Content area
Full Text
La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami. By Miguel A. de la Torre. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xix, 181. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $55.00 cloth; $21.95 paper.
Much has been written since the early 1960s about Miami's large and often-misunderstood exilic Cuban community. Most of the researchers have been specialists who focused on specific aspects of the broad exilic experience; although frequently interesting and sometimes valuable, these works illuminate only disconnected fragments of the whole mosaic. Conversely, Dr. De La Torre's concurrent roles as Director of the ILIFF School of Theology's Justice and Peace Institute, associate professor of social ethics, ordained clergyman, and devoted lifelong member of the exilic Cuban community provide him not only with broad arrays of expertise but also with the rare combination of perspectives needed to conduct this expansive, insightful, well-integrated, and long-needed study of contemporary Miami cubanidad. Using the much-publicized Elián González custody battle as a backdrop, he portrays the exilic Cuban community as...