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Copyright of Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas is the property of Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista CS is the property of Rafael Silva Vega and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos de Literatura is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies of the concept of identity have become of vital importance in the pluralistic societies of the 20th century. Spanish identity has been debated since the 17th century. But when Spain lost its last colonies, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Spanish East Indies, in 1898, the concept of Spanish identity became the main vehicle in the struggle for social and political power. In spite of their presence in the Iberian Penninsula since the 15th century, the identity of the Spanish gypsies did not receive sufficient attention in Spain until Francisco Franco's death in 1975. In my introductory paper I introduce the historical account of Gypsies' nomadic lifestyle and the evolution of flamenco dance, which is interwoven with both the Spanish Gypsy identity and the broader Spanish identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There being no work of literary history or criticism on this subject, this paper proposes to analyse the characteristic features of a corpus of writing by women dating from the end of the Twentieth century, to the end of giving a general picture of contemporary Cuban society, as expressed in the rhetorical discourse strategies of the Castro regime, in the female literature of the "periodo especial", during the nineties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the leftist Salvadoran revolutionary organisation FMLN and the Cuban regime throughout the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s. In light of interviews conducted by the author in 2007 and 2008 with some of the highest-ranking leaders of the FMLN, it re-evaluates existing primary and secondary sources on the topic. This study demonstrates that despite its autonomous roots, the FMLN's development, growth, and achievements throughout the Salvadoran civil war were indissolubly linked to its relationship with Cuba. By placing Cuba as a nodal point in the Salvadoran civil war, the idea of 'unilateralist' US hegemony in the region throughout the Cold War is brought into question, as is the notion that the Soviet Union fashioned Havana's foreign policy. Furthermore, this analytical paradigm begins to shed light on the importance of transnational historical analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the commercial relationship between Cuba and Mexico in the 1990s. Recent investment and trade are analyzed in the context of the diplomatic and commercial history which has developed between the two countries since the Cuban revolution. This study also considers factors that have led to a decrease of Mexican trade and investment in Cuba in the late 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Revista de Sociologia e Política is the property of Revista de Sociologia e Politica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the course of the twentieth century, the United States left an oversized imprint on the island of Cuba using the successful outcome of the Spanish American War to jump-start its imperial project, exert specific agendas and mandates on an otherwise sovereign nation, and make the island a testing ground for the further expansion of its empire. Yet, despite the sweep of Manifest Destiny and the heavy-handed nature of empire, local on-the-ground conditions in Cuba ensured that a tiny island, a mere 90 miles away from the mainland of America, was able to not only exercise its own autonomy but also a considerable degree of influence across an array of both small and large connections. Despite any inequities in the distribution of power, internal considerations of revolution, race and nationalism dictated the terms of Cuban history in this period and provided the rigid framework within which the United States was forced to operate. Consequently, to understand the causes and outcome of the American Empire it is necessary to place its narrative in a context that allows for a more nuanced dynamic among hegemon and subordinate. This approach calls for an examination of specific interactions occurring in distinct local conditions that maintained their own imperatives and prerogatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first third of the twentieth century, several women joined associations to promote legal reforms. Between 1917 and 1934, the Cuban Parliament passed laws regarding women’s legal status, therefore challenging the traditional relations between state, Church and family inherited from the colonial period. Although the Constitution of 1940 incorporated these measures, Cuban women barely took part in state institutions, but their increasing presence in public affairs marked a turning point in their social status. A few women were appointed as Cuban representatives to international organizations, and political parties set up female auxiliaries. Moreover, several women’s associations worked for peace, demanded improvements in the healthcare system, took action towards enhancing education in rural areas and pushed for effective reform of the Civic Code in order to provide equal rights for men and women. African-Cuban women’s participation in these organizations was limited due to discrimination and they in turn set up their own organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventy years after the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, health professionals and lawyers working together after 9/11 played a critical role in designing, justifying, and carrying out the US statesponsored torture program in the CIA "Black Sites" and US military detention centers, including Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We analyze the similarities between the Nazi doctors and health professionals in the War on Terror and address the question of how it happened that health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, physician assistants, and nurses, acted as agents of the state to utilize their medical and healing skills to cause harm and sanitize barbarous acts, similar to (though not on the scale of) how Nazi doctorswere used by the Third Reich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the politics of dance collaborations between Cubans and Mexicans from 1959 to 1983. During this period, Mexican modern dancers worked in Cuba, and Cuban ballet dancers in Mexico. Over years of close, visceral encounters, Mexican and Cuban dancers built cultural institutions and international relationships filled with emotional ups and downs. Focusing on the sentiments that guided dancing revolutionaries, this article examines the everyday process of international relations as creative diplomats from Cuba and Mexico coordinated movements in classes, rehearsals, and performances. This article contends that in contrast to the friendly but distant bilateral relations forged by elite politicians in a tense Cold War context, dancers made the Cuban-Mexican relationship an intimate, creative partnership among revolutionary citizens. This demonstrates how the personal and interpersonal, in dialogue with geopolitics and ideology, shaped the cultural Cold War in Latin America and how it changed over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the attempt by U.S. officials to normalize relations with Cuba in the late 1970s. The attempt was made in response to early indications that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro might be interested in a dialogue and the need to involve Cuban-Americans in the would-be dialogue. The failure of the normalization effort is attributed to Cuba's military intervention in Africa and Castro's refusal to show greater respect for human rights in Cuba.

This article argues that the economic sanctions against Cuba do not serve US interests and thus should be discontinued. Both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy viewed Castro as a significant communist threat to the US. They imposed strict economic sanctions against his regime, hoping that Cuba's ties with the USSR would weaken and that the Castro regime would eventually collapse under economic strain. To the vexation of US officials, the opposite occurred as Cuba was pushed directly into the USSR's political and economic orbit, as the Soviets came to Cuba's aid to soften the impact of the sanctions. Moreover, the economic sanctions strengthened the resolve of the Cuban people to stand up to America, their imperialist aggressor. While attempts were made in the mid 1970's to lift the embargo, US officials felt that doing so would be too apparent of a mea culpa and thus would harm the US's image as an avid champion of democracy and capitalism. Although lifting the embargo would symbolize the end of US hegemony in the Western hemisphere, America has much to gain from doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Between 1959 and 1962, children played a highly visible role in the dramatic realignment of revolutionary Cuba’s diplomatic relations. This article demonstrates that Fidel Castro’s government consistently deployed discourses and images of childhood as well as actual children within a broader campaign to liberate themselves from U.S. domination even as it sought to strengthen ties between Cuba, the U.S.S.R. and the socialist world. At the same time, the Castro regime also made use child-centered images, texts and speeches in order to negotiate the contradictions between the Revolution’s claims to have fulfilled the islands’ long-frustrated aspirations towards national sovereignty even as it sought to justify its reinvention as “la niña adorada del mundo socialista,” dependent for its survival on the protection and largesse of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuban Studies is the property of University of Pittsburgh Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Latin American Studies is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies examining the initial response of the United States to Cuba’s revolution largely ignore the role of Congress, an oversight reflecting both a scholarly trend emphasizing the actions of the presidency in regards to American foreign policy making and the separation of powers in the U.S. constitution. Redressing the balance, this article examines how members of Congress reacted to the course of U.S.-Cuban relations throughout the crisis years of 1959–1963. Illuminating Cuba’s place in domestic debates about foreign affairs it also looks at the politics surrounding the American response to the Cuban revolution. Lawmakers quickly emerged at the forefront of those calling for a strong stance toward Cuba. In turn, congressional pressure to confront Fidel Castro both helped and hindered presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy. For Kennedy, in particular, domestic politics and actions by Congress were major concerns that tempered his actions in dealing with the Cuban revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sport is generally understood as a conservative social institution that reaffirms the established values and norms of a society. It is not seen as a mechanism for radical political or social change but a means for individual transformation within a society. This article explores that notion by examining how sport has been used by twentieth-century political revolutions. While considering twentieth-century revolutions, it takes the Cuban Revolution as a particular case study to illuminate the use of sport in remaking of society and persons. The article begins with a general discussion of revolution and sport's relationships to it before briefly considering the two most prominent twentieth-century revolutions, the Russian and Chinese. The thrust then focuses on how the idea of revolution was understood in Cuba prior to the success of 1959 as well as immediately after. The article then examines the Cuban revolutionary state's explicit emphasis on sport as a means for producing the New Man. In all, the article argues that contrary to the common assumption that sport and revolution do not mix, sport can play an important role in the major social and political transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1960s Cuban refugee children program known as Operation Pedro Pan during the Cold War, focusing on the program's operations in Montana. It examines the role of the Catholic Church in operating the program, particularly the organization Montana Catholic Charities, Inc., and the Diocese of Helena, Montana. It also discusses the Catholic Church's opposition to Communism. The article discusses several Cuban-born children who lived in Montana including Mario Toca, Oscar Fong, and Reinaldo Fong.

It has traditionally been assumed that the relationship between Moscow and Havana commenced with the victory of the Cuban Revolution. Although it subsequently developed to unprecedented levels, this article examines the relationship in the period between the Russian and Cuban Revolutions. This analysis is conducted within the framework of Soviet policy towards the Developing World and the realist paradigm of International Relations theory. Prior to January 1959, the Kremlin took a considerable interest in Cuba and did not suffer from “geographical fatalism” as has previously been presumed. This is important in itself, but also for the relationship that rapidly developed in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution as a number of factors that were important in the pre-1959 relationship would also be significant after 1959. Furthermore, this analysis is also important for the contemporary bilateral relationship as both governments have made increasing reference to the multifaceted relationship that existed priorx to 1959. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a discussion regarding the various approaches and processes necessary in order to form and uphold a literary canon for Cuba. Particular emphasis is given to the vision of Cuba as a revolutionary place in a revolutionary moment, leading the author to highlight the need for inclusion of revolutionary literature in the canon. The tension between traditional, classic works of Cuban literature and contemporary, reformist pieces is explored and various models of literary canons are described within the context of Cuba's political and intellectual situation.

The article discusses the U.S. campaign on human rights in Cuba during the second half of the 20th century, with attention to the conflicting roles taken on by the U.S. in sponsoring terrorism in Cuba while publicly condemning the country for its poor record of protecting human rights. The author discusses the nature of the U.S. embargo against Cuba and its effect on civil rights. The author argues that while it remains true that Cuban authorities have abused civil rights historically, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as the U.S. government, have a diplomatic agenda whose primary goal is to reject a different social and political system, rather than seeking the protection of basic human rights for Cuban citizens.

The article presents a literary criticism of two works of Cuban fiction, "Cien botellas en una pared" by Ena Lucía Portela and "Todos se van" by Wendy Guerra, with respect to the concept of ethical weightlessness experienced by Cuba as a nation after the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. Ethical, political and social issues confronted by the novels' protagonists are analyzed within the national context of Cuba during that time period.

This article analyzes the history and cultural significance of the Cuban Coney Island Park. It argues that the park both allegorizes a series of geopolitical and urbanistic trends true for Havana more generally throughout the twentieth century, and figures as a significant reference for Cuban film, literature, and philosophies of history. It begins by reading Martí and Meza's chronicles about the Brooklyn park, analyzes a 1906 film about El Parque Palatino, ‘el Coney Island cubano’, and considers the Republican-era development of both parks and the suburbs of Marianao and Playa, designed to include amusement parks. The article then unearths the history of the Coney Island built in Havana in the 1950s, owned by a US businessman executed in 1961 for conducting counterrevolutionary activities within the park itself. Even as a cold war skirmish unfolded in the real park, in literature José Lezama Lima moved away from such ideologies to introduce amusement parks in his 1966 Paradiso as spaces for reflection on themes of originality, desire and substitution – themes central to the parks themselves, and to Cuba's intellectual tradition. The article ends with a history of post-2008 Chinese-built parks conceived within the ‘Batalla de Ideas’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-reads Fidel Castro's speech to Cuban artists and intellectuals at the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí (National Library) in June 1961. Despite extensive discussion of its famous extract, the speech has rarely been examined in depth. This article thus analyses the entire speech, situating it within its co-text and its context and examining its multiple functions, offering as it does an insight into the social and educational implications of cultural revolution in Cuba and the inevitable tensions inherent in these. The article evaluates the negotiations in the text in the light of their relevance to contemporary cultural debates in Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the specificity of self-defined 'Third World Marxist' cultures through an exploration of attempts to forge links between revolutionary movements in Latin America and the anti-colonialist movements in (former) Portuguese colonies in Africa such as Angola and Mozambique from the early 1960s. Contrasting the Lusophone African engagements of Latin American countries such Cuba and Chile, this article argues that, in general, differences outweighed similarities. Yet the cultural legacy of these exchanges, it will be shown, is substantial and in some cases has survived the end of the Cold War era in which those exchanges were forged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the controversy involving an 1899 marriage law in Cuba. The marriage law known as Military Order No. 66 is described, offering political and historical context for its claims that marriage was a fundamentally civil contract and only marriages performed by a secular authority would be recognized by the state. Extensive discussion is then given to the response by the Catholic Church through Bishop Manuel Santander against the move, noting the resultant tension between church and state relations and jurisdiction in the nation.

Discusses the two transitions in question in the Cuban case. Actual transition from Batista's regime from 1952-1958 from dictatorship to revolutionary government; Description of Fidel Castro's government; Role of history in both processes; Outline of Cuba's political history; Prominent feature of Cuban historiography.

Analyzes the speculations of United States Executive Committee about the political implications of the Cuban missile crisis. Theoretical background; Discussion on domestic politics; Public opinion in domestic and foreign audiences.

The article is written in response to a review of the book "Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Canada," in the Spring 2011 issue. The book and article largely deal with U.S. organized crime's presence in Cuba prior to the Cuban Revolution. The author is critical of the book's treatment of Cuban political history, particularly that concerning the Platt Amendment.