Inés María Martiatu Terry y Alberto Abreu fueron invitados para los estados unidos para dar unas conferencias.
Visitaron a la UniversidAd de Wilmington North Carolina que fue la que hizo la principal invitación.
Despues fueron a Chicago donde visitaron a Loyola University.
Tambien fueron a San Francisco, California a la Universidad de Santa Cruz.
ASUNTO: AGRADECEMOS LA DIVULGACIÓN DE ESTE MENSAJE- IV CONFERENCIA INTERNACIONAL “MUJER, GÉNERO Y DERECHO”- Cuba – 8 al 10 de mayo de 2012
Español – English
De nuestra mayor consideración:
Tenemos el gusto de dirigirnos a usted para adjuntarle la convocatoria oficial de la “IV Conferencia Internacional: Mujer, Género y Derecho”, que se celebrará del 8 al 10 mayo de 2012, en el Hotel Nacional de Cuba en La Habana, auspiciada por la Unión Nacional de Juristas de Cuba y la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas y con el co-auspicio de importantes instituciones y organizaciones nacionales e internacionales. Los días 11 y 12 desarrollaremos el Taller post-congreso Derecho y orientación sexual en el Caribe.
Solicitamos su colaboración para la promoción de la convocatoria ubicándola en sitios web, boletines, enviándola a grupos, así como por otras vías que se encuentren dentro de sus posibilidades; para que de esta forma llegue a profesores/as, estudiantes universitarios; jueces/zas, fiscales; colegios y asociaciones de abogados/a, bufetes, notarías, redes y organizaciones de mujeres, así como a otros y otras profesionales que puedan estar interesados(as).
Esperamos contar con su asistencia y con su valiosa contribución a los importantes debates que se desarrollarán durante esos días de análisis y reflexión.
Quedo de UD., con el testimonio de mi más alta consideración.
Muchas gracias de antemano
Fraternalmente
Ms C. Yamila González Ferrer
Coordinadora
IV Conferencia Internacional Mujer, Género y Derecho.
CONVOCATORIA INTERNACIONAL
IV CONFERENCIA INTERNACIONAL “MUJER, GÉNERO Y DERECHO”
Hotel Nacional de Cuba – 8 al 10 de mayo de 2012
La Unión Nacional de Juristas de Cuba y la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, convocan a la IV Conferencia Internacional “Mujer, Género y Derecho”, bajo el tema central: La discriminación de género en el Derecho y sus expresiones en la legislación y en la práctica jurídica. Medidas para enfrentarla en la actual coyuntura política, económica y social que enfrenta el mundo.
Co-auspiciadores
Nacionales
Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de La Habana
Centro de Estudios de la Mujer de la FMC
Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual
Internacionales
Asociación Americana de Juristas
Oficina Regional de la FDIM
OXFAM
RED ALAS
Ejes temáticos
- La categoría género, movimientos feministas, masculinidad y derecho.
- Género, igualdad y discriminación en el Derecho Constitucional. La vida política y Pública de las mujeres.
- el derecho internacional de los derechos humanos y la cedaw.
- Igualdad y discriminación de La mujer en las zonas rurales.
- Género, igualdad y discriminación en el Derecho de familia.
- Género, igualdad y discriminación en el Derecho penal.
- Género, igualdad y discriminación en el Derecho laboral.
Se desarrollará un Taller post-congreso sobre el tema Derecho y orientación sexual en el Caribe el viernes 11 y el sábado 12 de mayo.
La Conferencia y el Taller están abiertos a profesionales y estudiantes de Derecho y de otras ciencias sociales a quienes desde su esfera de actuación interesen las categorías conceptuales Género y Derecho.
Sobre la presentación de trabajos
Las personas interesadas podrán presentar ponencias o comunicaciones individuales que sean el resultado de estudios teóricos, de investigaciones realizadas o de la práctica profesional.
Las organizadoras de la Conferencia agradecen a los(as) ponentes la cesión gratuita del derecho a publicar las ponencias e intervenciones. En caso de estar de acuerdo con esta solicitud se especificará en el resumen.
La presentación de ponencias y comunicaciones, deberán ser enviadas al Comité Académico de la Conferencia hasta el 10 de abril de 2012 por los correos electrónicos: generoyderecho@yahoo.es // secretaria@unjc.co.cu, indicando: Nombres y apellidos de los(as) autores(as), con expresa referencia de quién o quiénes van a realizar la presentación; país; título del trabajo; tipo de presentación; Breve resumen del curriculum vitae del ponente, para su presentación por el coordinador de la sesión; institución a la que pertenece; dirección electrónica, número de teléfono o fax; medios audiovisuales que requiere para la presentación.
En el orden formal se requerirá de cada trabajo: que conste de un resumen de no más de doscientas palabras y que las comunicaciones tengan una extensión máxima de 10 cuartillas, en tanto que las ponencias podrán llegar a una extensión de 20 cuartillas.
El Comité Académico seleccionará los trabajos que se expondrán en el evento, dará a conocer a los(as) participantes los trabajos escogidos a través del correo electrónico y programará su presentación. Las modalidades de trabajo previstas son Conferencias Magistrales de reconocidas personalidades nacionales e internacionales y talleres de debate y discusión.
Comité Académico
Dra. Olga Mesa Castillo. Presidenta de la Sociedad Cubana de Derecho Civil y de Familia de la UNJC y Profesora Titular y Consultante de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de la Habana.
Dra. Mayda Álvarez Suárez. Directora del Centro de Estudios de la Mujer de la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas.
MsC. Yamila González Ferrer. Secretaria de la Sociedad Cubana de Derecho Civil y de Familia de la Unión Nacional de Juristas de Cuba y Profesora Asistente de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de La Habana.
Ms C. Mariela Castro Espín. Directora del Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX)
Ms C. Isabel Moya Ricardo. Directora de la Editorial de la Mujer de la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas. Profesora de la Facultad de Comunicación Social de la Universidad de La Habana.
Dr. Julio Cesar González Pagés. Profesor de la Facultad de Filosofía e Historia de la Universidad de La Habana.
Lic. Lidia Guevara Ramírez. Vicepresidenta de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Abogados Laboralistas y Secretaria de la Sociedad Cubana de Derecho Laboral y Seguridad Social.
Cuota de Inscripción
Delegados(as)-180.00 CUC
Conferencistas y ponentes- 140.00 CUC
Estudiantes de pregrado, previa presentación del documento acreditativo- 90.00 CUC.
Incluye: Participación en todas las sesiones de la Conferencia, brindis de bienvenida y de despedida, coffee breaks y certificado acreditativo de asistencia.
Acompañantes: 60.00 CUC
Incluye: Asistencia a todas las actividades incluidas en el programa de la Conferencia, al coctel de bienvenida y de despedida.
Taller post-congreso: Cuota de inscripción: 60.00 CUC, que incluye: Participación en todas las sesiones del Taller, coffee breaks, almuerzos y certificado acreditativo de asistencia.
El pago se efectuará en efectivo, en pesos convertibles cubanos (CUC), en el momento de la acreditación. Un peso convertible cubano (CUC) es equivalente a 1.00 dólares estadounidense cuando se realiza la operación por transferencia bancaria o tarjeta de crédito, o de débito no vinculada a bancos de Estados Unidos, como Visa, o se utiliza una moneda en efectivo que no sea el dólar estadounidense.
Los dólares estadounidenses en efectivo tienen en el país un gravamen adicional del 10% al cambiarse por pesos convertibles cubanos (CUC). Por un USD en efectivo, en las casas de cambio, se reciben 0.87 CUC (el 10% del gravamen, más el margen comercial que se aplica en el país a las operaciones bancarias), por lo que se recomienda utilizar preferiblemente efectivo, en euros, libras esterlinas, dólares canadienses, francos suizos, pesos mexicanos o yen japonés. Para mayor información ver: http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2011/03/14/cuba-restablece-paridad-entre-el-peso-convertible-y-el-dolar/
Solicitudes de Inscripción
Las solicitudes de participación se recibirán por escrito en la Sede Nacional, mediante fax, correo electrónico, teléfono u otra vía, hasta el 2 de mayo de 2012.
Los(as) interesados(as) en asistir al evento podrán contactar con las agencias de viajes en sus respectivos países, que trabajen el destino Cuba, las que establecerán comunicación con la Agencia en Cuba a fin de coordinar las reservas de los servicios.
Los(as) que deseen conocer otras ofertas económicas, podrán contactar con la Coordinadora de la Conferencia.
El Comité Organizador le estará muy agradecido a toda institución, agencia, medio de prensa o personas que publiquen esta convocatoria y la divulguen en universidades, colegios de abogados, notarías, entidades jurídicas, bufetes especializados, tribunales y otros que tengan vinculación con las temáticas convocadas.
PROGRAMA PRELIMINAR:
Lunes 7 y martes 8 de MAYO
9.00 AM – 3:00 PM. Acreditación en la Sede Nacional de la UNJC (Calle 21, esquina a D. Vedado. Plaza, La Habana)
MARTES 8 DE MAYO
SESIÓN DE LA TARDE – AULA MAGNA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE LA HABANA
4:00 PM – 4:30 PM. Palabras de Bienvenida
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM. Conferencia Magistral Inaugural.
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM. Interludio cultural
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM. BRINDIS de Bienvenida. Jardines de la Sede Nacional de la UNJC
MIÉRCOLES 9 DE MAYO
SESIÓN DE LA MAÑANA - Hotel Nacional. Salón 1930.
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM. Conferencia magistral
9:45 AM – 10:30 AM. Conferencia magistral
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM. Coffee break
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM. Conferencia magistral
11:45 AM- 12:30 AM. Conferencia magistral
SESIÓN DE LA TARDE – 3:00 PM- 6:00 PM Talleres de Debate. Sede Nacional de la UNJC
Tema 1: La categoría género, movimientos feministas, masculinidad y derecho.
tema 2: Género, igualdad vs discriminación en el Derecho Constitucional. La vida política y Pública de las mujeres.
tema 3: el derecho internacional de los derechos humanos y la cedaw.
Tema 4. Igualdad vs discriminación de La mujer en las zonas rurales.
7:00 PM. - Actividad cultural.
JUEVES 10 DE MAYO
SESIÓN DE LA MAÑANA - Hotel Nacional. Salón 1930
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM. Conferencia magistral
9:45 AM – 10:30 AM. Conferencia magistral
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM. Coffee break
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM. Conferencia magistral
11:45 AM- 12:30 AM. Conferencia magistral
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM. RECESO – Almuerzo libre
SESIÓN DE LA TARDE – 3:00 PM- 6:00 PM Talleres de Debate. Sede Nacional de la UNJC
Tema 5: Género, igualdad vs discriminación en el Derecho de familia.
tema 6: Género, igualdad vs discriminación en el Derecho penal.
tema 7: Género, igualdad vs discriminación en el Derecho laboral.
6: 30 PM - CLAUSURA. Hotel Nacional. Salón 1930
6:30 PM – 6:45 PM. Lectura de la Relatoría General
6:45 PM – 7:00 PM. Palabras de Despedida
7:00 PM -7:30 PM. Interludio cultural.
7:30 PM- 8:00 PM. receso
7:30 PM – 10:00 PM. BRINDIS de despedida. Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Salón 1930.
VIERNES 11 DE MAYO Y SÁBADO 12 DE MAYO
Taller Post-congreso: Derecho y orientación sexual en el Caribe.
9:00 AM a 1:00 PM
1:00 PM- 3:00 PM. ALMUERZO
3:00 PM- 6:00 PM.
Lugar: Sede Nacional de la UNJC. Calle 21 esquina a D, Vedado
PARA MAYOR INFORMACIÓN CONTACTAR A
Ms C. Yamila González Ferrer
Coordinadora
Secretaria de la JDN de la UNJC y de la Directiva Nacional de la Sociedad Cubana de Derecho Civil y de Familia.
Calle 21 No. 552, esq. a D, Vedado, Plaza,
Ciudad de La Habana Código Postal 10400
Tel: (537) 832-9680//832-6209/832-7562
Fax: (537) 833-3382.
E. mail: generoyderecho@yahoo.es, cubageneroyderecho@gmail.com, secretaria@unjc.co.cu,
Lic. Ibrahim Brull Milanés
Especialista Comercial, Agencia de Viajes HAVANATUR, S.A.
Calle 6 No. 117, Entre 1ra. y 3ra. Miramar, Playa, Ciudad de la Habana. Teléfono: (537) 204 1974 // 75. Fax: (537) 204 36 16. E-mail: ibrahim@havanatur.cu,
FORMULARIO DE INSCRIPCIÓN
IV CONFERENCIA INTERNACIONAL MUJER, GÉNERO Y DERECHO.
8 al 10 de mayo de 2012.
Taller Post-congreso: Viernes 11 y sábado 12 de mayo – 9 AM a 6:00 PM. Lugar: Sede Nacional de la UNJC. Calle 21 esquina a D, Vedado.
Un importante evento auspiciado por la Casa de las Américas y Common Ground
Education and Travel Services, de Massachusetts, fundada y dirigida
por Merri Ansara, se celebró en La Habana y Santa Clara del 23 al 27 de mayo pasado.
Su organizador e inspirador lo fue el escritor y periodista Pedro Pérez Sarduy.
En un ambiente de camaradería fraternizaron un grupo de académicas, escritoras, promotoras culturales y cineastas negras norteamericanas con mujeres de la cultura cubana.
Por Cuba participarona, Daisy Rubiera, historiadora, Nancy Morejón poetisa y ensayista, Gloria Rolando cineasta, Magia López rapera y directora de la Agencia Cubana de rap, Irene Esther Ruiz asesora de TV e investigadora de temas de la mujer y el deporte,Sandra Álvarez, psicóloga, periodista y bloguera, Inés María Martiatu, escritora, y por supuesto el moderador de todas fue Pedro Pérez Sarduy.
Por la parte nortamericana :
Prof. Kim Diane Butler (Profesora Asociada de Historia y Jefa de Estudios Africanos, Rutgers University)
Darlene Brown (Abogada)
Rosemarie Gordon-Wallace (Directora y Curadora de Arte Caribeño Contemporáneo y Directora de Diaspora Vibe, Miami)
Prof. Danille Taylor (Decana del College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences, Texas Southern University)
Prof. Haiqing Sun (Jefa del Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras, Texas Southern University)
Chareese Ross (Departamento de Educación, Washington, DC)
Prof. Jorge Salvo (Departamento de Literatura y Cultura Afro-Hispánica, Claflin University)
Betty Antonio-Andrews ( Director de cine, North Miami, Fl)
Prof. Faye Harrison (Departamento de Antropología y Estudios África-Americanos, University of Florida)
Lindsay Barnes (Estudiante Graduada, University of Florida)
Vanessa Greene (Artista fotógrafa y Consultora de Artes en Diaspora Vibe, Miami)
Prof. Carole Elizabeth Boyce Davies (Estudios Africanos y Centro de Investigación, Cornell University)
Carroll Parroll Blue (Profesora de cine en la Universidad de Houston)
Edieth Wu (Profesora de Derecho, Texas Southern University)
Shana Mirambeau (Estudiante Graduada, California State University)
La profesora Faye Harrison nos ofrece en su trabajo sus impresiones de este importante encuentro.
Afro-Cuban Women Debating Cuba Today
Contributor: Faye Harrison
I can remember the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. I was in elementary school, where we learned social studies within a Cold War framework. I remember the drills and exercises of getting under our desks to protect us from the nuclear bombs that were purportedly aimed at U.S. sites, military and civilian. Our lives were under threat, and the panic over national security permeated our everyday lives, especially in schools. I started my formal education at St. Joseph’s
Catholic School where the demonization of Castro’s Revolution offered a timely “teaching moment” for applying lessons from the catechism to world geography. Fidel Castro was evil as was the atheistic communism his revolution imposed on Cuban society, which had been officially Catholic before communism.
Somehow I didn’t internalize that indoctrination, and my evolving curiosity about Cuba and what used to be the Soviet Union led me to read about those places on my own, well beyond the textbook depictions–and distortions– of them. The bearded revolutionary leader, his Argentine comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Cuban society with, as I was to find out, its sizable presence of African descended people intrigued me. I still remember how engrossed I felt when I read about Cuba and the controversies associated with the rebel island in magazines and the library books I borrowed during Saturday afternoon excursions to the public library. Almost every weekend I would check out a stack of books on foreign countries. Cuba, Brazil, and South Africa were high on the list of places I wanted to know more about and, eventually, visit so I could see for myself what they were really like. Based on what I read, I admired Fidel’s utopian ideals and suspected that implementing them was a complicated, contradictory, and polarizing process. Over time, through more leisurely reading and, eventually, academic pursuits, I was able to add new layers and dimensions to my perspectives. My earlier romanticizations gave way to more demystified and critical views. My more nuanced perspective on Cuba’s complexities has also been influenced by opportunities to travel to the island.
Airport outside Havana
My most recent trip was just last month (May 2011). I was part of an exciting research dialogue on “Afro-Cuban Women Today” that Casa de las Américas (a government institution that promotes the work of writers, artists, and humanities scholars throughout the Caribbean and Latin America) hosted in conjunction with Common Ground, a U.S.-based education and travel service working with Afro-Cuban writer Pedro Pérez Sarduy. Sarduy is the author of the award-winning The Maids of Havana (a novel informed by his own mother’s life) and co-editor, with his wife historian Jean Stubbs, of Afro-Cuba and Afro-Cuban Voices. When I found out about the trip being planned around themes Pedro addresses in his writings, I was eager to become a part of the group. The plan was for us to have a series of intensive dialogues with Afro-Cuban writers, artists, social researchers, and workers in various settings in Havana and Santa Clara, the Sarduy family’s home town. Seeing today’s Cuba through the lens of Black women’s lived experiences, social thought and cultural/aesthetic production was a once-in-a-life opportunity for most of us. Moreover, the trip allowed me to follow up on issues I’d explored in my previous visit and in research I’d done in Jamaica, where I investigated the everyday effects of neoliberal globalization. During the 1990s I interviewed Afro-Cuban contract workers during the height of the “Special Period,” when they and their country were struggling to survive without the aid and markets of the former Soviet bloc. The intensification of the U.S. embargo exacerbated their predicament. They were working in Jamaica, through the mediation of a Venezuelan company, to help their households and families survive the crisis.
To adapt to the new conditions, the Cuban government implemented policies consistent with the logic of neoliberalism. Some measures of privatization and foreign investment were pursued with a big emphasis on developing tourism in its various forms, including heritage tourism with an emphasis on Afro-Cuban music and religion.
Tour bus in Havana
Rumba performers
The uneven effects of this strategy made life extremely hard for the masses of Cubans, especially Afro-Cubans, who are less likely to have access to remittances from émigré relatives or from formal means of employment and entrepreneurship in the tourist sector. Afro-Cuban women, who are disproportionately single household heads, have borne the brunt of responsibility for meeting the subsistence requirements of their families and communities. For many Cubans today, the economic austerity of the 1990s Special Period persists. Those routinized conditions, along with the racial and racialized gendered disparities and discrimination exhibited during these critical times, have deepened many people’s dissatisfaction with the quality of life in Cuba. However, much of the dissatisfaction and social criticism does not coincide with the anti-socialist stance of Cuban émigré and government critics in the U.S. One of the most interesting things I learned from the dialogues is that a public sphere is being forged for debate on issues about which constructively critical intellectuals and artists—and the larger communities to which they belong—care a great deal.
The Common Ground group met with a dynamic group of scholars, artists, and workers. Most of the latter had employment histories that pre-dated the revolution. They were associates and the surviving sister of Marta, the woman who inspired Sarduy’s The Maids of Havana. They worked in affluent white Cuban homes in neighborhoods like Vedado and Miramar. This older generation of women we met emphasized the major changes for the better that the revolution had brought into their lives. The revolution gave them opportunities to work in other occupations with better pay and work conditions. Because of the revolution, their children had access to healthcare, education and employment mobility to an extent inconceivable before the revolution. Although beneficiaries of Cuba’s socialism, the second generation, who came of age after the revolution, spoke of how racism hadn’t been eliminated and still persists. This generation as well as today’s youth and young adults express greater frustration and disappointment over their society’s constraints, over not being able to realize their dreams. In an interview writer Yusimí Rodríguez published in HavanaTimes.org last month, Omar, a university-educated man who makes his living as a street vendor selling books, states: “This country kills your dreams … they squeeze you and in the end you don’t have anything.” He makes much more money on the streets than from the teaching and coaching he did for “more than twenty years.” He goes on to explain that the positive things about Cuban society, “free education, free health care and all those things everybody knows about… aren’t everything in life” (“Omar, a Cuban Athlete, Trainer, and Bookseller”). In other words, the meaning of the good life goes beyond the universal benefits, especially when they’ve been used to rationalize the repression of political dissent and independent sociocultural expression.
Poet Nancy Morejon
Ines Maria “Lalita” Matiatu, narrative writer & cultural historian
Some of the amazing women we met and learned so much from were the internationally acclaimed poet and literary scholar Nancy Morejón (“Mujer Negra”), filmmaker Gloria Rolando (“Roots of My Heart”), historian, Daisy Rubiera (Reyita, her mother’s testimonio), the narrative writer, theater critic, and cultural historian Inés María “Lalita” Matiatu (Over the Waves and Other Stories), blogger Sandra Álvarez (http://negracubanateniaqueser.wordpress.com), and the feminist hip hop artist, Magia MC (Magia López), of the husband-wife rap duo, Obsesión. Although I found all of these women to be as inspiring as they were informative, I was especially intrigued by the younger women who make their voices public and exercise civic leadership by contributing to the overlapping and transnationally-situated spheres of popular culture and cyberspace. For instance, the music videos (“Se Busca,” “Los Pelos” and “Esta es mi Mamá”) that Obsesión produces on their home PC are available on YouTube, making their art accessible internationally as well as to their immediate Cuban audience, which enjoys and participates in live performances. In the case of Álvarez’s blog, she and her contributors raise issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia that are not adequately addressed in mainstream media.
Sandra Alvarez, blogger
Magia MC
Because Matiatu, a mentor to many young writers and bloggers, had encouraged her to attend, Yusimí Rodríguez López, an aspiring fiction writer and a contributor to the two-year old online news publication, HavanaTimes.org (published in both Spanish and English), attended the Casa de las Américas dialogues. I so enjoyed my conversation with her that, upon my return home, I’ve read several of her articles and interviews on freedom of the press, street musicians, transvestites, and other aspects of everyday life and “spiritual rhythm” in Havana. (She is quoted to have used this latter phrase in characterizing Cuba to U.S. writer Paul Nelson; http://www.globalvoicesradio.org/cuba/pages/17_jpg.html .) She also wrote a provocative commentary on “nappy” hair, “Lidiando con mi ‘pasa’”/Dealing with my nappy hair) for Sandra’s blog that’s been posted on another site as well. (Ethnolust posted a reflection on it a few days ago.)
Yusimi Rodriguez, writer
Although she writes for online periodicals and blogs, in a recent email message to me she claimed that she rarely sees her writings online. She is too busy, and when she has access to a computer, the Internet connection is extremely poor. Nonetheless, she fares much better than the average Cuban, who has little to no access to email or the web. This is a paradox that Cuban bloggers and online journalists face. Consequently, the online sphere of debate and cultural critique that’s been expanded to include such interlocutors as Sandra, Yusimí and their mentor Lalita Matiatu (http://afrocubana.wordpress.com/ ) does not, like radio and television, reach a mass Cuban audience. Yet the limited access that does exist to these online sites of discursive and cultural struggle aren’t blocked or censored as are sites deemed to be “counterrevolutionary.” This suggests that these relatively new cyberspatial projects are the outcome of an ongoing negotiation between the counter-publics of civil society and the state, which struggles to sustain its legitimacy in a context of growing social disparities and ideological contestation. The international accessibility of these blogs and other e-publications facilitates an exchange of ideas beneficial to all concerned, ensuring that the embargo does not prevent the flow of ideas and intercultural communications. I welcome these and other means of familiarizing myself with how Afro-Cuban women influence the terms of debate at home and abroad on Cuban society today and its potential tomorrow.
Contributed by Faye V. Harrison
COMMENTS
Jafari Sinclaire Allen says:
Thank you Faye, for this interesting post on your most recent visit to Cuba, to connect with these dynamic black Cuban women. This is such an exciting moment of change and opportunity and connection, and at the same time one of such difficulty– and most of all, complexity. I am very happy to see this conversation taking place on ETHNOLUST– a bit selfishly because my new book, ¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba, engages in these issues as well, and I am anxious for more conversation on contemporary black Cuba. The book comes out in August, and I look forward to your comments on it! in the meantime 
here’s a short piece I did for Latin American Perspectives on Black Cuba and Black US http://jafariallen.com/2011/05/29/looking-black-at-revolutionary-cuba/
Faye V Harrison says:
Thanks, Jafari, for taking the time to read this post, based on a glimpse of Afro-Cuban women’s lives based on conversations and readings.. Your book has been anticipated for some time, so I look forward to reading it. Thanks for the link to your article, and I am glad that you mention the pending pubication of your book here.
jonesmyopinion says:
Thank you, Faye! Thank you for sharing your experiences and enlightening me about Ethnolust. I’m a subscriber!
There’s so much to learn in terms of this subject. To be quite honest, when pondering women in Cuba, my mind always delivers me to Assata Shakur.
Yet, her story is not their story. Afro-Cuban women have a host of historical and contemporary jewels to heap upon us. All we need do is listen. Barbie Jones, My Opinion
Faye V Harrison says:
Barbie, Thanks for your comments! And for mentioning/remembering Assata Shakur, who has a relationship with some of the Afro-Cuban women I’ve mentioned, particularly Gloria Rolando. Rolando has documented Shakur’s exile and the intersections between African American and Afro-Cuban struggles in “Eyes of the Rainbow,” a powerful film that I saw for the first time some eleven years ago. It’s so important that more of us know about independent film like these.
Felicia Anonyuo says:
I’ve been warming up recently to academic discourse on social conditions and challenges for Afro peoples but there is still a lingering feeling or sense of futility about the power or role of such discourse in ultimately leading to a betterment of the condition of the Afro person in Cuba and elsewhere in the world. Here again, is an article that stimulates thought which for me is a sharp and direct focus on the “what next?” of racism rather than on how fast Castro and his ilk can keep up with the neoliberal march. The consciousness sustained by the work of these artists shine important light on the flusterings from below that I hope will meet the political someday, somehow. Cuba in the news recently seems to lean toward breaking out of the old mold, at least partially. I can only hope that this means more freedom of expression, and increasingly, a rapprochement of artistic courage and social change. Thank you, “High Priestess” and “Custodian” for teaching from the high seas.
Faye V Harrison says:
Thanks for your comments, which raise an important point about the need for change and the limits of academic reportage. But in this case especially, the blockade has made it difficult for most of us to know what the experience of ordinary Cuban, especially Afro-Cubans are as they themselves would characterize it beyond the party line. I feel that some of what I was told by these women and especially in their writings gets at that kind of honest perspective that’s critical yet aware that the answer to their societal contradictions are not those being proposed on this side of the 90 mile distance from Florida. Whether, when and how these articulate women’s interrogations and critiques are transformed into political formation is a question for us to asnwer through our witnessing and solidarity. At this stage, I thought that just writing this piece and others in the future might be a step in that direction. Some of my travel companions and I are also putting our heads together to find other, more concrete ways of putting solidarity into reasonable action–in admiration and deference to our Cuban collegues, who are agents in their own historical crucible. There is a lot that we can do as citizens here–for example: educating the public (including our students who are part of the “real world” as they study in post-secondary institutions, most of which are subject to the logic that anthropologists and other social scientists study in various sites “over there/”). African Americans and other African peoples have a long history as critics lobbying US foreign policy. This is what TransAfrican Forum does specifically from a Black perspective, but there are other organizations as well. An integral part of the “homework” we intellectuals must do is to apply our research skills to ourselves and our own society to find out what the social and political organization of civil society is in its negotiations with state apparatuses, processes and effects. Perhaps then we can make informed choices about how best to position ourselves to work for change in strategicaly concerted ways. There’s so much civic work that needs to be done. It’s important to begin somewhere. In view of your background as a mover and shaker, I look forward to continuing this conversation.
NEW YORK, NY, 20 de agosto de 2011, autora Alicia Anabel Santos lanza su libro: Finding Your Force A Journey to Love ~
Encontrando tu Fuerza: Un Sendero De Amor.
Encontrando tu Fuerza (Finding Your Force) es un libro de memorias escrito en la forma de una carta de amor dirigida a una hija. Es una conversación íntima que viaja a las partes más oscuras del alma de Alicia. Caminamos con ella debajo de las ruinas, donde todos sus secretos se mantenían ocultos hasta ahora. La escritora excava dentro de sí misma para encontrar esa fuerza que le permitiera enfrentar esos momentos que la han transformado desde sobrevivir una violación sexual, sanar sus heridas y su salida del closet como lesbiana.. Encontrando tu Fuerza es una excursión por la vida, muerte y renacimiento de la escritora. Alicia le dice a su hija una historia que es cruda y desgarradora. No es otra historia sobre el amor, pero sin duda es una historia de amor. Encontrando tu Fuerza se acaba de publicar el 6 de agosto de 2011 (410 pp, TPB, $ 19.99, ISBN: 9780983794301).
Sobre La Autora
Alicia Anabel Santos es una escritora latina, productora y dramaturga. Dominicana nacida en New York, Apasionda en escribir obras que impulsa e inspira a las mujeres a encontrar su voz interior. Actualmente, está terminando su novela de ficción titulada, Las Hijas de la Revolución. Ella es la fundadora de New York City Latina Writers Group. La escritora Alicia Anabel Santos ha Co-producido durante tres años el documental Afrolatinos: La Historia que Qunca Nos Contaron (WWW.AFROLATINOS.TV) y escribio y dirigio su obra de teatro titulada I WAS BORN (Yo Naci) la cual fue elegida como uno de los primeros lugares del Festival de teatro en New York, esta obra te lleva a través del laberinto de América Latina donde siete valientes mujeres cuentan sus historias. Alicia vive en Harlem, New York y trabaja como escritora independiente y activista contra el abuso físico y sexual hacia las mujeres y los niños. Asistió a las Universidades New York University y Rhode Island College.
Dicho por los Lectores:
“Tengo mucho respeto por tu espíritu,tu fuerza y sinceridad. Muchas personas no son capaces de sobrevivir el tipo de trauma que estás escribiendo. “
“Estoy tan orgullosa de ti por defender tus palabras, por darte cuenta de tu valor, una y otra vez. Estoy feliz de que nos muestres tu humanidad y permites a tus lectores ver dónde te duele y ver como revives y ganas fuerza otra vez. La gente responde porque inicias el diálogo, pensamientos, y palabras! También muestras lo que no toleras, lo que no es negociable. Y que a tu espacio solo entra quien tu autoriza, tu no permita que nadie entre a ti sin tu acceso, lo que demuestra que todavía estás en control. ¿Cómo te mantienes fuerte? Siendo fiel a todo lo que eres ahora y todo lo que estás haciendo para llegar a ser!”
LIBRO DISPONIBLE EN AMAZON.COM
DETALLES DEL EVENTO
Sábado, 20 de agosto 2011, 16:00-19:00 / 4:00pm – 7:00pm EST
Hue-Man Bookstore & Café, 2319 Frederick Douglass Boulevard Nueva York, NY 10027
La autora está disponible para charlas y reuniones de organización de la comunidad. Para concertar la firma de libros o entrevistas contactar a Emma Díaz por email: findingyourforce@gmail.com.
Ines Maria Martiatu