Banner image above: CRI screening and discussion of the documentary The Harvard Cubans (2017), directed by Danny González Lucena. Photo by David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University.
FIU has an international reputation for excellence in Cuban and Cuban American studies. Among its many achievements since its founding, CRI has:
- Raised more than $3.4 million in funding from private foundations, nonprofit organizations, and individual gifts and contributions.
- Won a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish a fellowship program for threatened Cuban scholars in the humanities, to help artists, writers, academics, and journalists from the island to continue their work abroad.
- Represented FIU on a national consortium of Hispanic-serving public research universities that received a $5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative.
- Led a collaborative research project, together with the Dominican Studies Institute at the City University of New York and the Puerto Rico Research Hub at the University of Central Florida, on the cultural identities of Latinos in Miami, New York City, and Orlando.
- Coedited the volume Cuba and Puerto Rico: Transdisciplinary Approaches to History, Literature, and Culture, based on a selection of papers presented at the Twelfth Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies at FIU.
- Edited the volume Picturing Cuba: Art, Culture, and Identity on the Island and in the Diaspora, based on a CRI art conference held at the Frost Art Museum.
- Published a book about the Cuban diaspora, based on a selection of papers presented at the Ninth Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies at FIU.
- Organized fourteen instances of the largest international Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies outside the island, attracting hundreds of scholars from a wide range of fields and scholarly interests.
- Cosponsored the FIU Cuba Poll, the longest-running survey of Cuban American views on U.S. policy toward Cuba.
- Cosponsored an international conference on Cuban literature and culture, resulting in the edited volume Reading Cuba.
- Cosponsored the publication of Briefings on Cuba, a series of analyses of current Cuban affairs by top experts.
- Edited two special issues of Hemisphere magazine devoted to Cuba.
- Hosted more than thirty visiting scholars, conducting various research projects in Cuban and Cuban American studies, three of them supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program.
- Sponsored InCubando@FIU, a summer training program for independent business owners in Cuba, funded by private donations.
- Organized three installments of a Summer Cuban Art Institute for teachers in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
- Sponsored the largest oral history project ever on the Bay of Pigs invasion.
- Received two grants from the Open Society Foundations in Canada and the Ford Foundation to assess the potential impact of the Cuban diaspora on the island's development.
- Published a report on The Cuban Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century, which was presented and distributed in Washington, D.C., Miami, Mexico City, Madrid, Havana, and Santo Domingo.
- Received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study Latino civic engagement in Miami, Chicago, and Phoenix (in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame and Arizona State University).
- Hosted a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellowship Program in the Humanities. In 1994–98, the program brought fourteen scholars from various countries, including Cuba, to FIU for one-semester fellowships on the program theme: "Island and Diaspora: National Identity, Sovereignty, and Reconciliation in the 21st Century."
- Won a national competition for the editorship of Cuban Studies in 2000–06. Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, the journal has been the preeminent publication for scholarly work on Cuba since 1970.
- Cosponsored three iterations of a summer institute for social studies teachers on The History of Cuba and the Cuban American Experience, organized by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
- Inaugurated the following projects:
- Classically Cuban: a concert series held since 1994, featuring musical pieces with Cuban themes by composers from Cuba and elsewhere.
- CRI Lecture Series: launched in 2003, these lectures bring distinguished experts on Cuban and Cuban American topics to Miami.
- CRI at Books & Books: a series of book presentations by prominent authors writing about Cuba and its diaspora.
- Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants: cosponsored by the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center and the FIU Libraries, these grants make more widely accessible FIU's resources on Cuba and its diaspora.
- Eliana Rivero Research Scholarship: thanks to the generosity of Dr. Eliana S. Rivero, the scholarship supports Cuba-related research by graduate students and faculty members.
- Governance and Social Justice in Cuba: Past, Present, and Future: an international initiative bringing together scholars, policy analysts, and civil society actors, cosponsored by the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Mexico and the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL).
- Cultura al borde / Culture on the Edge: an artistic exchange program, funded by the Ford Foundation, that allowed Cuban and Cuban American artists to share their work with the community.
- The Cuba Forum: a series of policy-relevant discussions cosponsored by the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy in 2004–05 and by the Inter-American Dialogue in 2005–10.
- The Félix González-Torres Community Art Project: an arts education initiative designed to promote an artistic culture at the university and to honor the legacy of Cuban American artist González-Torres.
- The CRI-University Press of Florida Cuba Series, including Cuba Transnational, an edited collection of essays on Cuba and its diaspora.
- Developed a national and international reputation as a pioneer research center in the development of collaborative academic ties with Cuba. Dozens of Cuban scholars, writers, and artists have visited FIU to give lectures, collaborate with our faculty and students, and conduct their own research.
- Supported FIU faculty and graduate student research on Cuba.
- Hosted numerous seminars and conferences, sometimes resulting in edited publications, as well as lectures and other programs intended as outreach to the local community.
- Established an Undergraduate Certificate Program in Cuban and Cuban American Studies.
- Developed a Cuban studies concentration within the Master of Arts in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.