Lillian Guerra is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of Cuban and Caribbean history and the Director of the

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

Program at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. A widely published author and researcher, she is considered one of the leading Cuban history experts in the world.

Early life

Guerra is the daughter of

Cuban exile A Cuban exile is a person who emigrated from Cuba in the Cuban exodus. Exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they migrated during the exodus. Demographics Social class Cuban exiles would come from various ec ...

parents, who fled the Communist dictatorship and immigrated to the United States from

in 1965. She was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and as a young child was raised in Marion, Kansas. Her family subsequently moved to

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

when Guerra was fourteen years old. She has described herself in a

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

article as "a Cuban born in New York and raised in Kansas and Miami."

Education

Guerra attended

Ransom Everglades School Ransom Everglades School is an independent, non-profit, co-educational, college-preparatory day school serving grades six to twelve in Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida. It formed with the merger in 1974 of the Everglades School for Girls and the ...

Coconut Grove, Florida Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as The Grove, is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bound by North Prospect Drive to the south, LeJeune Road to the west, S ...

and subsequently received her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

(1992), and her Ph. D in History from the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

(

Latin American Studies Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, history ...

2000). Guerra never graduated from High School, as she left it in her junior year to start attending Darmouth.

Work

Guerra is a widely published history researcher and author, whose work has a focus on Cuban history. Guerra has taught Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American history at

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

(2000-2004),

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(2004-2010) and currently since 2010 at the University of Florida. As a public lecturer, she has given many public lectures and keynote speeches, most notably at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, Stanford University, Duke University,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, Yale University Law School,

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

, the

Universidad Diego Portales Diego Portales University ( es, Universidad Diego Portales, UDP) is one of the first private universities founded in Chile and is named after the Chilean statesman Diego Portales. UDP has campuses in the Barrio Universitario de SantiagoA litera ...

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, the

Biblioteca Nacional de Chile The National Library of Chile () is the national library of Chile. It is located on the Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins in Santiago, in a building completed in 1925, though its history reaches to the early nineteenth century before ...

, the

Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation The Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation is a research institute at the University of Hull, in Kingston upon Hull, England. Housed in Oriel Chambers in Hull City Centre, since 2005, its aim is to research slavery in the ...

in Hull, England, and many others.

Awards

* Best Dissertation Prize,

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

Council of

(NECLAS) (2000-2001) * Bryce Wood Book Award (2014) * William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award (2014) * John Simmon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014-2015) * American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2014-2015) *

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

(NEH) Fellowship (2020)

Books

* ''Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico'' (1998) * ''The Myth of

José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...

: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba'' (2005) * ''Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption and Resistance, 1959–1971'' (2012) * ''Heroes, Martyrs and Political Messiahs in Revolutionary Cuba, 1946–1958'' (2018) * ''Patriots and Traitors in Cuba: Political Pedagogy, Rehabilitation and Vanguard Youth, 1961–1981''

Media

Guerra has served as advisor and lead scholar for films and documentaries such as ''American Comandante: Cuba’s Most Unlikely Revolutionary'' (

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

), ''Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution'' (

American Public Television American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations and indepe ...

), and others. ''Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution'' was awarded an Emmy in 2016 for best documentary. She also often appears in television and magazine or newspaper stories requiring expert opinions on Cuban and Cuban-American issues.

References

External links

Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution
' on YouTube
American Comandante: Cuba's Most Unlikely Revolutionary
on PBS {{DEFAULTSORT:Guerra, Lillian Living people University of Florida faculty Cuban-American history Dartmouth College alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni American women writers Cuban-American literature People from Miami-Dade County, Florida People from Marion, Kansas People from New York City American women academics Year of birth missing (living people) Historians from New York (state) Historians from Florida 21st-century American women