Credit for banner image above: Professors Juan Antonio Blanco, Uva de Aragón, Jorge Duany, Guillermo J. Grenier, Orlando Márquez, and Cristina Eguizábal at the presentation of The Cuban Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century at the Ermita de la Caridad in Miami. Photo by Wenceslao Cruz Blanco, Flickr, 2011.
In 2011, the Cuban Research Institute received a grant from the Open Society Foundations in Canada for a project on "Strengthening the Role of the Cuban Diaspora." One of the project's basic aims was to promote the modification of Cuban migration laws and policies that would acknowledge migrant rights, including respect for Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guaranteeing the freedom of movement and residence. One of the main results of this initiative was the creation of a high-level academic commission to draft a "white paper" assessing Cuban migration policies and recommending their alignment with universal standards in the field. The members of this commission were Dr. Juan Antonio Blanco, then at FIU; Dr. Uva de Aragón, formerly at FIU; Dr. Jorge Domínguez, Harvard University; Dr. Jorge Duany, then at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras; Mr. Orlando Márquez, then representing the Archdiocese of Havana; and Dr. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh. The report was published in English and Spanish in July 2011.
The next step, starting in October 2011, was the dissemination of the report of the commission—together with the results of the 2011 FIU Cuba Poll—in Washington, D.C. (at the Inter-American Dialogue); Miami (at the sanctuary of La Ermita de la Caridad); Mexico City (at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas); Madrid (at Casa de América); Havana (at the Casa Sacerdotal Juan María Vianney); and Santo Domingo (at the Instituto Nacional de Formación Agraria y Social).
The Catholic Church in Havana printed the report and distributed it to key individuals and institutions as well as to the libraries of various archdioceses throughout the island. Additionally, the website of Palabra Nueva—the journal of the Archdiocese of Havana—published the proceedings of the event in Cuba with links to the digital version of the report.
The report was later published as a book, La diáspora cubana en el siglo XXI (Miami: Eriginal Books), in 2012.
Click here for the English version of the report
Pulse aquí para la versión en español del informe
A video of the presentation of the report in Madrid can be accessed here.