I talked with Gisela Arandia Covarrubias, researcher at the Center for US Studies at the University of Havana, about her work on the black communities of Cuba and Miami. She had just returned from a several-month stay as a Rockefeller Fellow at Florida International University. Her work with Cuban-American scholars in Florida on issues of racism and sexism exemplified the kind of cooperation that is now beginning to break through the blockade. The Arts Artists and musicians probably relate to the international community more than any other sector of Cuba's intelligentsia. We visited several of Cuba's best-known artists, including Zaida del Rio, Flora Fong, and an especially exciting young artist, Elsa Mora.
Plastic arts are very sophisticated and quite accessible.
Women are quite important in the world of Cuban art and many of them deal with themes that pertain to Afro-Cuban religion, santeria, and mysticism, alongside more traditional Christianity. Parenthetically, with the Pope's picture plastered around, and many people talking about his visit in January as a great opening for Cuba, I found the extent of religion unsettling. Many Cubans are spiritual people, even if not devout in the conventional sense, so the religiosity to me was reminiscent of what I have seen in Brazil and other parts of Latin America, but I hadn't expected to find those themes so popular in Cuba, in art or anywhere else. Cuban music and musicians are quite innovative, especially in salsa and jazz. Most of the big ones have toured the States and Europe.