Miami, Oct. 17, 2016– Discover what it was like to stay at the Hotel Nacional, shop in a Communist capitol, and dine in Havana’s finest restaurants—all while Cubans endured food shortages– during the screening, “A Ticket to Havana” at the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at Miami Dade College (MDC) at 7 p.m., Oct. 20. Emmy Award-winning television reporter Diana Gonzalez recounts her 1979 reporting trip to Cuba, just six months before the Mariel Boatlift dramatically changed the relationship between the United States and Cuba. The event is free and open to the public.
Gonzalez, a Cuban-American TV reporter, also shares some of these stories in “Growing Up in Cuba,” an additional screening that captures Cuban youth culture, from record stores and teen hangouts to the Cuban version of “American Bandstand.” She also discusses her experience reporting in authoritarian Cuba during a thaw in U.S. – Cuba relations in 1979.
The Wolfson Archives event will combine screenings of Gonzalez’ 1979 reports, “Ticket to Havana” and “Growing Up in Cuba,” with memories and insights from Gonzalez in person.
“As Americans travel again to Cuba, these reports and others in our collections remind us that we’ve been here before,” says Wolfson Archives Director Rene Ramos. “Diana Gonzalez’s reports evoke the Cuba of 1979 and have a new relevancy as our relations with Cuba change once again.”
“Ticket to Havana” is a presentation of the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at Miami Dade College, a film and video archive dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of Florida and Florida’s people.
“Ticket to Havana” is presented with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.
Light refreshments will follow the screening.
For more information, please contact the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at 305-237-7731 or info@wolfsonarchive.org.
About Diana Gonzalez
She currently serves as the Director of the Office of Communications for the City of Miami where she manages social media messaging and homepage content for the City’s website, media relations and video productions for City of Miami TV. Before joining the City, she worked as a consultant for Hollywood Health & Society, a non-profit program of the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center. Gonzalez is a familiar name and face in South Florida, having worked as a broadcast journalist here for 35 years. She was the health reporter at NBC6 and WPLG Channel 10. Diana also worked as a national correspondent for CBS News, based in the Miami Bureau. A University of Florida graduate, Diana is the recipient of numerous awards, including 5 Emmys.
About The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at MDC
The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives is an official moving image repository and archives of the State of Florida and is one of the largest institutions of its kind in the United States. Lynn Wolfson helped found the Moving Image Archives in 1984, along with Ralph Renick and historian Arva Moore Parks. Named in honor of Lynn and the late Louis Wolfson II, a Florida legislator and leader in the state’s communications industry, the Archives is solely operated by Miami Dade College, and is housed in a 9,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility on MDC’s Wolfson Campus. The Archives’ collections include 35,000 hours of videotape and 23 million feet of film. A local television news collection dates to the late 1940s, with footage from landmark television station WTVJ (first in Florida, 18th in the nation) as well as WPLG, WCKT, WCIX, and WINK. The capstone of activities at the Archives is a long-term digitization project funded generously by an additional gift from Lynn Wolfson.
Media-only contacts: René Ramos, Archives director, 305-237-7731, rramos@mdc.edu; Lou Kramer, Archives manager, 305-327-7731, lkramer1@mdc.edu; or Kevin Wynn, public programs coordinator, 305-327-7732, kwynn@mdc.edu