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Humberto Medrano (1916-2012) was the former assistant director of the daily newspaper Prensa Libre in pre-revolutionary Cuba. In exile in the United States, he served as the director of Radio and TV Martí, federally-funded stations based in Miami that broadcast exclusively to Cuba. He is also the author of several books, including the collections of his writings and opinion columns, Sin patria pero sin amo (1963) and Caminos de papel (Editorial AIP, 1977).

Luis Medina was born on June 18, 1942, in Havana, Cuba. During his childhood, he attended a private military school until he left Cuba for Spain at the age of sixteen in 1958. There, he was introduced to the arts, such as painting and literature, by Cuban poet Gastón Baquero. Medina traveled and worked throughout Europe, visiting Germany and Italy. He migrated to Miami, Florida, in 1961, and was reunited with his mother and stepfather, who had fled Cuba after Fidel Castro’s government came to power. He attended Miami Dade Junior College and took courses in history, philosophy, and sociology. Upon graduating with honors in 1967, Medina enrolled in The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with dreams of becoming a sculptor. He was accompanied at SAIC by his childhood friend José López, and the two were quickly taken in by American mentors Harold Allen and Hugh Edwards.

Medina soon turned his artistic interests to the medium of photography, which he practiced alongside López until his friend’s departure to Miami in 1976. The two taught photography together in the early 1970s at Columbia College - Chicago and other local universities. Medina remained in Chicago, where he developed a growing body of photographic work that focused on architectural photography and documenting marginalized groups, such as the Latinx and gay communities in the Chicago area. In one acclaimed series, Medina captured the inner workings of the gang population, photographing their graffiti while simultaneously earning their respect. In 1980, this work was exhibited in a solo show at the Art Institute.

Medina was diagnosed with a cytomegalovirus infection in 1984; this illness can often be associated with AIDS. A year later, he died at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami at the age of forty-three.

Elena Mederos (1900-1981) was a human rights and women’s rights activist born in Havana, Cuba.

Mederos was born on January 13, 1900, in Havana and married Hilario González Arrieta on July 2, 1924. She founded the School of Social Services of the University of Havana and the Foundation for Social Services, a private organization devoted to develop standards and programs for children’s institutions in Cuba.

When Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, Mederos became minister of social welfare but resigned five months later. Mederos fled to the United States in 1961 and immediately joined UNICEF. After trips to Africa and Latin America, she returned to New York and founded Of Human Rights, an organization devoted to informing U.S. politicians and scholars of the plight of Cuban political prisoners. She also founded a successful Cuban exile lobby that was instrumental in the release of thousands of political prisoners. Elena Mederos died in Washington, DC, on September 25, 1981.