The Cuban Research Institute will host the visit of Kimiko Nicole LeNeave, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, San Diego, between September and December 2022. She will conduct archival research at the Díaz-Ayala Collection of Cuban and Latin American Popular Music.
Kimiko's doctoral dissertation, titled "Rhythms of Revolution: A Cold War History of Cuban-Chilean Cultural Exchange and Political Transformation," focuses on the period between the Cuban Revolution of 1959 until the defeat of revolutionary-left horizons in the 1980s. She seeks to understand the impact and significance of Latin America's song movements by highlighting the ways transnational networks of musicians and insurgents developed. Using Cuba and its hemispheric neighbors, she explores the extent to which Movimiento de Nueva Trova and Nueva Canción Chilena animated the politics of the socialist left during Latin America's Cold War.
Kimiko Nicole LeNeave holds a bachelor's degree in History and Latin American Studies, with a minor in Music, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has received several research fellowships and grant awards, including a Tinker Field Research Grant, a UC Cuba Travel Award, and a Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grant at FIU. She has conducted archival research and oral histories in Cuba, the United States, and Mexico.
