Together, we work to foster innovative, multidisciplinary research on a broad range of Cuba-related topics, seeking in the process to bridge the multiple divides—disciplinary, territorial, ideological—that prevent us from seeing and appreciating la isla in all its beauty and complexity.

 
In 2006, professors from nine University of California campuses came together to create the UC-CUBA Multi-Campus Academic Initiative. Headquartered at UC Irvine, UC-Cuba has grown since then into a diverse and thriving international network of university faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars, united by their shared passion for all things Cuban. Together, we work to foster innovative, multidisciplinary research on a broad range of Cuba-related topics, seeking in the process to bridge the multiple divides—disciplinary, territorial, ideological—that prevent us from seeing and appreciating la isla in all its beauty and complexity.

The only such program in the United States, in the fifteen years since its founding UC-CUBA has organized ten multi-campus conferences & workshops. It has also awarded more than seventy research and travel grants to doctoral students in fourteen different disciplines from eight UC campuses. In collaboration with partners on the island, which include leading national institutions such as la Casa de las Américas, Instituto de Estudios Martianos, Instituto de Historia de Cuba, Instituto de Ciencias y Tecnologías, ICAIC and UNEAC, Revista Temas, and the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, UC-Cuba has also provided logistical support to faculty and graduate students from the UC system and beyond to do research in Cuba. In 2017 and 2018 we returned the favor, hosting distinguished Cuban physicist Jesús Rubayo and Nobel-prize nominated author Leonardo Padura as the first Cuban scholars and artists-in-residence to the UC system since the 1950s.

In recent years, UC-Cuba scholars have published groundbreaking books with top-tier academic presses. These include:

• Anita Casavantes Bradford,
  The Revolution is for the Children: The Politics of Childhood in Havana and Miami, 1959-1962
  (University of North Carolina Press, 2014)

• Hanna Garth,
  Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent
  (Stanford University Press, 2020)
   

• Tom McEnaney,
  Acoustic Properties: Radio, Narrative, and the New Neighborhood of the Americas
  (Northwestern University Press, 2017)
   

 
UC-CUBA has also supported the publication of the edited volumes Una Ventana a Cuba y los Estudios Cubanos/A Window Into Cuba and Cuban Studies, Amalia Cabezas, Ivette N. Hernández-Torres, Sara Johnson and Rodrigo Lazo (Ediciones Callejón, 2010); Health Travels: Cuban Health Care On and Off the Island, Nancy Burke, ed. (University of California Medical Humanities Press, 2013); and the collection-in-progress, An Undisciplined Look at Cuba, Mrinalini Tankha, Christina M. García and Yairamaren Roman Maldonado, eds. Our scholars also publish in leading scholarly journals, including Cuban Studies, Diplomatic History, Latin American Research Review, American Anthropologist, Latino Studies, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of American Ethnic History, Black Music Research Journal, Tourism and Development, Gender and History, A Contra Corriente, Journal of Musicology, Dance Chronicle, Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, The Latin Americanist, Cultural Critique, Representations, SOULS: a Critical Journal of Black Politics, and Hispanic American Historical Review.