The Luis J. Botifoll Oral History Project collection includes videos, outlines, and selected transcripts of oral history interviews conducted principally with members of the first generations of Cubans exiled since the Cuban Revolution. Interviews with political prisoners, visual artists, community activists, and others help to capture Cuba's undocumented history, culture, and people, as well as the exile experience.
The Botifoll Oral History Project was launched in April 2008 with the support of the AMIGOS of the Cuban Heritage Collection. The Project aims to record and provide access to these testimonies in support of the Cuban Heritage Collection's efforts to document the Cuban experience on the island and in the diaspora.
The interviews are made available online as they are completed and can be accessed from the Univeristy of Miami Digital Collections.
Abreu, a leader in the underground and guerrilla movements in Cuba in the early 1960s, was instrumental in setting up training camps for anti-Castro exile’s forces in Central America. Prominent in Cuban exiles organizations in Miami, at 75 infiltrated Cuba trying to stir up resistance against Castro’s dictatorship, captured, imprisoned and later released.
Sonia Calero, a Cuban Rumba dancer, ballerina and choreographer. Calero is recognized worldwide for her work in Cuban dance with her late husband, Alberto Alonso. She was born in Havana to a working class family, and at eleven years old she enrolled at Municipal Conservatory of Havana specializing in ballet, later dancing for the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and the Conjunto Experimental de Danza. She and her husband Alberto Alonso left Cuba in 1993 for the United States where they continued their teaching and choreography.
Actress in radio, theater and TV in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s, who married actor Carlos Badías. Her son, Carlos Alberto Badías, was a famous romantic lead in the early 1950s who later became a political prisoner under Castro
Graduate of the Civic-Military Institute at Ceiba del Agua, Cuba, who started an agricultural equipment design and manufacturing firm in Havana. Exiled in 1961, he continued in that line of work and today is the largest manufacturer of field equipment for the sugar industry, with accounts in nearly 35 countries. Also prominent in Cuban exile activities, he was one of the founders of the Cuban American National Foundation in 1981 together with the late Jorge Mas Canosa, and he is a leading figure in the Cuban American Liberty Council following a split from CANF after Mas Canosa's death.
Cuban activist and dissident who co-founded the anti-Castro organization Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE). Salvat actively worked against the Castro government in Cuba, and continued his dissident activities after his exile in 1960. He currently directs the publishing house Ediciones Universales in Miami.
Journalist and political leader of the Cuban exile community in Venezuela for over 35 years, with extensive knowledge of that community's development and political influence. Romaní is now a twice-exiled Cuban in Miami.
Former Central Intelligence Agency operative best known for leading the interrogation and execution of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. Rodríguez also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and became president of the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association in 2004.
