This book explores the reception experiences of post-1958 Afro-Cubans in South Florida in relation to their similarly situated “white” Cuban compatriots. Utilizing interviews, ethnographic observations, and applying Census data analyses, Aja begins not with the more socially diverse 1980 Mariel boatlift, but earlier, documenting that a small number of middle-class Afro-Cuban exiles defied predominant settlement patterns in the 1960 and 70s, attempting to immerse themselves in the newly formed but ultimately racially exclusive “ethnic enclave.” Confronting a local Miami Cuban “white wall” and anti-black Southern racism subsumed within an intra-group “success” myth that equally holds Cubans and other Latin Americans hail from “racial democracies,” black Cubans immigrants and their children, including subsequent waves of arrival and return-migrants, found themselves negotiating the boundaries of being both “black” and “Latino” in the United States.

The Racial Politics of Division deconstructs antagonistic discourses that circulated in local Miami media between African Americans, "white" Cubans, and "black" Cubans during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and the 1994 Balsero Crisis. Monika Gosin challenges exclusionary arguments pitting these groups against one another and depicts instead the nuanced ways in which identities have been constructed, negotiated, rejected, and reclaimed in the context of Miami's historical multiethnic tensions. Focusing on ideas of "legitimacy," Gosin argues that dominant race-making ideologies of the white establishment regarding "worthy citizenship" and national belonging shape inter-minority conflict as groups negotiate their precarious positioning within the nation. Rejecting oversimplified and divisive racial politics, The Racial Politics of Division portrays the lived experiences of African Americans, white Cubans, and Afro-Cubans as disrupters in the binary frames of worth-citizenship narratives. Foregrounding the oft-neglected voices of Afro-Cubans, Gosin posits new narratives regarding racial positioning and notions of solidarity in Miami. By looking back to interethnic conflict that foreshadowed current demographic and social trends, she provides us with lessons for current debates surrounding immigration, interethnic relations, and national belonging. Gosin also shows us that despite these new demographic realities, white racial power continues to reproduce itself by requiring complicity of racialized groups in exchange for a tenuous claim on US citizenship.

From America’s number one Cuba reporter, PEN award–winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba we’ve all been waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth century’s wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom, Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana. Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. She’s talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Díaz-Balart, the family of Elián González, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents. Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we’ve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel González’s kitchen table in Cárdenas, from Guantánamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.

Written by the trio that has spawned a renewal of interest in Cuban cuisine,his guide to the flavors of Cuba reveals the island as a tasty confluence ofpanish spices, tropical ingredients, and African influence.

"Revolution uprooted six-year-old Cecilia from her comfortable middle-class Cuban home and dropped her into the low-income neighborhood of Miami's Little Havana. Her philandering father focused on rebuilding his career, chasing the American promise of wealth and freedom from the past. Her mother spiraled into madness trying to hold the family together and get him back. Neglected and trapped, Cecilia rebelled against her conservative culture and embraced the 1960s counter-culture - seeking love, attention and a place of her own in America. But immigrant children either thrive or self-destruct in a new land. How will Cecilia beat the odds? While most memoirs by Cuban-Americans revolve around childhood scenes in Cuba and explore the experiences of a young man, Leaving Little Havana is the first refugee memoir to focus on a Cuban girl growing up in America, rising above the obstacles and clearing a path to her dream." -- Publisher's description.

How portrayals of anti-Blackness in literature and film challenge myths about South Florida history and culture In this book, Tatiana McInnis examines literary and cultural representations of Miami alongside the city’s material realities to challenge the image of South Florida as a diverse cosmopolitan paradise. McInnis discusses how this favorable “melting pot” narrative depends on the obfuscation of racialized violence against people of African descent.  Analyzing novels, short stories, and memoirs by Edwidge Danticat, M.J. Fievre, Carlos Moore, Carlos Eire, Patricia Stephens Due, and Tananarive Due, as well as films such as Dawg Fight and Moonlight, McInnis demonstrates how these creations push back against erasure by representing the experiences of Black Americans and immigrants from Caribbean nations. McInnis considers portrayals of state-sanctioned oppression, residential segregation, violent detention of emigres, and increasing wealth gaps and concludes that celebrations of Miami’s diversity disguise the pervasive, adaptive nature of white supremacy and anti-Blackness.  To Tell a Black Story of Miami offers a model of how to use literature as a primary archive in urban studies. It draws attention to the similarities and divergences between Miami’s Black diasporic communities, a historically underrepresented demographic in popular and scholarly awareness of the city. Increasing understanding of Miami’s political, social, and economic inequities, this book brings greater nuance to traditional narratives of exceptionalism in cities and regions.  Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

First implemented in 1962, the American embargo against Cuba is one of the most enduring anti-trade measures in human history, having outlived most of the original government and military leaders responsible for its creation. But has it benefited the United States as intended, by weakening Fidel Castro's grip on his country? Or has it, instead, strengthened his position? This unique work draws upon interviews with Cuban exiles to provide broad-ranging insights on the embargo's effects on the Cuban people, and an evaluation of its diminishing role as an effective political tool.