Amalia Z. Daché

Penn GSE faculty and students contributed to discussions on quantitative ethnography at ICQE 2024, exploring innovative methods and applications in education.

The team has built a database of institutions nationwide documenting schools’ work on reparations and is currently surveying students of African descent from 11 universities over four years about their experiences on campus.

What can institutions do to help students make informed choices about higher education? How can we make sense of skepticism surrounding cost, value, and return on investment? Four members of the Penn GSE community at the forefront of these changes spoke at a recent Penn Alumni panel event.

Amalia Daché spoke about the mistreatment of protesters in Cuba. “Cuba is a political apartheid. There is definitely racial discrimination happening in Cuba,” she said. “When Cuba gets a cold, Afro-Cubans get the flu, and they die.”

Amalia Daché, a Penn GSE professor and Cuban-American activist, talks about the invisibility of Black-led movements in Cuba on Red Table Talk: The Estefans.

Amalia Daché criticizes people who have blamed the U.S. embargo and not the Cuban government for the crisis in Cuba. “She was shocked to see how the U.S. media and Twitter were taking Afro-Cubans out of the narrative and blaming the U.S. and the CIA for the demonstrations,” she said.

Amalia Daché spoke with Politico about the uprisings in Cuba with respect to Afro-Cubans who are disproportionately affected by the hardships in Cuba and are taking the lead in the protests. “This is one of the reasons I’ve been so active, related to my research and my own identity as an Afro-Cuban, is that Afro-Cubans have been leading this from the beginning.”

Amalia Daché writes, “The first thing the United States needs to do in crafting policy solutions is listen to the brave people risking their lives and freedom to lead these protests, especially Afro-Cubans who have lived at the bottom of the regime’s racist and classist system.”

Amalia Daché spoke about the history of racial disparities and injustices in Cuba. “When we're thinking about global solidarity with Black people, especially right now, we need all hands on deck,” she said.

Penn GSE’s Amalia Daché has studied Afro Cuban life and educational opportunities under Cuba’s dictatorship. She says the world is seeing Afro Cubans’ frustration with the racist and classist society the regime maintains.

Amalia Daché joins podcast host Jason Johnson to talk about the uprising in Cuba, and the myths and realities of racial equity in Cuba.

Amalia Daché joins American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss the humanitarian crises fueling the movement in Cuba and explains why this moment is different from the past.

Amalia Daché was interviewed about Cuba’s recent uprisings and its long history of Black resistance. In the 1960s, the Communist government said it would eradicate racism. “It’s counterrevolutionary to talk about Black history in Cuba, to engage Black history,” she said.

Amalia Daché spoke about the importance of diverse educators. “Although I was successful at navigating higher education, not seeing or identifying with teachers always made me feel like I was an outlier,” she said.

Higher Education assistant professor Amalia Daché received an NAED/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.