News & Events

Hispanic Heritage Month Events Include Talk by Fidel Castro’s Daughter

September 21, 2011

During National Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15-October 15, UNC Asheville will host a series of special events, including appearances by writers Stephanie Elizondo Griest and Gabriela Garcia Medina, and a talk by Alina Fernandez, daughter of Fidel Castro.

Poet and spoken word artist Gabriela Garcia Medina will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, at the Grotto in Highsmith University Union. Garcia Medina a Cuban native, graduated from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. An activist and performer, she has been featured in settings as diverse as the World Social Forum (Brazil, 2004) and Havana Jazz Plaza (2001), and television commercials for Dove and Toyota. She is the author of “Ink-Scribing Oshun” and “In the Wake of Oya.” This performance, sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Student Programs, is free and open to the public.

Memoirist, journalist, and activist Stephanie Elizondo Griest will give a presentation and reading at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27 in Karpen Hall’s Laurel Forum. She has written two award-winning memoirs: "Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines" and "Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana," and has edited the best-selling guidebook "100 Places Every Woman Should Go." Griest also founded and directed the Youth Free Expression Network, a program of the National Coalition Against Censorship, in New York City. Her presentation at UNC Asheville, sponsored by the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and by the Office of Multicultural Student Programs, is free and open to the public.

Alina Fernandez, daughter of Fidel Castro, will speak at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 28, in the Humanities Lecture Hall. Fernandez, who left Cuba and lives in the U.S., will share her recollections of life in her homeland, her relationship with her father, her decision to leave, and the challenges she and other Cuban exiles face living in the U.S. This talk, sponsored by Herman@s Orgullos@s en las Americas (HOLA) and UNC Asheville’s Student Government Association, is free and open to the public.

For more information on Hispanic Heritage Month activities at UNC Asheville, call Lamar Hylton, director of the Office of Multicultural Student Programs at 828.258.7671.