This panel takes as its cue the recent publication of Jennifer L. Lambe\u27s book, Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History, focusing on Mazorra, the island\u27s first psychiatric hospital. The book examines how, from its birth, Cuban psychiatry was politically inflected, drawing partisan contention while sparking debates over race, religion, gender, and sexuality. Psychiatric notions were even invested with revolutionary significance after 1959, as the new government undertook ambitious schemes for social reeducation. Debates about the treatment of mental health issues continued among exiles in South Florida. In particular, the 1980 Mariel boatlift turned into a psychiatric problem both for Cuba and the United States, due to the presence of a large number of mental patients among the migrants.
This panel will feature the following speakers:
• Dr. Jennifer L. Lambe, Department of History, Brown University
• Dr. Eugenio Rothe, Department of Psychiatry, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida International University
• Dr. Héctor R. Castillo Matos, Nueva América Community Mental Health Center, Miamihttps://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cri_events/1332/thumbnail.jp
