Email:Theodore.Henken@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone:646 312-3888
Fax:646 312-4461
Location:VC 4-257
Blog:“El Yuma”
Professor Ted A. Henken is a tenured professor in the Department of Sociologyand Anthropology at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY) and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Black and Latino Studies, where he served as chairperson between 2010-2012.
A past winner of Baruch College’s Presidential Excellence Award in Distinguished Teaching (2007), Henken specializes in courses on contemporary Cuban culture and society, introduction to sociology, sociology of the Internet, contemporary Latin America, Latinos in the U.S., comparative race and ethnic relations, the sociology of religion, international migration, and comparative urban studies courses on Havana, New York, and New Orleans.
One of his most popular and original courses, “The City that Care Forgot: The Roots, Ruin, and Rebirth of New Orleans,” is an honors seminar that includes a week-long service-learning trip from “The Big Apple” to “The Big Easy,” where he has led his students on a variety of civic engagement and educational activities. Henken even co-wrote the article, “Civic Engagement in the City that Care Forgot,” with two of his students explaining their approach to service-learning and engaged scholarship.
During the spring 2018, Henken held the Alfonso Reyes Chair as a visiting professor of Latin American Studies at the Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL) of the Sorbonne (Paris-3), where he taught two graduate-level seminars on comparative race and ethnic relations (between the US and Latin America) and the rise and fall of the “Pink Tide” in Latin America.
Henken earned his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University’sRoger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies and is apast president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE, 2012-2014).
Henken has closely followed the political and socioeconomic impact of increased Internet access and social media use in Cubasince the turn of the century. In that vein, he co-edited the book, Cuba’s Digital Revolution: Citizen Innovation and State Policy, with Sara Garcia Santamaria (University of Florida Press, 2021). He has also published articles on the emergent independent digital media landscape on the island, including “The Opiate of the Paquete” (Cuban Studies 50, 2021), “Cuba’s Digital Millennials” (Social Research, 2017), “From Cyberspace to Public Space? The Emergent Blogosphere and Cuban Civil Society,” published inThe Revolution under Raúl Castro: A Contemporary Cuba Reader(2015), and a 2011 Spanish language article about the polarization of the Cuban “blogosphere” in thejournalNueva Sociedad.
Additionally, Henken writes the annual “Freedom on the Net” and “Freedom in the World” reports on Cuba forFreedom House.
Henken’s research also focuses on the social implications of Cuban economic reform and the rise of the private, “self-employed” sector on the island over the last 30 years (1990-2020). He is the co-author with Archibald Ritter of the book, Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape, originally published in 2015 by FirstForumPress, an imprint of Lynne Rienner Publishers. Called “encyclopedic, balanced, and laudable … the most comprehensive and profound on self-employment so far,” by the eminent Cuban economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago, the book looks at how Cuba has dramatically reformed its policies toward small private enterprise during the presidency of Raúl Castro, how Cuban entrepreneurs have responded with creativity and innovation, and what the U.S. can do to encourage greater reforms and empower the Cuban entrepreneurial class. Weaving in rich ethnographic research and extensive interviews done on the island between 2000 and 2014 with a variety of entrepreneurs, the book evaluates how and to what extent Raúl’s economic reforms differed from the much more rigid past policies of his “big brother” Fidel. The Spanish edition of the book (Editorial Hypermedia, 2020) features an epilogue that covers the 2015-2020 period with Miguel Díaz-Canel as Cuban president and Donald Trump in the White House.
Henken has published various scholarly articles and book chapters in this same research trajectory including, “Between the ‘Party Line’ and the ‘Bottom Line’: El Proyecto Artecorte and the Virtuous Circle of Entrepreneurial Solidarity in One Old Havana Neighborhood,” in the book, The Cuba-U.S. Bilateral Relationship New Pathways and Policy Choices edited by Michael J. Kelly, Erika Moreno, and Richard C. Witmer (Oxford University Press, 2019); “Self-Employed but Not Alone: Artecorte and Social Entrepreneurship in the New Cuba,” in the book Cuba Facing Forward: Balancing Development and Identity in the Twenty-First Century edited by David White, Lucas Spiro, Victor Silva, and Anya Brickman Raredon (Affordable Housing Institute, 2018), and “A Taste of Capitalism? Competing Notions of Cuban Entrepreneurship in Havana’s Paladares” (Human Geography 10: 3, 2017), co-authored with Gabriel Vignoli
Henken has travelled to Cuba over 30 times since 1997 in order to conduct research and interviews, attend conferences, and build bridges of mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and Cuba. In March 2016, he was invited by the Obama White House to be present for the President’s historic state visit to the island. He has led educational, people-to-people visits to the island for U.S. business executives, filmmakers, and cruise ships, as well as serving as an on-camera consultant for the CNBC program “The Profit,” starringMarcus Lemonis, shot on-location in Havana for a show on Cuban entrepreneurship that aired in November 2016.
Henken has also promoted scholarly, student, and cultural exchanges with Cuba through Tulane University’sCuban and Caribbean Studies Instituteand the non-profit cultural exchange groupCubaNOLA Arts Collective, as well as participating in the planning and execution of Baruch College’s own study abroad courses in Cuba in 2012, 2013, and 2015.Additionally, in the mid-1990s, he worked for Catholic Social Services in Mobile, Alabama, helping to resettle Cuban refugees from the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay. Subsequently, he has served as an expert witness in more than a half-dozen asylum cases, writing affidavits of support to court officials in the Netherlands and the U.S. on behalf of Cuban refugees.
As a past President of ASCE, Henken has also been instrumental in building bridges of academic exchange and collaboration with Cuban scholars, public intellectuals, and independent civilsociety activists, hosting scores of Cuban visitors to the United States since 2013. Among the more notable of these guests have been the pioneering blogger and director of14ymedioYoani Sánchez, the social entrepreneur behind Proyecto Artecorte Gilberto “Papito” Valladares, the leading economist Omar Everleny Pérez, and Cuba’s most widely read contemporary novelist Leonardo Padura.
Henken has lectured on Cuba at major U.S. universities and think tanks including Columbia, Georgetown, Brown, Tulane, NYU, the University of Miami, FIU, the University of Texas at Austin, the Americas Society, the Brookings Institution, The Woodrow Wilson Center, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Cato Institute.He has been interviewed by leading international newspapers and media outlets on Cuba, includingThe New York Times, CNBC, CNN, PBS News Hour,The Wall Street Journal, CCTV, Al Jazeera,USA Today,TimeMagazine, the AP, Reuters,The Miami Herald,El Nuevo Herald,The Christian Science Monitor,NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Marketplace,” and “On Point,” and the BBC’s “The World” program, among others.He has also served as a consultant on Cuba for the White House, the U.S. Department of State, the IMF, the GAO, USAID, the Mexican Foreign Ministry, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, PEN America, CNN, CNBC, NPR, and The Boston Red Sox.
In April, 2014, following theAP’s story onZunZuneo, Henken was asked by theNew York Timesfor his take on the pros and cons of this “Cuban Twitter” program set up by the USAID.You can read his answer to the question, “When is foreign aid meddling?” at the Times’ “Room for Debate” page, where he begins by saying, “When it undermines local voices.” A longer version of his response is available onhis blog, “El Yuma.”
Henken is the co-editor ofCuba in Focus(ABC-CLIO, 2013), a volume on “all things Cuban” co-edited with Havana residents and independent scholarsMiriam Celaya andDimas Castellanos. The book is the result of a collaboration with a group of Cubans from the island who give their own analysis and critique of the Cuban Revolution and the heady changes that have taken place on the island since Raúl Castro took power in 2008. You can read the preface and see the table of contentshere.
The book benefits from the participation of a host of perceptive and pioneering authors and activists, including the lateÓscar Espinosa Chepe,his wifeMiriam Leiva,renown bloggerYoani Sánchez,her husbandjournalist Reinaldo Escobar, Armando Chaguaceda, Regina Coyula, Henry Constantín, Marlene Azor Hernández, Rogelio Fabio Hurtado, Miguel Iturria Savón,andWilfredo Vallín.
Henken’s previous book,Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook(ABC-CLIO, 2008), is a comprehensive overview and reference guide to the island’s history and culture.
Originally from Pensacola, Florida, Henken lives in the Village of Floral Park, Long Island, just east of New York City with his wife Tasha, their son Dimitrios Jackson, their daughter Magdalena María, and their dog Cosita.
He travels to Cuba as frequently as he can. However, while all of his trips have been quite fruitful some have included episodes that either made themnot end very well! or never even get started!
Traveling to Cuba yourself? Here’s some unsolicited advice.
Click here to downloadProfessor Henken’s (now quite outdated) underground guide to the island,“Notes from the Underground.”
