Tulane University

Katy Henderson, doctoral student in Latin American History, was awarded a Graduate Fellowship by the Cuban Heritage Collection to conduct archival research this summer. Among a select few Graduate Fellows, Henderson will have full access to the collection housed at the University of Miami as she pursues her research project, The Gospel of José Martí: Cuban Racial Discourse in the Twentieth Century.

“This is great opportunity for Katy and a significant accomplishment,” says Ana López, Director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute at Tulane University. Henderson’s “fellowship at the Cuban Heritage Collection will contribute greatly to her doctoral project and will help her forge connections that will last throughout her scholarly career and beyond.”

The University of Miami began its collection of Cuba-related resources in the 1920s. With the rapid expansion of materials in the 1960s and the consolidation of the collection in 1998, the Cuban Heritage Collection is today one of the premier archives on Cuba. The Cuban Heritage Collection Graduate Fellowship program was launched in 2010 and aims to provide access to the collection’s research materials for emerging scholars who intend to contribute to scholarship in Cuban, hemispheric, and international studies.

Henderson expressed her gratitude and excitement in receiving the fellowship, “I was thrilled when I found out I had received the pre-dissertation summer grant from University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection. Miami houses one of the largest collections of Cuban archival material outside of the island, and for my developing dissertation project on race in twentieth-century Cuba, their collection is a great fit.” Henderson will spend the month of July in the archives, between coursework and fall teaching prep.

For more information on the Cuban Heritage Collection and on the Graduate Fellowships, click here.