Sandra Levinson

Last updated
Sandra Levinson
Occupation(s)Executive director and curator
Years active1972 - present
Known forThe Center for Cuban Studies and the Cuban Art Space
Notable workVenceremos Brigade: Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba
Website centerforcubanstudies.org

Sandra Levinson is the executive director and co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Cuban Studies, [1] [2] and the founder and curator of the Cuban Art Space gallery. [3] [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Sandra Levinson is from Mason City, Iowa. [5] [6] She graduated from the University of Iowa and attended the University of Manchester as a Fulbright scholar and Stanford University for her master's degree and doctorate. [5] [7] In 1966, she was the New York Editor for Ramparts , as well as a political science instructor at City College of New York, and residing in Greenwich Village. [5] [2] [8] She was an SDS activist as well as a reporter for Ramparts, and in July 1969, she visited Cuba as part of a group of journalists, including Peter Jennings, and met with Fidel Castro. [2] [3]

Writing career

With Carol Brightman, Levinson co-edited the 1971 book Venceremos Brigade: Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba, a collection of writings by a group of volunteers from the United States who cut sugarcane in Cuba, known as the Venceremos Brigade; according to Kirkus Reviews , "Running through all the narratives is the preoccupation with the need to be relevant to 'the revolution' as well as a conscientious emphasis on eradicating vestiges of their own bourgeois individualism". [9] [10] In a review for The American Political Science Review , Patricia W. Fagen writes, "The editors' introduction explains the formulation and organization of the Brigades, and provides a useful and thoughtful analysis of the Brigades' importance to the American left." [11]

Levinson is also a co-editor of the 1979 book The U.S. Blockade: A Documentary History, published by the Center for Cuban Studies, and her writing is published in several collections: The Cuba Reader: The Making of a Revolutionary Society, A Contemporary Cuba Reader: The Revolution under Raúl Castro, and The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics.

Center for Cuban Studies

In May 1972, Levinson co-founded the Center for Cuban Studies (CCS) as a nonprofit educational organization with Saul Landau and Lee Lockwood. [12] [13] The mission of the organization includes opposition to the United States embargo against Cuba and support for the normalization of relations through educational programs, including tours to Cuba. [13] [8] [14] In March 1973, while Levinson was working as the director at the CCS office in Greenwich Village, a bomb detonated in the building. [12] [2] [3] Despite extensive property damage, no one was injured, and Levinson continued to lead the CCS. [12] [2] [3] In 2007, she recalled, "Instead of making me leave, it only made me more furious". [15]

In 1984, Levinson spoke with the Wall Street Journal about the impact of the embargo on the Cuban economy, stating, "The old cars are the most obvious sign. It's the same with the factories. The whole phone system is obsolete. You can hardly find a copying machine, and when you do it probably doesn't work because they can't get the spare parts they need." [16] In 1995, she advocated for businesses in the United States to oppose the economic embargo of Cuba, and told The Oregonian , "It was businesspeople who brought about the ending of the embargo in Vietnam," and "If businesspeople really get behind ending the embargo in Cuba, it will happen." [17] In 2013, Levinson told The Atlantic , "We should be thinking about the embargo in terms of U.S. citizens' rights to travel where they want". [18]

Cuba tours

In 1973, the CCS began sponsoring tours to Cuba. [19] [20] Initially, the CCS coordinated educational trips to Cuba from the United States for academics, which helped overcome travel restrictions imposed by the United States and Cuba. [21] [4] As travel restrictions eased under the Obama administration to include "people-to-people" visits that allow organizations to sponsor individuals for educational visits, [18] more travel programs were able to be developed by the CCS. [21]

Cuban Art Space

In 1991, Levinson was a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee against the United States Treasury Department and Office of Foreign Assets Control, which led to the lifting of restrictions on the importation of Cuban art. [22] [23] [24] [6] In 1999, she founded the Cuban Art Space art gallery as part of the CCS, [25] with regular exhibitions, [26] and by 2016, its collection included over 10,000 Cuban works of art, including sculpture and paintings, [2] [6] [27] with most of the collection imported directly by Levinson. [28]

CCS also developed the Lourdes Casal Library, which by 2007, held a collection of post-1959 materials from Cuba, including books, magazines, and newspapers. [15]

Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art features the first Cuban art exhibition in Africa, highlighting works by Wifredo Lam and Jose Angel Toirac, fostering cultural exchange and diversifying artistic representation beyond European influences. [29]

Works

Personal life

Levinson has visited Cuba more than 300 times. [8] [2] During her time in Cuba, she learned to dance. [31]

Related Research Articles

bell hooks American author and activist (1952–2021)

Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She was best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class. She used the lower-case spelling of her name to decenter herself and draw attention to her work instead. The focus of hooks' writing was to explore the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She published around 40 books, including works that ranged from essays, poetry, and children's books. She published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. Her work addressed love, race, social class, gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venceremos Brigade</span> Organization

The Venceremos Brigade is an international organization founded in 1969 by members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and officials of the Republic of Cuba. It was formed as a coalition of young people to show solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by working side by side with Cuban workers, challenging U.S. policies towards Cuba, including the United States embargo against Cuba. The yearly brigade trips, which as of 2010 have brought more than 9,000 people to Cuba, continue today and are coordinated with the Pastors For Peace Friendship Caravans to Cuba. The 48th Brigade travelled to Cuba in July 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States embargo against Cuba</span> Ongoing restriction on trade with Cuba by the United States

The United States embargo against Cuba prevents US businesses, and businesses organized under US law or majority-owned by US citizens, from conducting trade with Cuban interests. It is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. The US first imposed an embargo on the sale of arms to Cuba on March 14, 1958, during the Fulgencio Batista regime. Again on October 19, 1960, almost two years after the Cuban Revolution had led to the deposition of the Batista regime, the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine after Cuba nationalized the US-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation. On February 7, 1962, the embargo was extended to include almost all exports. The United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution every year since 1992 demanding the end of the US economic embargo on Cuba, with the US and Israel being the only nations to consistently vote against the resolutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Hartsock</span> Social sciences scholar

Nancy C. M. Hartsock (1943–2015) was a professor of Political Science and Women Studies at the University of Washington from 1984 to 2009.

Shirley Ruth Englehorn was an American professional golfer. Nicknamed "Dimples", she won 11 tournaments during her LPGA Tour career, including one major, the 1970 LPGA Championship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuba</span> Island country in the Caribbean

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola, and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuba–United States relations</span> Bilateral relations

Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015, after relations had been severed in 1961 during the Cold War. U.S. diplomatic representation in Cuba is handled by the United States Embassy in Havana, and there is a similar Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. The United States, however, continues to maintain its commercial, economic, and financial embargo, making it illegal for U.S. corporations to do business with Cuba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Williams (writer)</span> American writer

Robin Patricia Williams is an American educator who has authored many computer-related books, as well as the book Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?. Among her computer books are manuals of style The Mac is Not a Typewriter and numerous manuals for various macOS operating systems and applications, including The Little Mac Book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vilma Espín</span> Cuban politician

Vilma Lucila Espín Guillois was a Cuban revolutionary, feminist, and chemical engineer. She helped supply and organize the 26th of July Movement as an underground spy, and took an active role in many branches of the Cuban government from the conclusion of the revolution to her death. Espín helped found the Federation of Cuban Women and promoted equal rights for Cuban women in all spheres of life.

José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera was a Cuban politician. He was the country's Minister of Health from 2004 to 2010. He previously served as the final Cuban ambassador to the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Carter rabbit incident</span> Swamp rabbit attack on the American president

The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as the "killer rabbit attack" by the press, involved a swamp rabbit that swam toward U.S. president Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Associated Press White House correspondent Brooks Jackson learned of the story months later.

The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee(NECLC), until 1968 known as the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, was an organization formed in the United States in October 1951 by 150 educators and clergymen to advocate for the civil liberties embodied in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, notably the rights of free speech, religion, travel, and assembly. Though it solicited contributions, its program and policy decisions were controlled by a self-perpetuating national council for most of its first 20 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuban literacy campaign</span> Effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution

The Cuban literacy campaign was an eight-month long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution.

Sandy (Alexandra) Pollack (1948–1985) was an American Communist activist. She is best known for her involvement in the founding of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), which was the focus of two highly controversial FBI investigations. One addressed possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), in which her personal contact with Farid Handal, brother of Salvadoran Communist leader Shafik, was called into question. The other concerned alleged tangible support of terrorist activities perpetrated by or on behalf of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN and Frente Democrático Revolucionario FDR under the guise of international solidarity. The first case was dropped for lack of evidence. She was killed in a plane crash before the second case was settled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Cornell</span> American curator

Lauren Cornell is an American curator and writer based in New York. Cornell is the Chief Curator of the Hessel Museum of Art and the Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Previously, she was a curator at the New Museum and was the executive director of their affiliate Rhizome (2005-2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silver certificate (Cuba)</span> Cuban banknote

Cuban silver certificates were banknotes issued by the Cuban government between 1934 and 1949. Prior and subsequent issues of Cuban banknotes were engraved and printed by nongovernmental private bank note companies in the United States, but the series from 1934 to 1949 were designed, engraved, and printed by the US government at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandra Ramos</span> Cuban artist (born 1969)

Sandra Ramos is a Cuban contemporary painter, printmaker, collagist, video and installation artist who explores nationality, gender, and identity in her work. She is known for works featuring her character of the Cuban Pioneer girl, who is composed of a self-portrait and an appropriated portion of an old illustration from 1895' L' illustration French magazine. Ramos currently lives in Miami, Florida, and serves as an artist in residence at Bakehouse Art Complex. Previously, she was a resident artist at The Foutain Head Art Studios. She is also a renowned curator in Cuba, and she won a national award for her curatorial work on the exhibition La Huella Múltiple in 2003 from the Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas (CNAP) in Havana, Cuba.

Carol Deborah Morton Brightman was an American author. Her 1992 biography Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World received the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Biography/Autobiography Award.

Pat Schulz was an influential Canadian feminist, revolutionary socialist, organizer and writer. She was the subject of the National Film Board of Canada documentary Worth Every Minute, directed by Catherine Macleod and Lorraine Segato. Toronto's Pat Schulz Child Care Centre is named in her honour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbados–Cuba relations</span> Bilateral relations

Barbados-Cuban relations refers to the bilateral relations between Barbados and the Republic of Cuba. Barbados has an embassy in Havana and Cuba has an embassy in Bridgetown. Barbados and the Republic of Cuba are both members of the Association of Caribbean States, Belt and Road Initiative, ECLAC, EU-CARIFORUM, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific State and CARICOM.

References

  1. ↑ "CCS Leadership and Staff". Center for Cuban Studies. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Reinholz, Mary (December 13, 2016). "A Champion of Cuban-American Cultural Exchange Grapples With a State of Flux". Bedford + Bowery. New York . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Hayden, Tom (2015). Listen, Yankee! Why Cuba Matters. Seven Stories Press. p. 102. ISBN   9781609805975 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  4. 1 2 Neely, Daniel Tannehill; Rommen, Timothy, eds. (2014). Sun, Sea, and Sound: Music and Tourism in the Circum-Caribbean. Oxford University Press. p. 293. ISBN   9780199988860 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 Fuller, Larry (September 1, 1966). "Miss Levinson is a 'muckraker'". Globe Gazette. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 Morain, Michael (28 January 2007). "Artists color life in Cuba". Des Moines Register – via ProQuest.
  7. ↑ "Sandra Levinson". HuffPost . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 Nwoye, Irene Chidinma (January 8, 2015). "NYC's Cuban Americans Look Ahead to Life After the Embargo". The Village Voice . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  9. ↑ "VENCEREMOS BRIGADE: Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba". Kirkus Reviews . May 1, 1971. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  10. ↑ Genzlinger, Neil (November 15, 2019). "Carol Brightman, 80, Dies; Profiled a Notable Writer and a Notable Band". The New York Times . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  11. ↑ Fagen, Patricia W. (March 1972). "Reviewed Works: Venceremos Brigade: Young Americans Sharing the Life and Work of Revolutionary Cuba by Sandra Levinson, Carol Brightman; Does Fidel Eat More Than Your Father?: Conversations in Cuba by Barry Reckord". The American Political Science Review . 66 (1): 252–254. doi:10.2307/1959335. JSTOR   1959335 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  12. 1 2 3 Franklin, Jane (2016). Cuba and the U.S. Empire: A Chronological History. Monthly Review Press. pp. 99, 103. ISBN   9781583676059 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  13. 1 2 Henken, Ted A.; Celaya, Miriam; Castellanos, Dimas (2013). Cuba. Abc-Clio. p. 516. ISBN   9781610690126 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  14. ↑ Stephenson, Skye (2006). "International Educational Flows between the United States and Cuba (1959-2005): Policy Winds and Exchange Flows". Cuban Studies. 37: 122–155. doi:10.1353/cub.2007.0016. S2CID   145621965.
  15. 1 2 Allen, Kerri (July 30, 2007). "Havana in the Heartland: Cuban Art at Drake University". The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education. 17 (21): 8–9, 11 – via ProQuest.
  16. ↑ Merry, Robert W. (11 July 1984). "Cuban Economy Struggles With Shortages". The Wall Street Journal – via ProQuest.
  17. ↑ Read, Richard (February 3, 1995). "Cuba Expert Urges Business to Help End U.S. Embargo". The Oregonian – via ProQuest.
  18. 1 2 van Sickle, Alexa (April 12, 2013). "Beyoncegate: The Real Problem With Travel to Cuba". The Atlantic . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  19. ↑ Kornbluh, Peter (July 12, 2017). "Has Travel to Cuba Been Trumped? A 'Nation' Forum". The Nation . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  20. ↑ Whitefield, Mimi (July 4, 2017). "Cuban entrepreneurs brace for President Trump's new Cuba policy". Miami Herald . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  21. 1 2 "In Cuba, Yes, but Only With a Purpose". The New York Times . Jul 8, 2011 – via Proquest.
  22. ↑ Burnett, Victoria (December 29, 2014). "Cuba's Art Scene Awaits a Travel Boom". The New York Times . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  23. ↑ Fernandes, Sujatha (2006). Cuba Represent! Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures. Duke University Press. p. 143. ISBN   9780822388227 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  24. ↑ Eaton, Tracy (May 8, 2002). "Latest Rage: Art from Cuba". South Florida Sun - Sentinel . The Dallas Morning News – via ProQuest.
  25. ↑ Robert, Dominguez (15 October 1999). "Made in Cuba, Art Finds a Home Here". New York Daily News – via ProQuest.
  26. ↑ Grant, Annette (June 11, 2000). "Ebullient Cubans Make a Lot Out of a Little". The New York Times – via ProQuest.
  27. ↑ Simon, Walker (June 10, 2009). "Cuban art market shows signs of vitality". Reuters . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  28. ↑ Reinl, James (January 21, 2015). "Diplomatic mountain ahead in US-Cuba ties". Al Jazeera . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  29. ↑ "Morocco hosts one of Africa's first exhibitions of Cuban art, a milestone for Afro-Cuban painters". Archived from the original on 7 April 2024. Retrieved 7 April 2024.
  30. ↑ Gosse, V. (2016). Rethinking the New Left: An Interpretative History. Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 219. ISBN   9781403980144 . Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  31. ↑ Dailey, Kate (November 4, 2011). "Cuba remembers Ernest Hemingway with a Washington bar". BBC News . Retrieved 28 March 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.