ReMembering Cuba

ReMembering Cuba PDF Author: Andrea O’Reilly Herrera
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292731479
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
One hundred testimonies on the Cuban diaspora are gathered together from narratives, interviews, creative writing, letters, journal entries, photographs, and paintings to capture the strong emotions surrounding this ongoing ordeal. Simultaneous.

ReMembering Cuba

ReMembering Cuba PDF Author: Andrea O’Reilly Herrera
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292731479
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
One hundred testimonies on the Cuban diaspora are gathered together from narratives, interviews, creative writing, letters, journal entries, photographs, and paintings to capture the strong emotions surrounding this ongoing ordeal. Simultaneous.

Cuba

Cuba PDF Author: Andrea O'Reilly Herrera
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079147965X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
In Cuba, internationally renowned artists, philosophers, and writers reflect on the idea of a nation displaced. Featuring contributions from Isabel Alvarez Borland, Antonio Benítez-Rojo, María Cristina García, William Navarrete, Eliana Rivero, Rafael Rojas, and Carlos Victoria, as well as many others, Cuba is a rich collection of essays, testimonials, and interviews that reveal the complex, often antagonistic cultural and political debates coexisting within the Cuban exile population. As a multivoiced text, Cuba formulates a deeper understanding of diasporic identity, and broadens the discussion of the manner in which Cuban cultural identity and nationhood have been constructed, negotiated, and transformed by physical and cultural displacement.

Cuban Memory Wars

Cuban Memory Wars PDF Author: Michael J. Bustamante
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469662043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
For many Cubans, Fidel Castro's Revolution represented deliverance from a legacy of inequality and national disappointment. For others—especially those exiled in the United States—Cuba's turn to socialism made the prerevolutionary period look like paradise lost. Michael J. Bustamante unsettles this familiar schism by excavating Cubans' contested memories of the Revolution's roots and results over its first twenty years. Cubans' battles over the past, he argues, not only defied simple political divisions; they also helped shape the course of Cuban history itself. As the Revolution unfolded, the struggle over historical memory was triangulated among revolutionary leaders in Havana, expatriate organizations in Miami, and average Cuban citizens. All Cubans leveraged the past in individual ways, but personal memories also collided with the Cuban state's efforts to institutionalize a singular version of the Revolution's story. Drawing on troves of archival materials, including visual media, Bustamante tracks the process of what he calls retrospective politics across the Florida Straits. In doing so, he drives Cuban history beyond the polarized vision seemingly set in stone today and raises the prospect of a more inclusive national narrative.

Ninety Miles and a Lifetime Away

Ninety Miles and a Lifetime Away PDF Author: David Powell
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 168340341X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Florida Historical Society Samuel Proctor Award Rare accounts of Cuban migration in the words of the exiles themselves Bringing together an unprecedented number of extensive personal stories, this book shares the triumphs and heartbreaking moments experienced by some of the first Cubans to come to the United States after Fidel Castro took power in 1959. Ninety Miles and a Lifetime Away is a moving look inside fifteen years of migration that changed the two countries and transformed the lives of the people who found themselves separated from their homeland. David Powell presents interviews with refugees who left Cuba between 1959 and the 1962 Missile Crisis, as well as those who embarked on the Freedom Flights of the late 1960s and early 1970s. During these years more than 600,000 Cubans migrated to the US, some by way of other countries and many arriving in Miami with only a few clothes and pocket money. In their own words, exiles describe why they left the island, how they prepared for departure, what situations they faced when they arrived in the US, and how they integrated into American life. Offering historical background that illuminates this pivotal period in the context of the Cold War, Powell shows how the US government’s Cuban refugee assistance program had far-reaching effects on refugee policy, bilingual education, and child welfare programs. The testimonies in this book include new information about low-cost “Cuban Loans” that enabled young exiles to attend US colleges, preparing many to be builders and leaders in their adopted country today. A powerful portrayal of the initial effects of a revolution that began a new era in Cuba’s relationship with the world, this book preserves rare accounts of the motivations and struggles of early Cuban exiles in the words of the emigres themselves, adding gripping detail to the history of the modern Cuban diaspora. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Cuban-American Literature and Art

Cuban-American Literature and Art PDF Author: Isabel Alvarez Borland
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791493725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This groundbreaking collection offers an understanding of why Cuban-American literature and visual art have emerged in the United States and how they are so essentially linked to both Cuban and American cultures. The contributors explore crucial issues pertinent not only to Cuban-American cultural production but also to other immigrant groups—hybrid identities, biculturation, bilingualism, immigration, adaptation, and exile. The complex ways in which Cuban Americans have been able to keep a living memory of Cuba while developing and thriving in America are both intriguing and instructive. These essays, written from a variety of perspectives, range from useful overviews of fictional and visual works of art to close readings of individual texts.

Before Fidel

Before Fidel PDF Author: Francisco José Moreno
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Before Fidel Castro seized power, Cuba was an ebullient and chaotic society in a permanent state of turmoil, combining a raucous tropical nature with the evils of arbitrary and corrupt government. Yet this fascinating period in Cuban history has been largely forgotten or misrepresented, even though it set the stage for Castro's dramatic takeover in 1959. To reclaim the Cuba that he knew—and add color and detail to the historical record—distinguished political scientist Francisco José Moreno here offers his recollections of the Cuba in which he came of age personally and politically. Moreno takes us into the little-known world of privileged, upper-middle-class, white Cubans of the 1930s through the 1950s. His vivid depictions of life in the family and on the streets capture the distinctive rhythms of Cuban society and the dynamics between parents and children, men and women, and people of different races and classes. The heart of the book describes Moreno's political awakening, which culminated during his student years at the University of Havana. Moreno gives a detailed, insider's account of the anti-Batista movement, including the Ortodoxos and the Triple A. He recaptures the idealism and naiveté of the movement, as well as its ultimate ineffectiveness as it fell before the juggernaut of the Castro Revolution. His own disillusionment and wrenching decision to leave Cuba rather than accept a commission in Castro's army poignantly closes the book.

Cuba: Another Side of the Story

Cuba: Another Side of the Story PDF Author: Iris M. Diaz
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1450099912
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Cuba: Another Side of the Story is a memoir of how life changed for many children growing up in a country slowly dying under constant political conflict. The story is told in three parts: Part I “Before Castro,” Part II “Life under Castro,” Part III “Life in Exile.” This book creates a vivid sense of time and place through childhood memories of pre- and post-Castro Cuba, from 1945 to 1967. The forty two stories, told through the voice of a child, highlight moments of injustice in the eyes of a young girl who does not understand why the world around her is so strange. Her nanny, a poor black woman, shaped her soul and showed her the other side of the story, the story of the poor who are voiceless in a world where only those who can afford to pay for elite private schools can get ahead in life. This nanny becomes the spiritual guide who enables a very sensitive young child to navigate in a confusing world. Every one of the 42 stories focuses on a moment where the child relives memories of what she witnessed growing up. The first story is dedicated to Nana, the person whose memory guides her to write her life story. The title of the stories clearly describe how Nana influenced the author and helped her see the other side of the story. “El Barrio” describes a neighborhood where the rich, middle class and the poor lived in close proximity, a reflection of what Cuban society was in the 1950’s-“Everyone lived under the same sun, moon and stars but our worlds were very different.” The chapter about “Sunday Mass” describes the well-dressed parishioners who every Sunday walked through the park next to the Church and ignored the beggars who held their arms out, palms up, hoping to get a nickel or dime. “I don’t think the beggars got any of the money the priests collected every Sunday because they came back every Sunday. I never understood why God didn’t take care of everybody the same way.” Religious conflict plus the rich versus poor struggles are present throughout the book. Castro started his revolution claiming he wanted to help the poor. In the end, everyone, including the poor, were deceived by a charismatic man who understood what the poor wanted to hear, a promise of equality for all. His communist doctrine doomed the possibility of ever achieving equality for all. During Sunday Mass the priests would often remind poor parishioners how much God loved the needy by quoting verses like, “Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God,” or “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Religion and poverty seem to be two themes that prevail throughout this book, expressed clearly by the voice of the author who puts into words her thoughts by writing, “I never understood why God didn’t take care of everybody the same way.” The stories “The Day the Old Cuba Died“ and “The Bay of Pigs Invasion” describe the days leading to the failed attempt by Cuban exiles to get rid of the Castro regime. All hope and dreams died. The only dream left was to find a way to leave the island. The chapter “Adios Cuba” is a vivid memory of what it means to become a political exile. “Exile is more than a change of address, it is a spiritual displacement.” This book is not a research study about Cuban maids, family, religion or politics; it is a story about a young child and the life of her nanny and maids who allowed her to enter their world, a world that many don’t dare to acknowledge.

Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World

Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World PDF Author: Solimar Otero
Publisher: University Rochester Press
ISBN: 1580463266
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World explores how Yoruba and Afro-Cuban communities moved across the Atlantic between the Americas and Africa in successive waves in the nineteenth century. In Havana, Yoruba slaves from Lagos banded together to buy their freedom and sail home to Nigeria. Once in Lagos, this Cuban repatriate community became known as the Aguda. This community built their own neighborhood that celebrated their Afrolatino heritage. For these Yoruba and Afro-Cuban diasporic populations, nostalgic constructions of family and community play the role of narrating and locating a longed-for home. By providing a link between the workings of nostalgia and the construction of home, this volume re-theorizes cultural imaginaries as a source for diasporic community reinvention. Through ethnographic fieldwork and research in folkloristics, Otero reveals that the Aguda identify strongly with their Afro-Cuban roots in contemporary times. Their fluid identity moves from Yoruba to Cuban, and back again, in a manner that illustrates the truly cyclical nature of transnational Atlantic community affiliation. Solimar Otero is Associate Professor of English and a folklorist at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature and ethnography. Dr. Otero is the recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund grant (2013), a fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program (2009 to 2010), and a Fulbright award (2001).

Sexual Revolutions in Cuba

Sexual Revolutions in Cuba PDF Author: Carrie Hamilton
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807835196
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Chronicling the history of sexuality in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, this book frames the relationship between passion and politics in the revolution's wider history and argues that the Cuban revolutionary regime intervened in the sexual lives of Cubans in a variety of ways and transformed key areas of Cuban life, including the family, reproduction, sexual values, and sexual relationships. Drawing from a major oral history project--the “Memories of the Revolution” oral history project conducted by a team of British and Cuban researchers (Hamilton was one of the British researchers on the team) between 2003 and 2007--Hamilton explores the experiences and perceptions of sexuality among Cubans across generations and social groups. She contextualizes the oral histories within an array of archival and secondary sources, relating them to issues of race, class, and gender, as well as to social, economic, and political change. Organized thematically, the volume opens with a historical overview that points out that after 1959 revolutionary values continued to coexist with pre-revolutionary ideologies in a potent and often contradictory mix. Succeeding chapters examine discourse on love, romance, and passion on both personal and national levels; male and female homosexuality; sexual repression; and changing gender roles and service to the revolution. Hamilton explores conflicting notions of Cuba as a site of desire on the one hand, and as a place of intense sexual repression, especially with regard to homosexuality, on the other. She identifies many ways in which revolutionary policy affected sexual behavior, including changes to policy and laws, mass education programs, leaders' pronouncements on the relationship between good revolutionaries and private life, and the provision of incentives to encourage certain forms of sexual union and repressive measures to discourage and punish others. Hamilton argues that sexual politics were central to the construction of a new revolutionary society.

Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction

Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction PDF Author: Louisa Söllner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004366385
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction introduces the concept of photographic ekphrasis as a reading tool for Cuban-American autobiographies and novels and argues that a focus on photographs provides fresh insights into these texts.