“On Dec. 17, 2014 Obama made history by opening up relations with Cuba after over half a century of closure…”

Transdiaspora Network would like to announce the opening of its new Cultural Studies chapter. We aim to draw out the connection between culture, immigration, and health through research on diasporic cultures. The first step of this initiative is partnering with literary journalist Vanessa Garcia, author of the upcoming book, “Our Cuban Routes,” a journalistic study of the American Born Cuban (ABC) community.

“It has everything to do with Diaspora and the affects of Diaspora.”

Garcia’s research centers around American Born Cubans’ relationship to Cuba and how it has shaped US-Cuban Relations. “This is a cultural study… not a political one,” she writes, “It’s a story driven by statistical data, but also by interviews that explore the personal and the narrative.” Garcia views the Caribbean diaspora through a Cuban lens, “comparing and contrasting this particular Diasporic panorama…with that of other Diasporas in the United States.”

The Cultural Studies chapter of Transdiaspora Network will use Garcia’s and other scholars’ research to inform our work with immigrant youth, helping us recognize the cultural nuances and social traumas of particular groups so that we can take an informed approach to promoting youth health. As Garcia states in her abstract, “the ‘our’ in Our Cuban Routes extends beyond the hyphenated Cuban, and into the realm of the hyphenated American.” The book takes on a holistic view of the individual through its narrative form and its focus on cultural study, spearheading a new level of engagement at Transdiaspora Network.

See the abstract of “Our Cuban Routes” below.

  

Our Cuban Routes (Abstract)

by Vanessa Garcia

On Dec. 17, 2014 Obama made history by opening up relations with Cuba after over half a century of closure. This has not been a sudden shift. It has been a long time coming, and has everything to do with a slow churning movement within the exile community, and the new-born opinions of the children of exiles, ABC’s (or American Born Cubans). In other words, it has everything to do with Diaspora and the affects of Diaspora. This book is our story — the story of ABCs and their relationship to Cuba, their Cuban routes/roots, and the fall of the familial embargo.

The Familial Embargo — the idea that older generations of Cuban-Americans barred themselves and their children from returning to the island for so long — is, in essence, the embargo that had to be broken before the economic embargo came into question. This is a cultural study, however, not a political one. It a story driven by statistical data, but also by interviews that explore the personal and the narrative, combining the fine-tuned eye of an academic with the storytelling technique of a literary journalist. By starting here, what I am doing, in essence, is writing a book about ABCs and their relationship to the island of Cuba and what that relationship has meant to US-Cuban relations. Further still, however, I will be comparing and contrasting this particular Diasporic panorama (that of the Cuban, Cuban-American, and the ABC) with that of other Diasporas in the United States. The “our” in Our Cuban Routes extends beyond the hyphenated Cuban, and into the realm of the hyphenated American.