CasaCuba a step closer to realizing its signature campus building

FIU will soon move nearer to creating a vibrant, brick-and-mortar home to celebrate the culture and history of Cuba.

In 2017, FIU established CasaCuba to share with the public the university’s expertise and many resources related to the small island nation that has exerted an outsized influence on the world – and certainly changed the trajectory of South Florida forever.

With renowned scholars on the subject working at the university and collections of historic and artistic value within its walls, FIU has always taken seriously its role as a both an active producer of impactful research and a repository of documents and objects associated with the Cuban and Cuban American experience, its leaders say. CasaCuba serves to bring it all together in a dynamic and accessible way for the community as it highlights and preserves the stories of the diaspora.

“We want to amplify all that FIU already has here, in terms of the significant studies being conducted, in terms of the stewardship of important artwork, cultural artifacts, family ancestry records and so much more that speaks to a proud and vital heritage,” says CasaCuba Executive Director Lydia Betancourt Space MS ’00. “Our focus is on the resilience of the Cuban exile population and the achievements of the business leaders, artists, writers, musicians, entrepreneurs and others who have made meaningful contributions. CasaCuba will honor all of that to ensure it is never lost.”

Next week, renderings for a dedicated physical space on campus will be revealed. The global firm HKS Architects has completed designs for the privately funded, $40 million building, to be named for donor Benjamín León Jr., the chairman and founder of Miami-based healthcare provider Leon Medical Centers and the new U.S. administration’s nominee for ambassador to Spain.

“With this gift, our story lives on for generations to come,” León said last year. He arrived in Miami, at age 16, shortly after the Cuban Revolution, to escape an oppressive Communist regime that confiscated everything. “Like many exiles, my family had to start anew, and they succeeded through hard work and perseverance. It is a great privilege to be able to contribute to the preservation of this American story.”

The 43,000-square-foot complex will be located at the main 107^th Street entrance to the Modesto A. Maidique Campus and is projected to begin construction later this year for completion in 2027. It will feature a gallery wing in support of exhibitions as well as a digital archive and oral history collection room. Classrooms, conference rooms and a library will support educational and research activities. A meeting space and landscaped plaza will support formal and casual events.

The much-anticipated venue will augment CasaCuba’s ability to collaborate with various areas of the university, which it has done since its inception. Among other activities over the years, it has sponsored a pair of shows at the Frost Art Museum on campus around the works of the late Cuban painter Agustín Fernández - with one opening next month - and a concert of Cuban orchestral works mounted by the school of music. New possibilities for joint programming in its own space include displaying hand-annotated musical scores, original album covers, promotional photographs and other documents from the 150,000-piece Diaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, held by the FIU Libraries Special Collections department.

Additionally, FIU’s longstanding research and education centers dedicated to Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean produce scholarly work that touches upon current realities on the island and offers the opportunity for public presentations as part of nonpartisan forums. The Cuban Research Institute within the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, for example, for more than three decades has studied Cuban society and the diaspora, politics and economics in addition to contemporary literature, art, music and more. And the Kimberly Green Latin American & Caribbean Center investigates Cuban trade and migration, Cuba-U.S. relations and more.

“CasaCuba is all about delving into history, both glorious and difficult, understanding the present and looking ahead, as our own professors have long done,” FIU President Kenneth A. Jessell says. “The building will serve as the contact point for a research institution and a community eager to engage in ongoing dialogue. It will be both a welcome center and a place of learning and lively exchange.

“It will be anything but quiet.”

Betancourt Space, the director, agrees. “This is about actively participating in the larger conversations taking place in South Florida and beyond as we reach across institutions and individuals to develop a complete and meaningful picture in light of a diaspora that now spans the globe,” she says. “We are committed to that.”

Additional critical support has come from prominent Cuban American entrepreneur Jorge Más, Bacardi USA, Bustelo Café and Pilon (brands in The J.M. Smucker Co. portfolio), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State of Florida (through a cultural facilities grant) and the Knight Foundation.