Noticias y eventos • News and Events • Nouvelles et Événements

Five new national cultural heroes proclaimed in St. Lucia

Joseph Rameau Poleon, a violinist of Belle Vue, Vieux Fort and the late master drummer Athanasius LaBorde are among five individuals who were recently named national cultural heroes of St. Lucia by the Folk Research Center (Plas Wíchès Folklò, FRC). Flora Granger Chant-wel of Choiseul, steel band maestro Lennards ‘Scrubb’ Wellington, and Monsignor Patrick ‘Paba’ Anthony, who was the founder of FRC, are the other three who were chosen.

The FRC was born out of a Study and Action Group led by Anthony in 1972 and was formed in 1973. In 2005 the first two national cultural heroes were recognized: the late Harold Simmons and Dame Sesenne Descartes. Sir Dunstan St. Omer was recognized in 2007.

Bacardi celebrates ties to architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Bacardi Limited recently opened a joint event with Neue Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (New National Gallery in Berlin) in honor of the famed German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The collection titled “There is a Reason” features the acclaimed works, drawings, plans and photographs of Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe and his unique relationship with Bacardi and Neue Nationalgalerie. Mies designed two buildings for Bacardi in Mexico and Cuba. However, his plans for the Company’s global headquarters in Santiago de Cuba were never built due to the Cuban Revolution, the confiscation of Bacardi assets in Cuba and the subsequent exile of the Bacardi family by the Cuban government. Two similar buildings did emanate from Mie’s original design for Bacardi, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany in 1968, and the Bacardi International Limited Building in Bermuda in 1972, now the Company’s global headquarters.

In 1929, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe first came into contact with Bacardi at the Barcelona International Exposition. At the Exposition, Bacardi and the Mies-designed Barcelona Pavilion were both awarded grand prizes for their originality and unrivaled quality. Then-Bacardi president José ‘Pepín’ Bosch hired Mies to design buildings for the Company’s headquarters in Santiago de Cuba and its Mexican operations in Tultitlán.

Mies traveled to Santiago de Cuba in 1957 where Bosch conveyed his vision for an “office without walls.” Two years later in January 1959, Mies revealed his designs for the two Bacardi buildings at the Havana Hilton Hotel in Cuba. The following year, the Mexican building was completed and received international acclaim by the global architectural community.

Though Ludwig Mies van der Rohe did not see either of his creations, his buildings, based on the Bacardi philosophy of open spaces, are visited by thousands of people each year.

Two Puerto Rico sites chosen for US conservation program

The U.S. government has selected two sites in Puerto Rico that will receive additional resources and protection as part of a federal conservation program.

A swath along Puerto Rico’s northeast coast and the nearby sister island of Culebra were designated “habitat focus areas” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Both areas have recently seen declines in the number of mangroves, coral and sea grass. The program will improve habitat conditions at both sites that are popular with tourists and help the local government manage recreational activities.

New Book: Teresita A. Levy’s “Puerto Ricans in the Empire – Tobacco Growers and U.S. Colonialism”

Most studies of Puerto Rico’s relations with the United States have focused on the sugar industry, recounting a tale of victimization and imperial abuse driven by the interests of U.S. sugar companies. But in Puerto Ricans in the Empire (Rutgers University Press, 2014), Teresita A. Levy looks at a different agricultural sector, tobacco growing, and tells a story in which Puerto Ricans fought successfully for legislation that benefited the island.

Levy describes how small-scale, politically involved, independent landowners grew most of the tobacco in Puerto Rico. She shows how, to gain access to...