Danielle Pilar Clealand

I am a black Nuyorican and my work overall, highlights black solidarity, struggle and voice through an interdisciplinary lens.  My research examines racial politics in the Caribbean and the United States, a research path influenced by my personal connection to the Caribbean and my life as an Afro-Latina in the many spaces of the U.S. My current projects focus on racism and black consciousness in Puerto Rico and political attitudes and identity among Afro-Latinos in the United States.

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My book, The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness During the Revolution, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017 ( winner of the Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics section of the American Political Science Association & W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists).  The book outlines the ways in which black consciousness and solidarity, born out of experiences of marginalization, have challenged structural racism and the narratives that support it. My second book project, with Devyn Spence Benson, builds an oral history of black Cubans in the United States, not only giving voice to the black experience in the Cuban Diaspora, but mapping patterns of segregation and exclusion within this community, particularly in South Florida.

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I received my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Political Science and am an assistant professor of Political Science at Florida International University.  I am also a mother of two and a lover of food, sarcasm, music, and rebelliousness.