In this interview, Cuban-born poet, journalist, and scholar Damaris Puñales-Alpízar traces her life from childhood and education in Matanzas through journalism studies at the University of Havana, the hardships of Cuba’s Special Period, and her departure from the island in 1995. She discusses cofounding the bilingual transborder newspaper Conexión in Belize, working as a journalist and government communications analyst in Mexico, and later earning her MA and PhD in literary studies at the University of Iowa before joining the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in 2010. Puñales-Alpízar reflects on migration, the Cuban and Cuban American diaspora, the political and humanitarian crisis in Cuba, the challenges facing language and humanities education, and her development as a poet. She also describes the founding and mission of Trasatlántica, a Cleveland-based nonprofit that connects Spanish-language writers and audiences in the United States, Latin America, and Spain through poetry, literature, film, theater, and community programming. Throughout the interview, she emphasizes the importance of reading, human connection, cultural exchange, and community as sources of creativity, resilience, and social meaning.

Puñales-Alpízar, Damaris (interviewee)

Martínez Abeijón, Matías (interviewer);Souther, Mark (facilitator)

Voces de Cleveland

5-20-2026

Oral History

131 minutes

"Damaris Puñales-Alpízar Interview, 20 May 2026" (2026). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 641003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1464

May include audio transcription (.doc, .docx, .txt) and/or audio log (.csv, .pdf)

641003.txt (94 kB)

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