"The girl is born to be a mother. The boy is born to be a gentleman": gender and national identity in a Cuban exile cultural organization, 1962-1974

This thesis examines a Miami, Florida Cuban exile cultural organization known as Cruzada Educativa Cubana (Cuban Educational Crusade), between 1962 and 1974. It argues that the groups educational programs presented a model of Cuban national identity predicated upon traditional roles for men and women. Placing the activities of the CEC in the context of the profound social transformations occurring in Cuba and the United States during the 1960s and early 1970schanges which included the apparent weakening of patriarchal authority brought on by, among other things, vastly increased levels of female employmentthis thesis maintains that the organizations project to preserve Cuban culture was a direct response to these transformations. The CEC, it concludes, constituted an attempt by some of the earliest and most conservative Cuban migrs to enforce a reactionary system of gender codes in the Miami Cuban community in the face of challenges to pre-Castro gender norms.