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In 1997, the Government of Jamaica signed a three-year cooperative agreement with the Government of Cuba to support Jamaican education through the provision of teachers of Spanish, mathematics and the sciences. After several renewals, the programme is in its 26th year, with 76 Cuban teachers currently resident in Jamaica and serving at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of the country's education system. Through focus group discussions with 32 teachers in the 23rd cohort, this article reports on the linguistic insertion of the teachers into their Jamaican classroom environments. It assesses the strengths and limitations of the linguistico-cultural preparation of the teachers for working in the Jamaican education system, and documents their sociolinguistic and cultural adjustment experiences. Results indicate that while the information and training sessions on pedagogy were useful and informative, the intergovernmental cooperative agreement programme could benefit significantly from the inclusion of a strong and targeted initiative designed to initiate teachers into Jamaican sociolinguistic realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in sexual medicine research may depend on a patient's willingness to speak openly about sex, sexual function, or other sensitive topics. These topics may be difficult or uncomfortable to talk about, and this discomfort may be further amplified when a patient comes from a cultural background that stigmatizes open conversation about sex and sexuality. We used qualitative analysis to better understand the intersection between cultural identity, the experience of sexual dysfunction as a side-effect of pelvic radiotherapy, and willingness to communicate about sexual dysfunction with healthcare providers, in Cuban American women in Miami, Florida. Doing so, we found four unique themes among Cuban American participants regarding the intersection of national identity, Hispanic identity, Catholic religion, and their experience of radiotherapy-related sexual dysfunction: Marianismo, Machismo, Familismo, and Espiritismo. These themes, a reflection of the cohort's shared identity, were found to have an effect on participant views of sexual health, romantic relationships, coping strategies, and relative comfort discussing problems with intercourse. These cultural values served as barriers to openly discussing sexual dysfunction with not just medical providers and research teams but also their partners, families, and friends. In order to encourage Cuban American participation in sexual medicine studies, future research should evaluate strategies to overcome these barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the transfigured way in which President Trump and the Cuban-American far right exercised their power. It assesses both the underlying social relations behind this in both US society as a whole and in particular in its subset of the Cuban-American community in Miami, and the construction of what Michel Foucault called a truth regime which serves to hide the social actors' true power-related goals. Theoretical perspectives about the nature of power in international relations, and society as a whole, are employed in this endeavour. It is concluded that beyond the predominant Cold War politics and narrative, Trump and the Cuban-American far right's goal was to maintain the local and national power structure they have benefited from, given the perceived harmful impact of Barack Obama's policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mariel Boat-lift represents the largest immigrant humanitarian crisis to ever hit an American city. This paper traces the history of this humanitarian crisis in the City of Miami to consider how comprehensive planners were involved in the collection of demographic data and the empowerment of Cuban Americans. Comprehensive planners had to confront the absence of demographic data as they sought to deal with the physical and social impacts of the refugee influx. The Boatlift took place immediately after efforts to conduct the 1980 U.S. Census, and its effect was to dramatically disrupt any new understanding of Miami's urban population, its locations and needs. Nevertheless, the collection, recording, and interpretation of demographic data during and after the Mariel Boatlift eventually played a crucial role in energizing an apparatus of Cuban-American community development and a new framework that justified not only political-asylum policies but also provisions and services empowering new trends in political representation at the local level. Miami thus offers a historical case study of how the work of comprehensive planners may become politicized through episodes of humanitarian crisis, community response, and ethnic empowerment. The history of the Mariel Boatlift and the response of comprehensive planners advance understanding of political change in cities and the role of urban spaces, immigrant groups, and comprehensive planners in bringing about ethnic empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a reappraisal of the racial politics of the nineteenth-century Cuban independence struggle through an analysis of the experience, as migrants, of Rafael Serra and other Afro-descendant activists in New York. Serra was the leader of a community that worked with José Martí to create the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC). The author makes use of digital tools for network visualization and mapping to illustrate the evidence of both race-based (diasporic), class-based, and nationalist social networks among Serra's constituents. These networks, created against a backdrop of highly localized residential segregation, facilitated a range of political strategies including the creation of race-based organizations, alliances with African Americans, and the more famous cross-racial coalitions of the PRC. Such strategies were not mutually exclusive, as has sometimes been presumed, but rather mutually dependent. In presenting this evidence, the author responds to recent work by Putnam on research "in the digital age" and follows Solberg's call on digital humanities scholars to "give away our game," presenting a critical self-appraisal of the digital methods, tools, and labor arrangements employed. Following Tufte and Theibault, he concludes that digital visual representations are useful to humanities scholars not because they generate or validate arguments, but because they can effectively illustrate arguments that rest on humanistic systems of analysis and evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explore author's experience of living in the U.S. as being a Cuban. It mentions that in Cuba, the communities abroad are a topic of national security concern, for they are a result of emigration which has been equated with treason. It also mentions that increasingly economics, not just politics, divides their experiences.

In this paper I examine the urban history of Cuban American empowerment in metropolitan Miami from 1980 to 1992 through the concept of “spatial politics” – the use of space by urban communities to claim government control. By combining archival research, GIS mappings, visual documentation, and interviews with retired metropolitan planners and community development specialists, I consider how Cuban Americans engaged in performative, discursive, electoral, planning-oriented, and allied activities over three stages – crisis, community development, and empowerment – which resulted in the transformation of Miami’s political status quo. Metropolitan planners contributed to this spatial politics by producing demographic data that facilitated the development of a Cuban American community development system, which in turn engaged public policy, economic development and housing. These provisions led to the concentration of ethnic bloc voting and the election of Cuban American leadership at the municipal and county level. This untold urban history, situated in the aftermath of the Mariel Boatlift, demonstrates that urban historians need to analyze how urban space is contested, produced and managed by immigrants in order to fully understand how immigrant incorporation and empowerment operates in American cities. Spatial politics is a conceptual tool to aid in this understanding.

Acceptance by parental figures is one of the most important protective factors for the mental health of LGBTQ individuals. To date, little is known about the experiences of Latinx parental figures of LGBTQ children. Thirty Latinx parental figures (19 Cuban-Americans; 11 Puerto Ricans) completed an expressive writing intervention focusing on cultural strengths and challenges that influenced their journey toward accepting their LGBTQ child. Thematic analysis revealed Latinx-specific cultural strengths and challenges, such as familismo, caballerismo, machismo, and marianismo that influenced the process toward acceptance of their child. Parental figures reported feelings of happiness, pride, peace, satisfaction and relief, as well as mixed feelings and emotions following the writing intervention. Strength-based approaches to working with Latinx parental figures of LGBTQ individuals are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Through its influence on social interactions, simpatía may have a wide-ranging influence on Latinx health. Simpatía —which does not have a direct English translation—refers to being perceived as likeable, pleasant, and easygoing. Research to investigate the influence simpatía on Latinx health is limited, likely due to a lack of options for measuring simpatía among diverse Latinx populations. Objectives: The goal of this research was to develop a bilingual, survey-based simpatía scale for use among ethnically diverse Latinx adults in health-related settings. Methods: Data were obtained through a telephone survey data of 1,296 Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adults living in the United States. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Exploratory factor analysis, item response theory analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and computation of estimates of internal consistency reliability were conducted to inform the development of the final simpatía scale. Results: Results indicate that the final, nine-item, simpatía scale has high internal consistency (α =.83) and measurement invariance among Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adults. Two dimensions were identified, as indicated by a perceptions subscale and a behavior subscale. Cuban Americans were found to have the highest simpatía scores, followed by Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans. Discussion: Culture is often identified as a powerful potential influence on health-related behaviors, but measures are often not available to assess specific cultural traits. By developing a new tool for measuring simpatía , this research advances opportunities for understanding and promoting Latinx health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the ways in which Cuban, Colombian, and Peninsular Spanish in Miami-Dade County (MDC) are conceptualized by Latinx participants in terms of implicit perceptions. We examine how Latinx college students – all residents of Miami – perceive Spanish language variation in Miami and predict putative differences in two domains: 1) personality characteristics related to warmth and competence traits (e.g., friendliness and intelligence), and 2) differences in usage and maintenance of Spanish. Data were analyzed for significance using a three by four within-subjects ANOVA with a series of specific statistical contrasts. Results show effects of both the language variety alone as well as interaction effects between the dialects and labels indicating ostensible family origin information. • Speaker from Spain rated higher than Colombian and Cuban speakers for competence traits. • No significant difference among Cuban, Colombian, and Spanish speakers for warmth traits. • Colombian speaker perceived as more likely to use English and speak English with children. • Colombian and Peninsular voices ranked significantly higher than Cuban voice for physical attractiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars have not taken Cuban-American terrorism in the 1970s seriously, despite the unprecedented campaign of terror it unleashed. Borrowing a framework of self-identity usually applied to other terrorist groups and using case studies of the Cuban Nationalism Movement in New Jersey and of Alpha 66 in Florida, this article argues that Cuban-American political ideology was the key to its impact and its support from communities in Florida and New Jersey. Militant exiles saw themselves as betrayed by two enemy states, entitled to rule in their homeland, and imbued with a mission of civilizational renewal. In these ways, Cuban-American terrorists were similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan and their reign of terror in the 1970s should be appreciated as a major episode in the history of U.S. and global terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalismo may have a broad influence on the well-being of U.S. Latinos by shaping social networks and, in turn, access to information and resources. However, research on personalismo is currently constrained by the lack of a psychometrically sound measure of this cultural construct. This research used a mixed-methods approach to develop a personalismo scale across three studies: a cognitive interviewing study with Mexican American adults (n = 33); a cognitive interviewing study with non-Latino White, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adults (n = 61); and a psychometric telephone survey with Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adults (n = 1,296). The final, 12-item scale had high internal consistency reliability and appears to be appropriate for use with Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adults. Significant differences emerged across Latino subgroups, with higher personalismo observed among Cuban Americans and female respondents, providing empirical evidence of cultural heterogeneity among U.S. Latino populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Years before Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced a “thaw” in US-Cuba relations on December 17, 2014 (17D), Cubans were intensifying ties through the transnational circulation of popular culture. To understand Cuba and its diaspora in the twenty-first century, it is essential that we attend to the transnational networks in place before 17D that continue to shape quotidian life for people on and off the island. I begin in Miami, with the “afterlives” of a comic variety show called Sabadazo—popular on the island during the 1990s—to illustrate how what it means to be Cuban, politically and culturally, has shifted away from the exile generation that arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. I complement this analysis with attention to generational tensions within the diaspora and representations of race and sexuality. I then move to the island to examine el paquete (the package), a terabyte’s worth of mostly foreign media updated and distributed across the island weekly. I contend that the economic and cultural impact of el paquete cannot be fully understood without careful consideration of the role of the Cuban diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways Latinos—as audience, market, media—reshape the boundaries of sport media coverage. Its central focus examines the ways ESPN responds to the “browning of America” and its changing demographics. To this end, the essay examines the emergence and development of ESPN Deportes, and provides a textual analysis of “One Nación” (September 2015-August 2016), a podcast hosted by Max Bretos (Cuban American) and Marly Rivera (Puerto Rican). Offering a textual and content analysis, I suggest that One Nación provides a benchmark to assess the cultural politics of diversifying sport media content, coverage, and context. Moreover, I argue that One Nación, while unable to escape the dominant features of late racial/gendered capitalism, produces a counterhegemonic discursive practice capable of challenging mediated circulations of Latino Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Celia Cruz (1925-2003), Gloria Estefan (born 1957) and Pitbull (born 1981), each of whom represents different generations, immigration statuses, gender performances and racial identities, have employed their musical hits and public personae to simultaneously shorten and widen the 90-mile distance between the US and Cuba. Their musical and political commentary parallels the evolving attitudes and identities of the Cuban-American community towards Cuba and its politics. Each successive artist is a little more ambiguous about his or her political leanings in the American political sphere, but all of them continue to oppose Cuba's Communist regime while trading in the musical currency of nostalgia for the Cuba of yesteryear. In the vein of Gustavo Pérez Firmat's watershed analysis of Cuban-Americans' hyphenated identity, these artists demonstrate how Cuban-American identity exists in a liminal cultural space that lives in the present and plans for the future with one foot planted firmly in the fantasy of an Edenic past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used data from the first wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) [Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2008). Children of immigrants longitudinal study (CILS). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research] to examine cross-cultural differences and similarities in risk and protective factors of depression in a sample of 1827 Cuban and Indochinese adolescents aged from 13 to 16 years old: 1197 Cubans and 630 Indochinese. The results revealed that discrimination, poor family economic situation, sex, and age were risk factors of depression. English language speaking, parental love, parental attention, and living with both parents were protective factors against depression. There was a significant interaction association between sex and ethnic groups with depression and a significant interaction association between age and ethnic groups with depression. The results relating to cross-cultural differences and similarities in risk and protective factors of depression between ethnic immigrant adolescents are discussed, and recommendations for school counsellors, social workers, and mental health service providers are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses language ideologies in relation to political ideologies in the Cuban diaspora in the United States. The findings of three longitudinal attitude studies, two conducted using the methods of perceptual dialectology, and a third with the matched-guise method, indicated that the diaspora's political beliefs have a robust effect on its beliefs about Cuban Spanish in the diaspora and in the homeland. The perceptions studies showed that the national variety has a high degree of prestige in the diaspora, and that it has very low prestige in Cuba. The results of the matched-guise test showed that participants were unable to differentiate voices recorded in the 1960s and the 1990s, and that social information about residence in Cuba or the diaspora was more important to judgments of correctness than the presence of nonstandard variants. It is argued that the diaspora's language ideology is maintained through erasure and essentialization: social and linguistic facts are erased, and the homeland is racially essentialized. It is suggested that through its language ideology, the Cuban diaspora claims authenticity and legitimacy vis-à-vis the homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to validate, in accordance with international standards, a chromatographic method to determine the mangiferin in Cuban's samples, obtained from Mangifera indica leaves. Materials and Methods: A GraceSmart RP -18 (150 mm x 4,6 mm i.d., 5μm particle size) column and mobile phase of potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate (0.01 M) pH 2.7 ± 0.2 – acetonitrile (85:15, v/v) with the flow rate of 1,0 mL/min and UV detection at 254 nm wavelength is used. The validated method was compared with the established method for the quality control of the Cuban's mangiferin samples, through the Student test. In the validation study the parameters were evaluated: specificity, precision (repeatability, intermediate precision and reproducibility), accuracy, linearity, robustness and detection and quantification limits. Results and Discussion: It was demonstrated that the developed procedure, was the sufficiently lineal thing, with a detection limit of 10 % and 30 % like quantification limit, specific, precise, exact and robust for the determination of mangiferin content in the Cuban's samples. The results obtained from the validation process provided documentary evidence of the reliability of the chromatographic method; In addition, no significant differences were observed between the chromatographic methods evaluated, so that the validated method can be applied in the quality control of the Cuban's samples. Conclusions: The method used in the quantification of mangiferin was was specific, lineal, precise, exact and robust, for quality control and stability study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although researchers have studied how individuals manage type 2 diabetes, none have examined how Cuban Americans do so. This article explores how Cuban Americans make self-management choices and examines whether an empowerment framework is viable for informing interventions. Design: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted (n = 20) with Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes. Individual interviews were analyzed with content analysis. Results: Motivation and temporal factors, such as knowledge of symptoms and the ability to plan ahead, positively affect self-management. Cultural factors, such as access to cultural foods, negatively affect self-management. Empowerment formed a comprehensive lens through which self-management decisions were acted on. Conclusion: Given the cultural context, empowerment and unique barriers and facilitators can affect diabetes self-management in this population. Strategies to promote healthy decisions must take into account the strengths of this community as well as its challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year on December 17 the Cuban American community of Hialeah, Florida celebrates the feast of San Lázaro with the veneration of statues, dramatic rites of incarnation and mortification, and grand processions through the streets. San Lázaro is a figure of intersection among a variety of religious histories and interests. His devotion materially juxtaposes African, European, Catholic, and Spiritist aspirations and meanings in an evolving iconography and practice. And his veneration in embodied rites involves direct confrontation with frightening powers of disease, decomposition and death. This essay explores the many San Lázaros expressed in his statuary, his ritual garments, and embodied rituals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Type 2 diabetes is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in Hispanics but few studies have been done to differentiate diabetes effects in Hispanic subgroups, such as Cuban Americans. The purpose of this review was to characterize the studies conducted on Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes with the aim of updating knowledge related to physiologic factors, psychologic factors, and diabetes selfmanagement. An extensive literature search located 18 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this review. Previous studies provided consistent evidence demonstrating the influence of lifestyle, metabolic, and psychosocial risk factors that lead to poorer outcomes for CAs. No intervention studies were found examining the effect of treatment and education on diabetes control. Future research is needed to determine how these factors associated with diabetes can be used in lowering risks and improving health outcomes for Cuban Americans. [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.