Roberto Rodríguez de Aragón was born in Güines, Havana, Cuba in 1927. During his exile in Miami, Florida, he was a member of Comandos L and the Pinos Nuevos organization. He also was National President of Municipios de Cuba en el Exilio and Junta Patriótica Cubana as well as of La Peña Teobaldo Rosell and Confederación de Profesionales Universitarios de Cuba en el Exilio. He was married to Raquel Fundora for fifty years and after her passing he married Olga Velasco. Roberto Rodríguez de Aragón died in Miami on October 5, 2012.
Sergio Andricaín was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1956. He is a journalist, literary scholar, editor and writer. He studied sociology at the University of Havana and in Costa Rica. He was a researcher at the Juan Marinello Cultural Center in Cuba, and in 1991 a consultant for the National Reading Program in Costa Rica.
During the 1990s, he was an editor of the UNESCO publications Colección biblioteca del promotor de lectura(1993) and Niños y niñas del maíz (1995), as well as the children's magazine for Colombia's Batuta National Foundation for Youth and Children Symphonic Orchestras. As a writer, he has worked for several newspapers and magazines in Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia, Spain and the United States.
Along with Antonio Orlando Rodríguez, he created Fundación Cuatrogatos, a nonprofit that promotes Spanish-language reading and cultural and educational projects in Miami.
David Grandison Fairchild was an American botanist and plant explorer. Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United States, including soybeans, mangos, nectarines, dates, bamboos, and flowering cherries.
Agustín Acosta (1886-1979) was a Cuban post-modernist poet and politician active in the 20th century. Born in Matanzas, Cuba, in November 1886, he completed his preliminary studies in Matanzas and early on in his career started working as a telegraph operator for a Cuban railroad line, acting as head of the telegraph service from 1909 to 1920.
Acosta graduated with a law degree from the University of Havana in 1918, and went on to become a notary in 1921, exercising this profession in Jagüey Grande, Matanzas, until he was politically imprisoned during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. After the fall of the Machadato, Acosta served as provisional governor of Matanzas from 1933 to 1934. His other political offices included cabinet secretary to Carlos Mendieta, senator (1936-1944) and president of the Partido Unión Nacionalista (1936-1937).
A poet and a statesman, Acosta contributed both prose and poetry to various Cuban publications, most notably El Fígaro, El Cubano Libre, Socialand Carteles. Some of his well-known works of poetry include Ala(1915), La zafra(1926), Los camellos distantes(1936) and Caminos de hierro (1963), as well as multiple essays on José Martí.
Acosta left Cuba in 1972, living in Miami until his death in 1979.
Dr. Moravia Capó was born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. A school teacher, she left Cuba in 1967 for Nicaragua, teaching physics and mathematics. Capó arrived in Miami in 1974, where she taught at St. Thomas University and Baldor School.
Dr. Capó retired after more than 50 years of teaching. She was involved in various civic organizations, including the Municipios de Cuba en el Exilio and the Cuban Women's Club, focusing her work on the issue of human rights in Cuba until her death in September 2007.
H. Franklin Williams joined the University of Miami faculty in 1939 as a professor of history. Although he continued to teach one course each semester, Williams accepted a succession of administrative positions. He served as Chairman of the History Department and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1948, President Bowman F. Ashe appointed Williams as Vice President and Dean of Faculties. Williams later served as Dean of Students, Vice President for Community Affairs, and Dean of University College. Subsequently, He returned to teaching full time in the history department where served until 1972.
Among many other university contributions, Williams served on the University Publications Committee and was a member of the Gerontological Council, Vice President the Middle Eastern Institute, and helped establish the University of the Americas Inc. During the 1960's Williams acted as chairman of the Personnel Committee and as vice president of the Economic Opportunity Program, Inc.
Robert Bradford Browne was a Coconut Grove architect noted for his distinctive designs of tropical homes and buildings. Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1922. He graduated from The University of Florida School of Architecture, and moved to Miami in 1952. Browne served as chief architect and coordinator of the Inter-American Cultural Trade Center (Interama) project in the 1960s. He died in Miami in 1987. Browne is listed in the AIA Historical Directory of American Architects (ahd1005515)
Rolando Almirante (b. 1967) is a Cuban screenwriter and director.
Almirante studied journalism in Ukraine and has worked as a Russian language translator and interpreter. Working as a print and radio journalist, he eventually moved on to television, where he held various posts for Cubavisión Internacional until 2000.
Almirante is an adjunct professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana and the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión de Cuba in San Antonio de los Baños. He is a member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC), the Unión de Periodistas de Cuba (UPEC) and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences of the United States.
Carlos Catasús Bertot was a 20th century Cuban literary figure. He was part of the editing and managing team for the short-lived Cuban magazine, Acento (Bayamo, Oriente,1947-1948).
Sarah María Catasús was a 20th century Cuban literary figure, who also went by the pseudonym "Nubia."
TeatroStageFest is an annual production of Latino International Theater Festival of New York, Inc., a non-profit organization that actively supported New York Latino theater year-round, and served as a portal to Ibero-American theater companies from around the world. It was co-founded by Susana Tubert and José W. Fernández in 2005. Fernández was a member of mayor Michael Bloomberg's NYC Latin Media & Entertainment Commission. Working to promote New York City as the center of Latin entertainment, they recognized the need to spotlight the Latino Theater on the New York City Theater scene and TeatroStageFest was a result of their efforts to bring it to light.
Susana Tubert was an established producer of film, television, and theater in New York City, with extensive experience in Hispanic entertainment. She was approached by José W. Fernandez in 2005 to chair the Latino International Theater Festival of New York, Inc., to which she has dedicated her time for the last seven years.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was raised in Taunton, Massachussets after the divorce of her parents. Marjory attended the public school in Tauton, and Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she majored in English composition, graduating in 1912 with an A. B. degree. After her mother's death and the end of her brief marriage, Douglas moved to Miami to work with her father, Frank Stoneman, then the editor of The Miami Herald. Douglas left the Herald in 1923 after many years working on the Galley, a daily column that always included a poem. As an assistant editor on the paper, Douglas also wrote editorials urging protection and development of Florida's unique regional character in the face of rapid commercial development. After leaving the paper, she devoted herself to her literary career, writing of short stories, forty (40) of which were published in the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines between 1923 and 1938, many winning O. Henry and other awards. In 1947, Douglas published "The Everglades: River of Grass", a best-selling guide and natural/political history that not only raised public consciousness regarding the Everglades but also helped to diminish the national misperception of wetlands in general as swamps. Douglas also became a leader of the successful campaign for the establishement of Everglades National Park and in 1969 helped to found the conservation organization, Friends of the Everglades. Marjory Stoneman Douglas died in her home in Coconut Grove, Florida, on May 14, 1998 at the age of 108.
Roberto Vale Ares was a Cuban freedom fighter involved in exile guerilla groups, including Comandos L (formerly Comandos Libertad) and Alpha 66. Vale Ares worked with Tony Cuesta and performed numerous small guerilla operations in Cuba.
Armando Alejandre Jr. was a Cuban-American activist, general contractor, and volunteer pilot with Brothers to the Rescue. In 1996, on a humanitarian mission to rescue Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits, Alejandre's plane was shot down by Cuban Air Force fighter jets.
Robert Fitch Smith was born in Fremont, Ohio, July 1, 1894. He attended Columbia University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, The University of Michigan, and the University of Miami, where he obtained his BA degree in 1931 and where he began his architectural practice shortly thereafter. He is credited with the design of civic and residential architecture, churches, schools, industrial and recreational projects. His civic engagement roster includes charter member of the Miami City Planning Board; Director of Coordinating & Planning Committee of Dade County; Chairman of Regional Planning Board of Dade County; Chair of the Miami Fine Arts Commission; Board member of the Inter-American Cultural Trade Center (Interama); member of the American Institute of Architects; member of the Beaux-Arts Institute of New York, He was the Vice-Chairman of the Urban Planning Committee of the America Institute of Architects for the Sourthern area, and a member of the Architectural League of New York.
He died in Miami on June 16, 1964 at the age of 69.
