The July 26 Coalition is hosting up to 20 Cuban scholars participating in the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) annual conference at Marriott Copley. Miguel Fraga, the First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. is also invited.

• Saturday, May 25, 2019, 8:00-10:00 pm
• Lenox Hotel’s City Bar reception room
• 1st floor, wheelchair accessible
• Complimentary appetizers, Cash bar
• RSVP: Margaret Witham, pegaleg45@gmail.com – (617) 905-9510

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• • “Imperialist War on Cuba and Venezuela: Afro-Caribbean Socialist Women Fight Back”
• Friday, May 24, 7:00 pm
• Encuento 5, 9A Hamilton Pl. (near Park St. T station)

Join the Boston branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Witness for Peace New England, the Boston Venezuela Solidarity Committee, and the July 26th Coalition for a special panel discussion on empire, race and socialism in Cuba and Venezuela. With

• Jourdy James Heredia, subdirector of the Global Economy Research Center in Havana;
• Gisela Arandia, president of the Cuban chapter of the Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
• Jeanette Charles, international solidarity liaison with VenezuelAnalysis.com.

This event will be held in both English and Spanish; interpretation services will be provided. Food and drink will be served; unfortunately encuentro5 is not wheelchair accessible. Additional information about the presenters is in the full posting, along with a photo of the event.

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Between 50 and 60 packed the main room at E-5 for the program.

In the face of escalating US economic and political warfare, three radical black women of the Caribbean and its diaspora will discuss the impacts of U.S. unilateral coercive sanctions on the Cuban and Venezuelan peoples; anti-racism and reparations within both revolutionary processes; and the ongoing construction of socialism, anti-imperialist solidarity and racial liberation throughout the Americas.  Additional presenter information for the Friday, May 24 program:

Jeanette Charles is a daughter of the Haitian Diaspora and was raised in working class Black and Brown Los Angeles, California. Charles currently serves as the International Solidarity Liaison for Venezuela Analysis and has worked as a writer and editor contributing to issues on Afro-Venezuelans, sex and gender diversity movements, land recuperation processes and the current political climate. She’s worked in solidarity spaces with African and Indigenous peoples across Latin America and the Caribbean as a popular educator, human rights advocate and organizing solidarity brigades. She’s lived, worked and studied in Venezuela for extended periods of time since 2010.

Jourdy Victoria James Heredia received a PhD in Economic Sciences from the University of Havana and a PhD in Economic Sciences from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. She is the subdirector and lead researcher of the Global Economy Research Center in Havana and Associate Professor at the University of Havana. She is a member of the editorial group of Cuba’s World Economic Issues Journal and of the Foreign Policy Experts group organized by Cuba’s Higher Institute for Foreign Relations. She has won the Annual Prize of the Cuban Academy of Sciences on two occasions (1999 and 2000) and the EU-LAC Foundation Prize in 2015. She has over 30 years of experience researching issues of European integration. She is the author of numerous articles in national and international journals and two books: The Euro Zone Crisis: Economic Foundations and Lessons for Latin America and Food Security in the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean: The Cases of Cuba and Spain. She has lectured in universities throughout the world, including in Spain, Jamaica, Canada, Germany, China and Kenya.

Gisela Arandia is an author and researcher on issues of race and identity based out of UNEAC, the National Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba. She is currently the president of the Cuban chapter of the Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARAC). She manages the Concha Mocoyu Yoruba Cultural Center, an innovative project which brought foreign funding to the neighborhood level in Havana in order to support a critically needed self-apprenticeship program based in African roots. She holds a degree in journalism and has been a researcher and writer about race and Black people in Cuba since 1989; she received her doctorate from the University of Havana in 2017. She published her book Afro-Cuba Today in 2013, and also researches Black feminism, Black communities in poor neighborhoods and the impact of mass media on the self-esteem of Afro-descendent people. She does action research and combines academic work and social activism. She has conducted research at the Center for United States Studies at the University of Havana, the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the Center for Cuban Studies at Florida International University, studying the Black Cuban community in Miami. She has participated in many international conferences on Afro-descendants in Africa, Latin America and the United States.