Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies: Marilyn Miller on ‘Cuban Independence Leader José Martí and His Jewish Supporters’

In her talk, Marilyn Miller examines Cuban revolutionary hero José Martí’s relationships with Jewish supporters, especially in late-19th-century New York City, and the continuing importance of Martí’s legacy to Jews after his death. While previous research has debated whether Martí was motivated by a genuine interest in the Jewish experience or simply saw in Jewish communities a strategic opportunity for raising funds and procuring arms for the Cuban independence struggle, this project will show that Jews in New York, Cuba, Florida, and elsewhere have identified keenly with Martí’s antiracism discourse and adopted his words and deeds as important tools in their fights against antisemitism, racial discrimination, and other forms of injustice.

About the Speaker
Marilyn Miller is a professor of Latin American literature and culture in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Sizeler Professor in Judaic Studies at Tulane University. She focuses on issues of race, Jewish identity, and emancipatory poetics in inter-American and transatlantic contexts. Her forthcoming volume, Eduardo Halfon and the Itinerary of Memory (Vanderbilt UP, 2024), is the first major study of the award-winning Guatemalan Jewish author. Her 2021 book, Port of No Return: Enemy Alien Internment in WWII New Orleans (LSU Press, 2021), exposes the little-known history of Jewish and other European detainees held at Camp Algiers, Louisiana, as part of the U.S. Enemy Alien Control Act during World War II. Miller also is the author of Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin America (UT Press, 2005), and the editor of the collection Tango Lessons: Movement, Sound, Image and Text in Contemporary Practice (Duke UP, 2014). Her research has been featured in the radio programs “Tripod: New Orleans at 300” and “Latino USA.”