Welcome to Cuban Studies

Caught by Surprise?

When Cuba turned to international tourism as a source of revenue in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one of the things citizens often noted was the fact that foreigners loved to photograph them. That they didn’t seem to mind being photographed, as islanders often admitted, had more to do with the rarity of privately […]

Painting or Picture?

Flanked by a landscape of royal palms (a native icon of Cuba), these two peasant homes and their front yard gardens predate the Cuban Revolution of 1959. They speak to the resilience of Cuba’s guajiros amidst the beauty of nature and the society of strife created by humankind.

Machado’s National Highway

Cuba has only two national highways that connect one province to the other. The second, built with Soviet money and never completed, was an autopista designed to double as a landing strip for Soviet planes in case of war with the United States. It dominates the region from Havana to Pinar del Rio, the province […]

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Sailing School in the Special Period

Young students at an elite government boarding school near Marina Hemingway compete in an individual sailing competition in this photo, taken shortly before the Soviet Union and the trading bloc on which Cuba relied disappeared. When massive Soviet aid vanished as well, most of these schools declined or, in some cases, closed altogether.

Welcome to Cuban Studies at the University of Florida! Together, the History Department, Smathers Library and the Center for Latin American Studies at UF are committed to uncovering and sharing knowledge of Cuba with the world. Visit this site to learn about and experience Cuba through visual galleries of unique historical photographs and photo essays, filmed oral interviews, and links to specially selected treasures from UF’s vast library collections and private archives on Cuba.
— Professor Lillian Guerra and Miguel Torres Yunda

Ex-Libris

In this edition of Ex-Libris, author, novelist, and 2024 Florida Book Award Gold Medal Winner Aracelis González Asendorf reads her short story, “Hector’s Woman”, published in Aster(ix) Digital Journal in 2022.

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Conversatorio Cubano

In this Conversatorio Cubano, Dr. Lillian Guerra interviews Aracelis González Asendorf, discussing Asendorf’s latest book and 2024 Florida Book Award Gold Medal Winner, Dressing the Saints, exploring Cuban identity and culture.

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Gems of the Archive

These editorials were all published around the time of Fidel Castro’s April 1959 “good will” speaking tour of the eastern seaboard of the United States. Together, they reflect a capsule history of how differently Americans were reacting to the spectacle of Fidel as well as the meaning of the Revolution itself across the country.

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