Christina Abreu

Current Research

My research focuses on the role of race, nationalism and migration in the Cuban and Spanish Caribbean diasporic communities of the United States, with a particular emphasis on popular culture.

My first book, Rhythms of Race: Cuban Musicians and the Making of Cuban New York City and Miami, 1940–1960, examined the relationship between Black and white Cuban musicians and the Cuban and broader Latinx communities of New York City and Miami in the 1940s and 1950s.

In my second book, Patria over Profits: The Story of Afro-Cuban Boxing Champion Teófilo Stevenson, I offer a cultural history of the life and times of Afro-Cuban boxing champion Teófilo Stevenson, winner of three heavyweight boxing Olympic gold medals in 1972, 1976 and 1980. In detailing Stevenson’s triumphs in the ring, another more complex and interconnected story emerges about revolutionary Cuba and the island’s Afro-Caribbean connections, race and Black athletic activism, Cuban exile culture and politics and international sports celebrity. Patria over Profits is under contract with the Sport and Society series at the University of Illinois Press.

Major Publications

Book

• Rhythms of Race: Cuban Musicians and the Making of Latino New York City and Miami, 1940-1960. Envisioning Cuba Series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Articles/Book Chapters

• "A Totally Loyal Cuban: Afro-Cuban Boxer Teófilo Stevenson and the 1972 Olympic Games." Cuban Studies, no. 53 (2024): 49-68.
• "Compromise and Competition: The Musical Identities of Afro-Cuban Women Singers." In Social Voices: The Cultural Politics of Singers around the Globe, edited by Levi S. Gibbs. University of Illinois Press, 2023.
• "Reproducing the ‘White Public Space’ in Anthropology Faculty Searches." American Anthropologist, 2022: 1-8. (co-authored with Mark Schuller).
• "Más que una reina: Race and Gender in the Musical Careers of Graciela Pérez, Celia Cruz, and La Lupe." Special issue on "The Social and Cultural History of Music," Journal of Social History, 52.2 (Winter 2018): 332-352.

Teaching Interests

My teaching interests include U.S. Latinx history, modern Caribbean history, and modern Cuban history. I also teach undergraduate courses on Latinx oral history and graduate seminars on cultural history. Many of my courses explore comparative race and ethnicity, migration, transnationalism, and popular culture.

Courses Taught

• ILAS 399: Latinx Oral History
• HIST 374: Latinxs in the United States
• HIST 388: Cuban Revolution and Its Legacies
• LATS 101: Introduction to Latino Studies

Interdisciplinary Affiliation

I am affiliated with the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies.