Cuba 2001 (LAS 298) is a special graduate seminar in which internationally recognized scholars and policy makers who have long studied Cuba will lecture on the island's present economic, social and political situation. Professor Lydia Chávez of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism will be the seminar moderator.

See below for additional coverage of these events.

Highlights...

• Cubans 2001: Students in Professor Lydia Chavez's international reporting class and Freshman Seminar Program traveled to Cuba in Spring 2001 to write a series of stories about the profound changes that have taken place in recent years on the island.
• Series Commentary and Analysis: "CLAS Examines a Changing Cuba" by Professor Lydia Chavez

Professor Susan Eckstein
"Cuba in Transition"

Monday, February 5, noon-2 pm
The Library at North Gate Hall

Susan Eckstein is a professor of Sociology at Boston University. She has conducted research in Mexico, Bolivia, and Cuba on urbanization, poverty, revolutions, business *lites, agrarian reform, social and economic policy, politics, social movements, and the economy. Her books include The Poverty of Revolution: The State and Urban Poor in Mexico (Princeton University Press), Power and Protest: Latin American Social Movements (University of California Press), and Back from the Future: Cuba Under Castro (Princeton University Press).

Analysis and commentary for this event

Professor Richard Nuccio
"US Cuba Policy 2001, Where We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We Ought to Be"

Monday, February 12
12 noon-2 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Richard Nuccio served as President Clinton's special adviser for Cuba from 1995 to 1996. During that period he managed the US reaction to the Cuban rafter crisis of 1994 and 1995, efforts to block passage of the Helms/Burton legislation on Cuba, and the administration's response to the shootdown of two US planes by the Cuban air force in February 1996. Within the Administration he was an active proponent of the so-called Track II efforts to encourage the growth of Cuba's nascent civil society. He is currently director of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI.

Analysis and commentary for this event

Professor María Cristina García
"Cuban Immigrants in the U.S."

Monday, February 26
12 noon-2 pm
CLAS Conference Room
2334 Bowditch Street

An associate professor of history at Cornell University, María Cristina García holds a joint appointment in the Latino Studies Program. She specializes in immigration and ethnic history, Latino communities of the United States, 20th century U.S. social and cultural history and the history of Cuba. Prior to teaching at Cornell, García taught at Texas A&M and served as a Fulbright lecturer in American studies at the Polytechnic of Central London at Westminster. She is also a faculty fellow at the Latino Living Center.

Tiffany Mitchell
"Race Relations in Cuba's Current Political Climate"

Monday, March 12, 12 noon-2 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Tiffany Mitchell is the Associate Director and Cuba Program Coordinator of the Georgetown University Caribbean Project. Her responsibilities include research and conference coordination on U.S. policy towards various countries in the Caribbean, especially Cuba. In that capacity, she has traveled to Cuba, Dominica, Trinidad and St. Lucia. One of her editorials, titled "Is Communism the Solution to Racism?" recently appeared in Howard University School of Law's New Barrister.