of color, or libres de color , in nineteenth-century Cuba attempted to carve out lives for themselves in the face of social, economic, and political constraints imposed on them by white Cubans and Spaniards living in the island. It focuses on how through different Afro-Cuban associations some libres de color used public music and dance performances to self-fashion identities on their own terms.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
202 p, "The Quest for the Cuban Christ, the most recent work of Miguel A. De La Torre, is an exceptionally concise exploration of the ways in which Cubans have both conceived and perceived religion in general and Jesus Christ in particular, over the last five centuries. Specifically, the author examines religion and spirituality from the point of view of both subaltern and dominant groups throughout the history of Cuba. The real focus, however, is on the role of faith in the formation of the identity of Cubans resident and in exile that have been historically subordinated to the interests of hegemonic powers like Spain, the United States, and successive Cuban (including revolutionary) governments." (Jason M. Yaremko, H-LatAm [October, 2003]))
Tanya Quintero, a light-skinned mulatta and prominent independent journalist in Havana, said she was not aware of racial discrimination until she had a daughter with darker skin the than she. Suddenly, some of her friends referred to her child with a Spanish phrase that literally translates as "sour or dark stomach" but figuratively is slang for "a child who comes out darker than her mother," she said. Lighter-skinned children later made fun of her daughter for being a "marron," brown. Also the millions of dollars in "remittances" that Cubans in the United States and elsewhere send their relatives back on the island very year reach few "black" Cubans because more than 90 percent of the exiles are "white." As a result, the long-standing economic gap between darker and lighter Cubans widens. I use quotation marks around "black" and "white" because the terms don't mean the same as they do in the United States, with our traditional "one-drop rule." Race in Cuba, as in the rest of Latin America, is somewhat fluid: You are pretty much what you say you are, even within the same family.
Reviews books on Latin American slavery. Includes Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru, by Peter Blanchard; Slave Women in Caribbean Society, ,1650-1838, by Barbara Bush; Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, edited by Barbara L. Solow.;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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505 p., During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, Fidel Castro, and his brother Raúl; from Argentina, Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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449 p, During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, Fidel Castro, and his brother Raúl; from Argentina, Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
After Soviet aid and trade ended Cuba was forced to reintegrate into the capitalist world economy. Needing hard currency, the government transformed the diaspora into a dollar attaining strategy, by facilitating and tacitly encouraging remittance-sending. Ordinary Cubans themselves wanted remittances to finance a lifestyle they could not otherwise afford. Despite their shared interest in remittances, the government increasingly appropriated remittances at recipients' expense.
"The election of President Barack Obama presents a great new opportunity to rethink U.S. foreign policy in many regions of the world," [Barbara Lee] said. "America's harsh approach toward our nearest Caribbean neighbor divides families, closes an important market to struggling U.S. farmers, harasses our allies and is based on antiquated Cold War era thinking." Thursday, Lee joined Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-MA), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and other members in calling for the lifting of the ban on travel to Cuba from the United States through the passage of H. R. 874, the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act. Lee has led other delegations to Cuba in previous years. She has long supported an end to the travel ban to Cuba and has introduced legislation that would remove travel restrictions for students traveling to Cuba.
211 p., Explores the similarities and differences which characterize the depiction of people of color in certain representative 19th century Cuban and Brazilian slavery novels as a function of the authorial approach of each territory's literary tradition toward the issues of slavery, racial prejudice, and people of color. The selected texts, derived from the peak periods in slavery literature of each territory, include Francisco , by Anselmo Snárez y Romero; Sab , by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda; Cecilia Valdés , by Cirilo Villaverde; A escrava Isaura , by Bernardo Guimarães; O mulato , by Aluísio Azevedo; and Bom-Crioulo , by Adolfo Caminha. While the present study explores the enslavement, abuse, and discrimination of people of color as a consequence of a deep-seated discourse of power, privilege and racial superiority, it focuses more extensively on the representation of people of color, particularly in their capacity to constructively appropriate the cultural values of the white dominant group and recognize their identity as ambiguous.
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.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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273 p., Explores the iconography of Cuban rumba--a unique AfroCuban dance and music complex that represents the foundation of contemporary Cuban popular culture--and argues that rumba constitutes an essential part of a greater African-based ontology. Rumba dance performance is conceptualized as knowledge embodied, an avatar of nonverbal cultural communication and consciousness, which plays a central role in the organization of daily life and formation of identity. This dissertation demonstrates that concrete continuities exist between the diaspora and mainland Africa through close scrutiny of rumba and parallel performance art traditions in north, west and central Africa. Also attempts to identify specific African-based stylistic conventions as exemplified by Sahara's Imazighen (also known as Berber) peoples, Mali's Mande (known as Gangá in Cuba) and related groups, and the Kongo civilization establishing that although ethno-cultural boundaries exist, they tend to be permeable.
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.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
298 p., Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton's examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
298 p., Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton's examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.
In this article, I analyse patterns of classifications and naming of African "nations" in colonial Cuba. Based on parish records, I suggest possible interpretations of African patterns of classification, identities and social arrangements during the formation of Cuban plantations over the course of the eighteenth century. I discuss some of the methodological implications that can be explored regarding marriages of enslaved people in Cuba based on ecclesiastical sources, chiefly in the case of Guanabacoa. I have furthered the social/demographic analysis of "nations" in Cuba, underscoring how Africans could have been the agents of networks and alliances through organizational strategies and the formation of identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR].
