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UMiami's Vaunted Cuban Heritage Collection Gets Veteran Curator As New Director

Elizabeth Cerejido takes over as director of the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection on Monday.
University of Miami
Elizabeth Cerejido takes over as director of the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection on Monday.

Scholarship on Cuba at the University of Miami has been the subject of controversy lately. But at least one part of UM’s Cuban studies is getting a fresh start on Monday.

The University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection is the largest depository of books and artifacts about Cuba - and Cubans - outside Cuba itself. It has more than 50,000 volumes of often rare texts.

But for the past few years it’s been without a permanent director. That job will be filled now by veteran curator Elizabeth Cerejido. Cerejido is herself a Cuban exile. But she says she wants to make the Heritage Collection more accessible to the broader community.

“One of my main tasks is to develop programming that engages a wide cross-section of communities – experiential connections that we can make with other Latino communities, for example, who may have similar immigrant stories,” Cerejido says.

Cerejido’s arrival is some good news for Cuban scholarship at UM. Since last year the university and its Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies have been dogged by political controversies related to communist Cuba and Cuban exiles. Cerejido hopes to help heal some of those rifts.

“The Cuban Heritage Collection has maintained itself as a very neutral space when it comes to the political noise related to Cuba," she says. "It’s really focused on being identified as a space for intellectual and academic pursuits.”

UM is expected to name a new permanent director for the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies soon.  

Copyright 2018 WLRN 91.3 FM

Tim Padgett is the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida.