Graduate Students Conduct Research in Cuba Thanks to Father-Daughter Alumni Funds

This summer, graduate students Abisola Akinsiku and Sarah Hargreaves participated in Marta Caminero-Santangelo’s study abroad trip to Cuba, each continuing to explore research interests that began in her ENGL 790: Latinx Literature of Trauma and Testimony course in fall 2022.

“[In ENGL 790], I came upon this idea of Afro-Cuban people and how we engage with the literature and culture of people in Cuba who also identify as African,” Akinsiku said. As an African woman and scholar of African, African American, and Afro-Caribbean literature, including the study of the transatlantic slave trade, she said Caminero-Santangelo’s class and the discussion of Afro-Cuban people fueled her “academic wanderlust.”

Akinsiku considers her research in Cuba as part of a larger project that “moves...from Nigeria to other spots in the African diaspora... [providing] the point of view of a continental African who is on a journey to find her ‘sisters’ who were forced out through enslavement.” Specifically, she hopes it will contribute to a book, tentatively titled On the Brink of Finding my Sisters.

She was struck by the fact that Afro-Cubans who she spoke to identified as Yoruba, a West African ethnic group to which Akinsiku belongs. “I had been wanting a chance to meet with people of my own descent,” she said. “When I met them, they would say, ‘we are Cuban [not] Nigerian, but we do identify as Yoruba especially in terms of practicing the religion.” Akinsiku found that linguistically, musically, and in worship and museums, the religion helped to preserve memories of Africa in Cuba.

Meanwhile, Sarah Hargreaves, whose research centers on African diasporic drama, was particularly interested in exploring issues of social inequality in Cuba. For her, learning more about the Santería religion, described as a fusion of Catholic and African folk beliefs, and its views on sin helped to inform her understanding of the culture and its perception of different marginalized groups.

In seeking to research contemporary primary sources of Afro-Cuban drama and how it “addresses issues of racism, wealth inequality, and labor practices in order to seek a more equitable and just world,” Hargreaves also participated in conversations with a Cuban playwright, critic, and members of the drama department at the University of Havana.

1: Hargreaves and Akinsiku learning and participating in Afro-Cuban dance.

2: Hargreaves and Akinsiku, with their guides Adetola and Ledu, visit with an Afro-Cuban religious practitioner, known as a Babalawo, and his wife Obalabi.

3: Located at the Africa House in Havana called The Museo Casa de África, this stout wooden sculpture was produced by a Nigerian sculptor.

4: Hargreaves and Akinsiku visit the Museo de los Orishas in Old Havana. This museum harbors life-size casts of many of the Yoruba pantheons. It is a site of memory; many of the artistic representations of the pantheons were also imported from Africa.

5: Hargreaves and Akinsiku visited Beyond Root, an Afro-Cuban business venture in La Habana. They specialize in providing an Afro-Cuban experience to visitors, creating an avenue for them to experience the idea of Afro-Cuba through their five senses.

Hargreaves plans to continue studying the subject and the various works that were recommended to her by the people she spoke to in Cuba. Both she and Akinsiku hope to develop syllabi for an ENGL 203 course based on their respective research areas.

Hargreaves and Akinsiku’s research in Cuba was made possible by the Gail Johnstone Fund for Graduate Students in English, the Runnels Family Endowment Fund, and the KU Tinker Field Research Grant.

Gail Johnstone is a KU alumna from the Class of 1963 whose family also sponsors the John F. Eberhardt Excellence in Writing Award and its respective Memorial Fund. Both were established for her father, who was “not only a very proud Jayhawker, but a graduate of Harvard Law School, a superb lawyer, and a wonderful writer,” Johnstone said. “Supporting graduate students and young professors of English is a perfect tribute to him.”

This year’s Eberhardt Writing Award recipients were Jane Makela and Janie Rainer.