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Norma Zúñiga is a Cuban-American comedy and drama actress. Born in Havana, Cuba, on October 20, 1940, Zúñiga’s flair for the arts was perceptible from an early age; at the age of eight she began dancing in her uncle’s theater tent called Carpa Alegría, and by the age of 14 she was a part of Enrique Arredondo’s - a comedic actor famous for Teatro Bufo among many other enterprises - theater company.1 Later, she joined a group of dancers who participated in the Palette Club show in Havana. In 1960, Zúñiga left Cuba and pursued a life in South Florida.

Zúñiga has had a prolific career, starring in multiple comedy shows and soap operas on television. In 1962, as well as much later in her career, she participated in Sábado Gigante (1962-2015), which was an eclectic entertainment show that was not only Univision’s longest-running TV series, but also the longest-running television variety series in world TV history. She also featured in the TV adaptation of La Tremenda Corte - originally a comedy radio show broadcast during World War II - in which she played the role of Nananina. In 1977 she appeared as a guest star on the program "¿Qué pasa, USA?,” which was significant in that it was the first bilingual television program (English / Spanish) produced by the WPBT channel, Miami's public television station. For her starring role in the play, "Enriqueta se ha puesto a dieta (Enriqueta Has Gone on a Diet)," described by Rodolfo J. Cortina as “address[ing] the ideal of feminine beauty in both cultural realms (Cuban/American) and explor[ing] the problems of culturally derived models of behavior,” (15) Zúñiga won an award in 1985. In addition, she has also acted in countless soap opera roles, including on the shows "Morelia;" "Acuamarina;" "Gata Salvaje;" "Enamorada;" "Bajo las riendas del amor;" and "Ángel rebelde," among others.

In terms of her personal and political views Zúñiga was anti-revolution, which led to her leaving Cuba for Miami; in 2001 she stated that she would never return to Cuba while Fidel Castro was still there. However, despite living happily in Miami since 1960, Zúñiga has never lost her sense of Cuban identity. She stated, “All the time I am thinking about Cuba and I cry to return … I constantly listen to Cuban music, I read Cuban literature, I watch television in Spanish … anything that reminds me of my homeland.” Though she has extended family still in Cuba, her closest family - including her two children, Ramiro and Barbie, and her grandchildren - reside with her in Miami.

Laura Bass
UGrow Fellow for the Department of Manuscripts and Archives Management, 2019-2020

1. Teatro Bufo or Theater of the Baffoon is a form of Cuban musical theater that developed in the middle of the nineteenth century at the peak of the slave trade. As part of the show, white actors would perform in blackface - similarly, but distinct, to minstrel shows in the U.S. - and portray three main characters: el negrito, la mulata, and el gallego, who represented the three distinct social and ethnic groups of the Cuban nation. From the age of 17, Arrendondo played the role of el negrito. For more information see: Jill Lane. "Blackface Cuba 1840-1895." U of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

On the night of April 20, 2010, following an initial forty-eight hours stoppage, a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) met at the Río Piedras campus to organize an indefinite strike. They did so in response to the University administration’s proposed new austerity measures affecting the tuition waivers (Certification 98) and the possibility of a tuition increase. Through phone calls, text messages, emails, social networking sites, and word of mouth members of the student action committees spread the news to others to meet at two specific locations within the campus at 5:00 am. Once the two groups were formed, they coordinated via text messages to meet on the main road of the campus. To the astonishment of the initiators the number of people that showed up was three times more than expected and they were able to take over the campus from within by closing down its six gates. By using protest camps, physical barricades, and alternative media, such as the Internet, the students constructed spaces of resistance that initiated a lock-down of ten out of the eleven UPR campuses. Thus, on April 21, 2010, the students of the UPR officially announced the beginning of a strike that quickly broadened into a defense of an accessible public education of excellence as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

            During the sixty-two days that the first wave of student protests and occupations lasted, traditional and alternative media covered the events until it ended with a mediated agreement between the Students’ National Negotiating Committee (CNN) and the University’s administration in a seeming victory for the students. However, in retaliation the government quickly increased the number of members of the Board of Trustees to gain the majority vote within the University’s decision making. This effectively allowed the University’s administration to breach the agreement, suspend students from the CNN by accusing them of leading and organizing the strike, and hastily impose an $800 student fee active in January 2011 (to be $400 per semester thereafter). For students at the UPR, this increase meant a more than 100% hike in tuition which would prevent about 10,000 students from continuing their studies for lack of economic resources and opportunities.[1] The administration’s steadfast refusal to negotiate the tuition increase initiated the second wave of student protests, which began on December 14, 2010. Prior to this, the administration had removed some of the university’s main campus gates and welded others open in order to prevent students from controlling the campus again. The administration also requested the police force including: mounted police, snipers, K-9 unit, Riot police, and the SWAT team to occupy the university and enforce the gag law prohibiting student demonstrations on campus premises. The presence of the police force inside the UPR main campus violated the “non-confrontational agreement” that was established to promote peaceful dialogue after the violent incidents during the 1981 UPR student strike. As a result, students (re)constructed their spaces of resistance by using emotional narratives, organizing nonviolent civil disobedience acts at public places, fomenting lobbying groups, disseminating online petitions, and developing alternative proposals to the compulsory fee. The protests continued until March 2011, when it came to a halt after the traditional media overstressed a violent incident that involved physical harassment to the University’s chancellor, Ana Guadalupe, during one of the student demonstrations.

[1] This estimate was calculated by the UPR administration, and was born out after the fee was imposed.

The report was published by the Benefits Administration of the University of Miami.

Anamari Cabriales, Darrell Jackson, Nicole Valle and Jacqueline Vinson wrote, took photographs and designed the publication.  It was a collabortive ekphrasis project edited and produced by Diane Louise Larson, English Department, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Miami.

Established in 1872, the Insurance Law Journal is published to advance sound thinking in the fields of insurance law relating to Life, Health and Accident, Fire and Casualty, Automobile and others.

"Curso de Ciudadania Americana" (American Citizenship Course) is an audio recording on LP record, 33 1/3 RPM, narrated by Dr. Luis Rodriguez Molina in Spanish and Mr. John Balian in English both from the University of Miami.

One of many workshops sponsored by the University, these summer learning sessions' primary purpose was to give students first-hand knowledge of another culture, to expose them to new ways of living and thinking, and to broaden their educational background. Students worked for credits in anthropology, history, Spanish, art history, painting, and archaeology.