This collection documents the activities of Panart, a pioneering Cuban record label created by Ramón S. Sabat (1902-1986) in the 1940s. Panart sold millions of records worldwide and, according to Mr. Sabat, it was generally responsible for the extensive circulation of Cuban music around the world. The bulk of this collection consists of sound recordings in different formats: various phonograph record types, audiocassettes, reel to reel tapes and eight-track stereo tapes. In 1961, the Cuban government took over Panart's holdings in Cuba. Mr. Sabat and his family settled in the U.S. during the early 1960s, and they created a company in Miami that continued to distribute Panart recordings until the 1980s.
Between August 1964 and December 1968, the Rand Corporation, under contract to the U.S. Department of Defense, conducted approximately 2,400 interviews with Vietnamese who were familiar with activities of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Reports of these interviews, totalizing approximately 62,000 pages, constitute a rich source of information about political and military upheaval in a developing country, Vietnamese rural life, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese armed forces and many related subjects. The documents describe conversations with prisoners captured by South Vietnamese or U.S. forces, defectors who voluntarily left the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese Army as well as refugees from battle areas. Many of the reports have a poignant, human quality; nearly all are informative about conditions in Vietnam. In December 1971, action was initiated to make these interview reports available to the public. The decision to provide access to these documents entailed a scrupulous double reading of all the reports and blocking out of information that might enable identification of the respondents.
The University of Miami holds approximate 1,780 (48,000 pages) out of the 2,400 interviews conducted under this study.
The Randy Barceló Collection consists primarily of oversize costume and set designs by Cuban-born designer Randy Barceló. The collection also includes costume plots, drawings and sketches, posters and postcards, videotapes, photographs and slides, and two scripts written by Barceló.
The collection contains materials on homecoming events at the University of Miami from 1968 to 1974. It includes photographs, posters, event proposals, and correspondence collected by Randy Femmer, who was Chairman of the Undergraduate Student Government of the university in 1967. The collection was donated by him to the University Archives on September 12, 1974.
The Randy Liebermann Collection contains five photo albums and one scrapbook of Pan American World Airways materials. The materials primarily concern the Latin American Division, but also airplane models and company policy at large. The Scrapbook contains newsletters, pamphlets, clippings, certificates, letters, envelopes, stickers, postcards, stamps, and other materials.
The Raquel & Ruth Robés collection contains photographs of school life in pre-revolutionary Cuba, as well as pamphlets and memorabilia. It also contains certifications for educators Raquel and Ruth Robés.
The papers document professional activities of Raquel Fundora as a poet and a president of the Miami chapter of the Circle of the Pan-American Culture. Fundora's poems express nostalgia for Cuba. The materials also document the activities of the Circle of the Pan-American Culture, which was founded in 1963. It reunites professors, writers, poets and persons interested in culture. Materials include manuscripts of Fundora's poetry, correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs, programs, certificates, diplomas, memorabilia, typescripts of conference essays and audio tapes.
The papers document activities of Raquel La Villa. The papers consist of correspondence, documents, scrapbooks documenting visits to Poland where she met with Lech Walesa and Hungary, clippings, publications of IFEDEC and PDC, memorabilia and pamphlets published by Partido Demócrata Cristiano.
Those documents provide information about the history of the organizations who fought to rescue Cuba from the communist government.
The collection contains documents, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and photographs collected by Raúl Chibás. Topics include political prisoners, the Junta Obrera Revolucionaria, Junta Revolucionaria Cubana, and Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo.
This collection consists of 128 vinyl phonograph records documenting mostly Cuban and Afro-Caribbean popular music, collected by Miami-born musician and composer Raúl Murciano (b.1957). Many of the records included in the collection were manufactured in Cuba. Other styles of music represented in the collection: Brazilian music, Latin American Folk music, and Jazz.
The Raymond Labonte photograph collection contains photographs taken by US Army officer Raymond Labonte during his time stationed at the US Army Air Base near Havana, Cuba during the 1940s. The collection documents Havana and Matanzas through the lens of a US Army officer, with unique aerial photographs of Havana and shots of many of the Havana area social clubs frequented by Americans at the time, including Miramar Yacht Club, Havana Biltmore Country Club, Havana Yacht Club and Tropicana Night Club. The collection also includes a US Army Air Corps Aerial Photographic Section scrapbook kept by Labonte.
A collection of fanzines dedicated to reggae music, and the culture and fanbase surrounding the genre. The titles range from small-run, independently published zines, to glossy commercial magazines and tabloids. The wide range of publishing locations, including the United Kingdom, New York and South Florida, indicate the international popularity of reggae, a musical genre born on the island of Jamaica. Some of the fanzines extend their coverage to other Caribbean musical genres such as ska and soca. The music scenes in Africa are covered as well. In addition to the music, many of the fanzines explore the Rastafari movement and other Afrocentric ideologies that have historically been linked to reggae.
The papers document the activities of two Cuban organizations in Boston: Agrupación Abdala and Bandera Cubana. Regla González held leadership positions in these groups and was also active in the Boston Chapter of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens). The bulk of the collection consists of clippings and photographs with a small number of newsletters, event programs, and related material.
The collection contains audio recordings on 45 CDs, created from original recordings by Reinaldo Arenas and Roberto Valero. The recordings include dictations of Arenas' memoir Antes que anochezca (19 CDs), interviews between Valero and Arenas conducted in 1986 (10 CDs) and 1988 (13 CDs), Arenas' reading from his works (1982), and a joint lecture by Arenas and the poet Heberto Padilla titled "The Cuban Intellectual Today" (1980).
The papers consist of handwritten manuscripts related to the Spanish-American War and the liberation of Cuba, as well as, materials related to the Junta Patriotica de Cayo Hueso. The manuscripts include poems and documents. Printed materials from 1898 are also included.
The René Ariza Collection contains manuscript drafts for plays and poetry, personal papers, drawings, photographs and audiovisual materials of the Cuban writer, director and actor René Ariza, active in the late 20th century.
The collection contains original drawings and photographs of René Ariza; audio cassettes and video tapes of Cuban music; and Ariza's personal recordings, manuscript poems and scripts for his plays, as well as personal correspondence and papers.
The Rene Jordan papers contain manuscripts and clippings of film critiques by Cuban-born, New York City-based film critic Rene Jordan (d. 2013) published primarily in the Miami, Florida-based El Nuevo Herald.
The majority of the collection consists of clippings of the final versions of film critiques the Jordan wrote for his column in the Miami Heraldand El Nuevo Herald. Most of the reviews are written in Spanish. A small portion of the materials includes original typescript draft manuscripts of Jordan's film critiques.
