"Cuba and its Exile: Political Generations" by Silvia Pedraza

Silvia Pedraza

University of Michigan

Date: Monday, October 20, 2014, 4PM

Location: The Graduate Center, Skylight Room

365 Fifth Avenue (@ 34th Street)

In this talk, Professor Silvia Pedraza argues that to understand Cubans both in the island and in exile, social scientists need to take into account not only the usual dimensions of social class, race, ethnicity, and gender, but also political generations. As defined by Karl Mannheim and others, political generations are constituted by people of the same age who, in their adolescence, experienced dramatic historical events that marked their consciousness. Pedraza analyzes the various political generations that emerged over time in the Cuban revolution and the creation of its exile community.

About the speaker: Silvia Pedraza (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Professor of Sociology and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests include the sociology of immigration, race, and ethnicity in America, and the sociology of Cuba's revolution and exodus. She is Chair of the International Migration Section in the American Sociological Association. Dr. Pedraza’s publications include: Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus (2007); “Assimilation or Transnationalism? Conceptual Models of the Immigrant Experience,” in The Cultural Psychology of Immigrants, edited by Ram Mahalingham (2006); and “Women and Migration: the Social Consequences of Gender,” Annual Review of Sociology (1991).

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