Credit for banner image above: Port view of Santiago de Cuba, 1900. Elena Kurstin Collection, Special Collections & University Archives, Florida International University Libraries.
Florida International University boasts a unique array of library resources for student and faculty research on Cuba and Cuban America, including the following collections:
Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection
The Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection is the most comprehensive of its kind in the world. Originally valued at over a million dollars, it comprises approximately 150,000 items that span the history of popular Cuban and other Latin musics. The collection features 45,000 LPs; 15,000 78 rpms; 4,500 cassettes containing interviews with composers and musicians, radio programs, music, and other materials; 5,000 pieces of sheet music; 3,000 books; and thousands of CDs, photographs, videocassettes, and paper files. Among the collection's rarest items are early recordings made in prerevolutionary Cuba. The collection, donated to FIU in 2001, was started in the 1950s by Cristóbal Díaz-Ayala and restarted all over again in Puerto Rico in the 1960s.
Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. dLOC provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical, and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections. dLOC comprises collections that speak to the similarities and differences in histories, cultures, languages, and governmental systems. Types of collections include but are not limited to newspapers, archives of Caribbean leaders and governments, official documents, documentation, and numeric data for ecosystems, scientific scholarship, historic and contemporary maps, oral and popular histories, travel accounts, literature and poetry, musical expressions, and artifacts.
Latin American & Caribbean Studies Guide
This guide assists in identifying resources on Latin American & Caribbean Studies and describing resources held at the Florida International University Libraries. Its goal is to support research and teaching on Latin America and the Caribbean by serving as a gateway for library services and resources and by integrating the university-wide information literacy initiative.
Mario Díaz Cruz Cuban Library
FIU's Law Library acquired the library of the well-known Cuban lawyer Mario Díaz Cruz, who practiced law in Havana from 1915 to 1958. When Mario Díaz Cruz, Sr., died in 1958, the collection had approximately six thousand volumes and was transferred to Mario Díaz Cruz, Jr., who brought it to Miami in 1959. The Rainforth Foundation of Coral Gables later acquired the collection and donated it to the College of Law Library in 2007. The main emphasis of the collection is private law, including commercial law, property, wills and trusts, banking, contracts, and constitutional law. A unique aspect of this collection is Mario Díaz Cruz's handwritten annotations of the Cuban civil code. The annotations contain references to journal articles, treatises, court decisions and related legislation, as well as commentaries on many other topics.
Special Collections & University Archives
The mission of the Special Collections & University Archives is to acquire and preserve rare, unique resources which will provide additional sources to augment the research needs of patrons from the university and the wider community. The Special Collections & University Archives span the disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities, with a general focus on Cuban, Caribbean (Spanish, British, and French), Brazilian, and Florida/Miami interests. In addition to the administrative records of FIU, the archive collections reflect the history, culture, and architecture of the South Florida region.
- Ahlander Visual Arts Collection
Donated by the FIU Frost Art Museum, the Ahlander Collection consists of brochures and information on artists from Latin America and the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica. The files include the research notes of Miami Herald art critic Leslie Judd Ahlander. - Alberto Bolet Collection
The Bolet Archives cover the professional and personal life of Cuban-born conductor Alberto Bolet. The records cover his tenure and work with numerous symphonies, including the Cape Town and Durban Symphonies in South Africa, the Long Beach Symphony, and the Kern Philharmonic Orchestra. Included are personal correspondence, publicity, and family photographs and notes relating to his concerts. - Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS)
The ACWWS is an international organization whose archives are housed in the University Archives. The association's aim is to disseminate and promote the literature and orature of Caribbean women and to provide a forum for the advancement of the critical study and teaching of the works of Caribbean women writers and scholars. - Rogelio Caparrós Photograph Collection
Rogelio Caparrós was a writer and photographer for the Cuban magazine Bohemia. The photographs in the collection reflect Cuban life during the Revolution, in Nicaragua, Panama, and several photos taken in New York during Caparrós' tenure as a photographer for the United Nations in the early 1960s. Included are negatives, contact prints, and large photoprints.
- Ramiro Casañas Collection
The Ramiro Casañas Collection offers a window into the Cuban heritage through an impressive array of artifacts, including artwork, handwritten poetry, cigar boxes, periodicals, and sports memorabilia from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- The Cuban Human Rights Collection
A collection of newspaper clippings, audio interviews, radio and television programs, photographs, and other documents relating to the situation of human rights on the island since the 1960s to the early 2000s, created by Ariel Hidalgo. - The Cuban Living History Project
The Cuban Living History Project includes three documentaries and 114 personal interviews. The documentaries are titled Y los quiero conocer: Historia de Cuba en vivo (1902–1959) (And I Want to Meet Them: A Living History of Cuba, 1902–1959) [1992]; Calle Ocho: Cuban Exiles Look at Themselves (1994); and Ni patria ni amo: Voces del exilio cubano (Neither Motherland nor Master: Voices of Cuban Exiles, 1996). The documentaries are based on personal interviews with Cuban exiles who played prominent roles in the creation of Cuban Miami. Most of the interviewees, now deceased, were well-known figures in the cultural, political, and intellectual life of the Cuban republic. Dr. Miguel González-Pando conducted the interviews between 1990 and 1997. Other items included in the collection are books, plays, documentaries, photos, posters, and newspaper articles by González-Pando. - Guantanamo Bay Collection
The Special Collections Department holds pictures taken by Kenneth (Allegro) Shartz aka Fr. Cyril Shartz between 1994 and 1996 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he worked as an English teacher, through the World Relief Organization. The collection is composed of 433 digitized photographs that detail the daily life of the refugees at the base. Images also include pictures of the refugees, the humanitarian workers, the detention camps, the wildlife, and the naval base. - Enrique Hurtado de Mendoza Collection of Cuban Genealogy
The Enrique Hurtado de Mendoza Collection consists of thousands of books, handwritten and typed letters, photos, and other primary documents relating to Cuba and Cuban genealogy, collected over four decades by Félix Enrique Hurtado de Mendoza. The collection includes rare seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books, long out-of-print publications, and periodicals that few, if any, U.S. libraries hold in their catalogs. Additionally, thousands of unpublished family genealogies and manuscripts make this collection particularly significant. - Elena Kurstin Cuban Memorabilia Collection
This collection holds Cuban travel memorabilia, including postcards, travel brochures, pamphlets, and restaurant menus, as well as issues of three popular Cuban journals: Bohemia, Carteles, and Social. Among the hundreds of items are rarities such as city maps and even cocktail swizzle sticks purchased by the collector directly from dealers, through eBay and at the Miami International Book Fair. - Abril Lamarque Collection
This collection of photographs, articles, and other materials documents the life and career of the Cuban-born cartoonist, designer, illustrator, graphic artist, and art director Abril Lamarque. The material, which ranges from 1904 to 2002, includes printed media, scrapbooks, writings, and original artwork. - Leví Marrero Collection
Cuban historian Leví Marrero, author of a multivolume history of Cuba, donated a large manuscript collection of the documents he used to write his history, including photo reproductions and transcriptions from the Archivo de Indias in Seville, Spain. In addition, he donated other research materials, items selected for inclusion in his books, and correspondence. This archive represents his personal papers donated to FIU. - Miami Film Festival
The film festival, founded in 1984, has made a rich cultural contribution to the City of Miami. These records cover the history and programming of the festival from its foundation to its incorporation with FIU. - The New Republic / Jorge Mas Canosa Collection
The New Republic / Jorge Mas Canosa Collection consists of materials gathered by legal counsel retained by the New Republic magazine as part of trial preparation in a libel suit filed against the magazine by Mr. Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation. The suit stemmed from an article that ran in the October 3, 1994 edition of the New Republic written by Anne Louise Bardach. On November 18, 1994, Mr. Mas Canosa filed suit in Dade Circuit Court in Miami, naming the New Republic and Ms. Bardach as defendants and alleging he was repeatedly libeled in the October 3 article. - Operation Pedro Pan
A selective listing of resources found, in print and online, at the FIU Libraries and other sources on the exodus of more than 14,000 unaccompanied children from Cuba to the United States between 1960 and 1962. - Lisandro Pérez Papers
Former FIU sociologist Lisandro Pérez founded the Cuban Research Institute in 1991. This collection includes his correspondence, evaluations, and publications. - Carlos Ripoll Collection
This collection consists of material related to the Cuban writer and revolutionary leader José Martí. The material includes manuscripts, books, papers, pamphlets, original typescripts, printed material, and clippings of writings by Carlos Ripoll and others. - Alex and Carol Stepick Collection
This collection consists of materials depicting the plight of the Cuban and Haitian refugees in the 1980s in Miami, Florida. The documents detail the treatment of refugees once on U.S. soil and the condition in the countries they were escaping from, highlighting the contrasting experiences of Cuban and Haitian refugees. The collection contains scholarly research, studies, and publications, as well as census-related material, congressional records, newspaper articles, and other documents.