Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

Leaving Little Havana is the story of a young girl who leaves her comfortable middle-class home in La Habana just after the Cuban Revolution and, fighting to overcome cultural and language barriers, forges a new life in Miami. Dealing with a torn identity and discovering her voice are at the center of the narrative. After an endless string of escapades, she finally pulls herself together, learns the value of her inner strength by rising above bleak circumstances and gets accepted to journalism school in California. The book examines the devastating effects of immigration on a family and the struggle of a child of Cuban exiles, coming of age in a foreign society, to beat the obstacles that stand in her way to a stable and satisfying life. The narrator shows that Cuban immigrants share similar challenges with all who have aspired to make America their home.

Invasive species are one of the major threats to biodiversity and understanding the effects any one invasive species has on members of its new ecosystem can help land managers decide how to best use their limited resources. This study attempted to show the effect Cuban Treefrogs (Osteopilus Septentrionalis) were having on native Florida hylids. For a year, Cuban Treefrogs were removed from three cypress domes and monitored in three other cypress domes, a change in the native population in the experimental domes was the eventual desired effect. Due to weather issues and low native hylid numbers no effect was shown, however due to environmental constraints an effect could not be ruled out either. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis advisor: Karen Kayser / Purpose: Acculturative stress has been found to mediate the relationship between acculturation and psychological distress, yet research investigating the impact of contextual factors on acculturative stress is non-existent. Based on family stress management theory (Boss, 2002), the current study investigates the contextual influence on acculturative stress and psychological distress of Latina women. Acculturation and systems of support were tested for their capacity to moderate the relationships between various significant contexts, acculturative stress and psychological distress. Unique experiences of women born in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico were delineated and compared. Methods: Using the National Latino Asian American Survey, the current study involves 639 Latina women born in Mexico (N=257), Cuba (N=264) and Puerto Rico (N=118). A mediated moderation analysis was conducted through Path Analysis in MPLUS. Results: Findings indicate an inconsistent relationship between acculturative stress and psychological distress. For the combined group of Latina women, racial and daily discrimination shaped acculturative stress and psychological distress most often, followed by age and family-cultural conflict. Income and structural components of internal contexts (i.e. household decision-making power) impacted their psychological distress only. Country-specific variations argue against treating Latina women as a monolithic group. Biculturalism emerged as a more effective integration form. Only spousal support moderated the relationships between contextual factors, psychological distress and acculturative stress. Implications: These findings will inform the development of culturally sensitive clinical interventions. Social work policy makers will gain a comprehensive understanding of resources needed to promote a healthy integration of Latina women into the U.S. Community organizers are encouraged to advocate on behalf of multi-cultural immigration policies that enable the retention of aspects of native culture deemed to buffer Latina women from the negative impact of contextual factors and acculturative stress. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This study looks at the broader transformations in Cuban history through the case study of a single, yet symbolic, man, and proposes a new paradigm for understanding the dynamics of Cuban society and culture. It also examines the implications for Cuba’s aspiring national identity at the turn of the twentieth century, by detailing the interplay between fact and fiction in the story of Alberto Yarini: elite born; well-educated; politically and socially well-connected; powerful; and celebrated Cuban racketeer and chulo (pimp). Yarini was described as vibrant and triumphant at a time when other nation-building forces in Cuba were weak and ambivalent. A century after his dramatic death, Yarini became the quintessential public man in Cuban lore who symbolized a cubanidad (Cuban national identity) not defined in terms of the ideological hegemony of class, race, or gender, and who through his actions dispelled the ambivalence that plagued Cuban nationalism. Using archival documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, court records, memoirs, and published works, this study analyzes the confluence of national events and individual action in the formation of Cuban national identity. It contends that for Cuba, the failure of nation-building experiments resulted in an ambivalent national identity based on failed philosophical and political ideals of equality and prosperity. These ideals played out within the context of the realities of racial discrimination, political dissonance, and class and gender barriers. Instead of a cohesive sense of national character, for Cubans the result was a competing set of identities including a populist version that was defined through identification with antitypes and pseudo-heroes such as Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León (1882-1910), a rising politician and celebrated chulo of the early republic. The telling and retelling of his story has given rise to what has been termed the island nation’s first national myth – one that continues to evolve and grow in the twenty-first century. For many Cubans, the Yarini antitype provided an idealized national identity which in many ways was—and many argue continues to be— the expression of an elusive and ambivalent cubanidad.

The devolution of welfare services in the United States has increased the importance of the nonprofit sector. Geiger and Wolch argue that decentralization has left nonprofit organizations (NPOs) under the purview of the state. They refer to this as the “shadow state.” Trudeau argues for a more nuanced view of the shadow state in which governmental agencies and NPOs are highly interdependent. This research expands on the findings of Trudeau by extending the shadow state construct to the individual. I examine the role of refugees in the shadow state construct and their ability to affect government policy through participation in NPOs and find that refugees do indeed play a role in the shadow state. Through feedback, experience and, most importantly, by becoming part of the organization, refugees can have an impact on refugee services through participation in NPOs.

Background: Historically, most refugees have originated from countries with high rates of infectious diseases. However, non-communicable diseases are becoming increasingly more common in refugee populations resettling in the United States. Purpose: Examine the prevalence of selected chronic conditions among newly arriving adult Cuban refugees and compare the results to the prevalence of the same chronic conditions among the other top five incoming refugee populations: Burmese, Bhutanese, Iranians, Iraqis, and Somalis Methods: Data used in this study were derived from the Department of State’s Medical History and Physical Examination Worksheet and included all adult (≥20 years) Cuban, Burmese, Bhutanese, Iranian, Iraqi, and Somali refugees identified through the Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention Electronic Disease Notification Center, and who entered the United States during October 2008-September 2011. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 19.0. Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, and logistic regressions were performed to assess the prevalence of chronic conditions, check for associations between country of origin and outcome of interest, and to estimate the relative risk for Cubans compared to the remaining top five incoming refugee populations. Results: A total of 99,920 adults were included in the study. The largest population was Iraqi (27.6%), followed by Bhutanese (26.2%), Burmese (24.4%), Iranian (8.6%), Cuban (7.9%), and Somali (5.3%). All outcomes of interest were significantly associated with country of origin. Cubans were at a greater risk for asthma but were not the greatest at-risk population for the remaining outcomes of interest. Conclusion: The prevalence of non-communicable diseases was higher among the incoming refuges than has been traditionally assumed. These findings point to the need for a better understanding of the health status of refugee populations and the development of culturally appropriate health programs that include education on prevention and treatment of chronic conditions.

This dissertation reassesses the dialogues between the aesthetic and cultural projects of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976) and the avant-garde, in both its European and Latin American manifestations. My main assertion is that Lezama Lima’s negative appraisals of the avant-garde are more a symptom of his will-to-power and self-legitimization than a categorical rejection of avant-garde values. My work thus revises the critical consensus that fixates on Lezama Lima’s presumed rejection of the avant-garde by documenting the deep relationships between texts and contexts, that is to say, between his poiesis and the intellectual, artistic and cultural manifestations that conform the late ‘30s and ‘40s Cuban scenario, to which the pervasiveness of European and Latin American avant-garde movements such as muralismo were fundamental. I hence consider Lezama Lima’s intricate engagement with avant-garde manifestations in the visual arts, an essential element in his aesthetics underestimated by critics despite the centrality of the concept of image to his works, and the attention 20th century art and thought gave to vision and visuality, as shown by critics Martin Jay and Mary Ann Caws. My dissertation thus explores the interconnections between intellectual, literary and visual art history in order to demonstrate how, despite his critical pronouncements against the avant-garde’s will-to-novelty and rejection of tradition, Lezama Lima actually incorporates several avant-garde topoi and techniques into his works (such as André Breton’s concept of “objective chance” and Pablo Picasso’s “completive technique”), in direct response to the epistemological shift they embody – a shift that has deeply impacted the contemporary regime of perception and patterns of representation. By driving Lezama Lima’s works back to its original contexts, my dissertation represents an important contribution to Cuban avant-garde criticism and its relationship to the broader cultural context of the avant-garde in Latin America and Europe, dialoguing with recent theories that emphasize the impact of the avant-garde on the establishment of contemporary regime of perception and patterns of representation as well. / text

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President John F. Kennedy’s announcement, on Monday 22 October 1962, that there were offensive missiles on the island of Cuba began the public phase of what would be remembered as the Cuban missile crisis. This Cold War crisis had ramifications in many other countries than just the Soviet Union and the United States. Due to the danger involved in this nuclear confrontation, the entire globe was threatened. If either side lost control of negotiations, an atomic war could have broken out which would have decimated the planet. As the direct northern neighbors of the United States and partners in continental defence, Canadians experienced and understood the Cuban missile crisis in the context of larger issues. In many ways, Canadian and American reactions to the crisis were similar. Many citizens stocked up their pantries, read the newspapers, protested, or worried that the politicians would make a mistake and set off a war. However, this dissertation argues that English Canadians experienced the crisis on another level as well. In public debate and print sources, many debated what the crisis meant for Canadian-Cuban relations, Canadian-American relations and Canada’s place in the world. Examining these print and archival sources, this dissertation analyzes the contour of public debate during the crisis, uniting that debate with the actions of politicians. Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker hesitated for two days before making a statement which fully committed Canada to a position which supported the American quarantine of Cuba, and shortly after the crisis, was defeated at the polls. This dissertation argues that understanding the Canadian reaction to and experience of the Cuban missile crisis necessitates an understanding of how different Canadians talked about and understood the actions of their leaders. The shifting terrain of memory also serves to demonstrate the manner in which this history is told and remembered in Canada. This dissertation, therefore, examines the intersections between this Cold War confrontation and Canadian identity in the postwar period. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2011-12-23 09:01:36.5