Recovering the Cuban Émigré Press of the 19th Century
The Preserving Voices project strives to re-establish the tradition and showmanship of the lector de tabaquería. Like those who once read to the cigar workers of Key West, Ybor City, West Tampa, New York and beyond, our distinguished readers showcase their talents as they perform key essays and articles published within the Cuban émigré press of the latter half of the nineteenth century. In addition to their historical importance, these articles are often vivacious and riveting in style and substance, conveying deep passion, strong social commitment, striking elegance and prescient insight. Thanks to a generous grant from the Florida Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for José Martí Studies Affiliate at The University of Tampa can now begin to bring these important voices back to life, offering a new and entertaining way to discover and explore these fascinating communities.
Please join us for any of our free, virtual one-hour public programs, when we will highlight important articles, listen to them being read as a lector might have performed them originally and discuss their historical importance with a panel of prestigious scholars. Click below for more information on each program and how to attend.
*Banner photo courtesy of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System.
- Formations of Cuban Identity
- Representations of Revolution
- Constructing Local Community
- Immigrant Perspectives
Formations of Cuban Identity and Nationhood
Public Program on Oct. 3, 2023, at 7 p.m.
Moderated by James López, Ph.D.
Kenya C. Dworkin is professor of Hispanic studies, with appointments in English, history, global studies, international relations and the Program for Deliberative Democracy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her current book project is Before Latino: How Cuban Theater in Tampa Shaped an American Immigrant Society.
Lisandro Pérez is a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at John Jay College, City University of New York. His most recent book is Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York (NYU Press, 2018).
Read by James López. Presented by Gerald E. Poyo, O’Connor Professor in the History of Hispanic Texas and the Southwest, at St. Mary's College. He is the author and editor of seven books, including Exile and Revolution: Jose Dolores Poyo, Key West, and Cuban Independence.
Representations of Revolution
Public Program on Nov. 8, 2023, at 7 p.m.
Moderated by Denis Rey, Ph.D.
Ada Ferrer is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. Her most recent book, Cuba: An American History (Simon & Schuster, 2022) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History.
Bonnie A. Lucero is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean examining the intersections of race and gender in Cuba. Her first book, Revolutionary Masculinity and Racial Inequality: Gendering War and Politics in Cuba, 1895-1902 (U New Mexico P, 2018), explores how Cuban soldiers employed ideas about manhood to negotiate racial hierarchy during the transition from colony to republic.
Clay Risen is the deputy op-ed editor at The New York Times, and the author of three critically acclaimed works of history, most recently The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders and the Dawn of the American Century, which The New York Times book review named one of its 50 notable works of nonfiction for 2019.
The Key of the Gulf (July 3, 1886)
The Key of the Gulf (July 3, 1886): “Detrás de los filibusteros.”
Constructing Local Community: Ybor City and West Tampa
Public Program on Jan. 28, 2023, at 11 a.m. at the Charlene A. Gordon Theater, University of Tampa
Moderated by James López, Ph.D.
The Hon. Emiliano J. Salcines was the elected State Prosecuting Attorney in Tampa for 16 years. Judge Salcines is a recognized authority on the history of Florida and is a founding member and trustee of the Tampa Bay History Center and former vice president of the Tampa Historical Society. He was president of the West Tampa Centennial Society and chairman of Tampa’s award-winning activities celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America that brought the replicas of Columbus’ three ships to Tampa Bay. He currently is the U.S. representative on the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Immigration in Spain.
Maura Barrios holds an M.A. in Latin American history from the University of South Florida and is a recognized historian focused on the history of Tampa’s Cuban communities of West Tampa and Ybor City. Maura was curator of the Ybor State Museum exhibit, “Tampa y Cuba: More Than 100 Years,” and in 2004 she received a major grant from the Florida Humanities Council for the community autobiography project, “Our West Side Stories: Voces de West Tampa.”
Tampa Journal (Jan. 26, 1887): "Problemas en Ybor City" Article 1
Tampa Journal (Jan. 26, 1887): "Problemas en Ybor City" Article 2
Gabriel Cartaya holds a degree in Latin American, Caribbean and Cuban studies from the University of Havana, where he was a professor and researcher. He is a recognized Martí specialist and author of the books Con las últimas páginas de José Martí (Editorial Oriente, 1995), José Martí en 1895 (Cuba, 2001), Luz al universo (Gente Nueva, 2006), Domingos de tanta luz (2019), and most recently, Tampa en la obra de José Martí (Ed. Surco Sur, 2021). He is the Spanish editor of La Gaceta, the nation’s only trilingual newspaper, currently celebrating its 100 th anniversary (1922-2022) under the guidance of the iconic Manteiga family.
Patria (May 28, 1892): La Revista de Florida
Patria (Dec. 31, 1898): Declaration (Declaration on the Closure of the Newspaper Patria)
Immigrant Perspectives of American Life
Time and Date: March 20, 2024
Moderated by Adolfo Lagomasino, Ph.D.
Dalia Antonia Caraballo Muller is a historian interested in the movement of ideas and people across space and time in the Americas. She is a graduate of Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied Latin American and Caribbean history. She is the author of Cuban Émigrés and Independence in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf World published by UNC Press (2017) and is currently at work on two book projects, one exploring African freedom-seeking/dreaming practices in early twentieth-century Cuba, and a long history of the interconnected “Gulf World” in the Americas. In addition to teaching and research, Muller has served as associate dean of undergraduate education and director of the University Honors College at the University at Buffalo. She is the founder of the Impossible Project, a transformative learning model for university teaching.
Kelley Kreitz is an associate professor of English and an affiliate faculty member in Latinx Studies at Pace University in New York City, where she also directs the university's digital humanities center, Babble Lab. Her research on U.S.-based Spanish-language print culture has appeared in American Literary History, American Periodicals, English Language Notes, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos and the digital mapping project C19LatinoNYC.org. She was a co-director of the 2021 NEH-funded working group, “Pursuing the Potential of Digital Mapping in Latinx Studies” and of the 2020 NEH Summer Institute, “City of Print,” on New York City print history. She serves on the board of the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project at the University of Houston and on the steering committee of New York City Digital Humanities (NYCDH). She is completing a book called Electrifying News: A Hemispheric History of the Present in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture.
Carolina A. Villarroel holds a Ph.D. in Spanish literature with a specialization in U.S. Latino Literature and Women's Studies. She is the former archivist in charge of the Mexican American and African American Collections at the Houston Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston Public Library and in 2011, she became a Certified Archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists. Her expertise in U.S. Latino culture and literature has been fundamental to her positions at the University of Houston (UH), where she is the Brown Foundation Director of Research of the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, a national program whose goal is to identify, preserve, study and make accessible the written production of Latinos/as in the United States from the colonial period until 1980. Villarroel also teaches literature, research methods and gender studies at the University of Houston. She and her colleague, Gabriela Baeza Ventura, are co-founders of the first US Latina/o digital humanities Center (USLDH).
discover more
