Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Drastic Reduction in Cuban Migrant Visas

New report shows significant drop in agreed 20,000 annual immigrant visas for Cubans

October 16, 2018 10:38 AM
Updated 5 hours 59 minutes ago

Sunday, October 14, 2018

New York October - November Programs

There are many exciting Cuba related programs taking place in New York in October and November.   If they fit your schedule, these are all worthwhile. 


Migration and RemittancesRacial Inequality in Cuba

Monday, October 15, 4-6 PM
Segal Theatre
The Graduate Center, CUNY
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 sought to sharply reduce various forms of social inequality. However, today's Cuban society finds itself marked by rising levels of poverty and inequality, growing unemployment, dwindling social services and continuous outward migration. Moreover, in the context of a changing economy, defined by the declining role of the state and the introduction of market mechanisms, new social stratifications are emerging - and doing so along clearly visible, racial lines. Inequality and race, both dominant themes in pre-revolutionary Cuba and ones that the Revolution fought hard to eliminate, have once again become key, overlapping issues.

This panel will discuss the results of a two year long, German Research Council (DFG) funded, research project, including a unique, island-wide survey, which examined the role and impact of migration, remittances and citizenship, within the context of the island’s recent economic reforms, on Cuba’s growing racial inequalities. 

Katrin Hansing (Ph.D., University of Oxford) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Baruch College, CUNY and Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA). Hansing has spent the past twenty years conducting research on issues of ‘race,’ inequality, migration, transnational ties and youth in Cuba and its diaspora. Her latest publications include: "Race and Inequality in the New Cuba: Reasons, Dynamics, and Manifestations" (Social Research: An International Quarterly, 2017), and "Race and Rising Inequality in Cuba" (Current History, 2018).
Bert Hoffmann (Ph.D., Freie Universität Berlin) is Senior Researcher at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and Head of the GIGA Berlin Office. He is also Professor of Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin. His latest publications include: Emigrant Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (FLASCO Chile 2016) with Luicy Pedroza and Pau Palop; and "Bureaucratic socialism in reform mode: the changing politics of Cuba’s post-Fidel era" (Third World Quarterly, 2016).
Odette Casamayor-Cisneros (Ph.D., School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris) is Associate Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Studies at University of Connecticut. Some of her areas of expertise include Afro-diaspora and Blackness in the Americas. Her first book of essays, Utopia, distopía e ingravidez...(Iberoamericana-Vervuert,2013) examines the existential void experienced by Cubans after the collapse of the Socialist Bloc in the 1990s. Casamayor is currently writing a new book, On Being Blacks: Challenging the Hegemonic Knowledge Through Racial Self-Identification Processes in Contemporary Cuban Cultural Production.

TO REGISTER, send e-mail to bildner@gc.cuny.edu

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Carlos Garcia Pleyan
Cuban sociologist / urban planner Carlos Garcia Pleyan is visiting NYC from Oct. 1 to Oct. 28 invited by Pratt Institute's Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment.  I was able to hear him last Thursday at the Bildner Center and was very impressed.  The following information was provided by his host, Dr. Jill Hamberg.
Carlos is giving four talks open to the public on a variety of topics: the future of Havana, Cuba's emerging real estate market, and participation / decentralization. 

Please note that RSVPs are required for two of the events. Two talks will only be in Spanish and the others in Spanish with English interpretation. The PowerPoint slides will be in English for all talks.

Carlos is a highly respected professional with decades of experience both as a practitioner and as a scholar with a incisive analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing urban areas in Cuba.  For the English version of Carlos's analysis of the issues facing Havana, see https://www.progressivecity.net/single-post/Havana-an-impossible-equation

Thursday, Oct. 18 3-5 p.m. "El Mercado Inmobiliario en Cuba: Impactos y Desafios." The New School, 66 West 12th St., NY, NY. The Orozco Room, Room 712. RSVP: https://el-mercado-inmobiliaro-en-cuba.eventbrite.com Only in Spanish.

Friday, Oct. 19, 6-8 p.m. "Havana: Challenges and Opportunities." Pratt Institute Manhattan, 144 West 14th St., NY, NY, room 213 with English translation. No RSVP needed.

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 6-8 p.m. "Planeamiento Participativo, Descentralizacion y Desarrollo Local en Cuba," Columbia University Institute of Latin American Studies, International Affairs Building, 420 West 118th St., Room 802. Only in Spanish. No RSVP needed.

Carlos Garcia Pleyan has worked for 30 years as a staff member and researcher in the field of urban planning and land management in the national office of the Institute of Physical Planning (IPF) and the National Institute of Economic Research (INIE), as well as in various Cuban NGOs (MEPLA and Habitat-Cuba). He was an associate researcher at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland). Garcia Pleyan has published numerous articles in books and magazines and given lectures on regional, urban and community development in universities in Cuba, Europe and Latin America. From 2002 to 2011 he coordinated the local development program of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Cuba (COSUDE). He has been a professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), as well as the Jose Antonio Echeverria Technological University of Havana. He is currently a consultant to COSUDE and the Master Plan department of the Office of the City Historian of Havana.

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Sponsored by the Cuban Cultural Center of New York
Additional programs and annual meeting listed here http://www.cubanculturalcenter.org/

‘DEPARTURES’ ~ A PLAY BY EL CIERVO ENCANTADO
Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 5 pm

El Ciervo Encantado
, a Havana-based theatrical group, returns to New York City for a reprise of Departures, which premiered last year at The Greene Space. Written by Nelda Castillo, the group’s founder and director, Departures grapples with the phenomenon of Cuban emigration from 1959 through the present, and seeks communion with its audiences through personal history. Cuban migration has fragmented families, couples, friendships and communities, becoming a unifying element, a part of Cuban identity.

The performance features actress Mariela Brito as Cuba’s everywoman, telling her own story and those of the many who have departed. Surrounded by photographs of both illustrious and unknown Cubans who left to escape hunger, censorship, persecution and terror, she leads us through the national memory that is never discussed, but that is, among Cubans, an almost physical presence.

Since the suspension of almost all visa processing in Havana over a year ago, it has been all but impossible for Cuban performers to appear in the United States, making this a rare opportunity for New York audiences to engage with artists from the Island. The performance will be presented in Spanish with simultaneous English translation through earphones, followed by a Q&A with the artists.

 http://www.cubanculturalcenter.org/events/2018/08/departures-a-play-by-el-ciervo-encantado/

LA NACIONAL 239 West 14th Street  (between 7th & 8th Aves.), NYC

CCCNY & LA NACIONAL MEMBERS: FREE ADMISSION GENERAL AUDIENCE: $10
SECURE YOUR RESERVATIONS at: info@cubanculturalcenter.org


FÉLIX VARELA, EN EL 230 ANIVERSARIO DE SU NATALICIO
Tuesday, November 20, 2018 @ 6 pm
A celebration of the life and legacy of Padre Félix Varela (1788-1853), on the 230th anniversary of his birth. Varela was an outstanding scholar and paramount figure in the gestation of a Cuban national identity in the first half of the 19th century. His influence on intellectual thought and progressive ideas in Cuba, including equal education for women, the abolition of slavery, and the cause for the Island’s independence, cannot be overestimated. In the United States, his work in defense of immigrants in New York City, as well as his exemplary ministry in the service of others, earned him a lasting distinction as a social reformer and a path toward sainthood in the Catholic Church.

The commemorative presentation will be given by Bishop Osvaldo Cisneros, of the Diocese of Brooklyn, at the Church of the Transfiguration, founded by Padre Varela. Bishop Cisneros was named a Prelate of Honor by Pope John Paul II in 1988. He presently serves as vice-postulator of the Cause for Canonization of the Servant of God Félix Varela. He is a founding member and president of the Félix Varela Foundation.

http://www.cubanculturalcenter.org/events/2018/08/felix-varela-en-el-230-aniversario-de-su-natalicio/
This event will be held in Spanish with simultaneous English translation.
CHURCH OF THE TRANSFIGURATION29 Mott St, NYC

RSVP at:  info@cubanculturalcenter.org

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Travel on the Up-swing

After a hurricane, mysterious attacks, and U.S. warnings, travelers return to Cuba

October 08, 2018 08:00 AM
Updated October 08, 2018 10:58 AM