Louis Pérez Jr., J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, is a leading scholar on Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations. Pérez is contributing extensively to the global discussion on the re-opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
“To speak to Cuba is to speak to Latin America,” Pérez wrote in a December 18, 2014, op-ed for CNN. The decision to re-open relations with Cuba, Pérez elaborated, signals the U.S. willingness to respect national sovereignty in a region that continues to grapple with the effects of centuries of colonialism.
He also is director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas.
Pérez’s principal teaching fields include twentieth-century Latin America, the Caribbean and Cuba. Among his books are Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos (University of North Carolina Press, 2008) and Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2006). Pérez has served on a number of journal editorial boards, including Inter-American Economic Affairs, Latin American Research Review, The Americas and the American Historical Review.
Among his appearances in the media on the opening of diplomatic relations:
- What Cuba Deal Says to Latin America, CNN, Dec. 18, 2014
- Cubans Curious to See if Diplomatic Shift Leads to Democracy, NPR, Dec. 18, 2014
