Dominguez Recommended for Tenure

Jorge I. Dominguez, associate professor of Government, took his phone off the hook yesterday afternoon and left it there. But that didn't give him the peace he needed to finish proofreading an article for the Miami Herald on the recent thaw in Cuban-American relations; students flowed steadily into his Coolidge Hall office to discuss Dominguez's new springterm course on U.S.-Latin American relations.

Dominguez, who was recently nominated for tenure in the Government Department, said yesterday he had been surprised when his massive Harvard University Press book, "Cuba: Order and Revolution," went into a second printing. "I had expected it to sell maybe 30 copies--I still don't know who's paying $25 for this book," he said.

Two weeks ago Dominguez returned to Cuba, the country where he spent the first 16 years of his life and the focus of much of his research, for the first time since 1960. He lectured at the Cuban Academy of Science, giving what he called "a standard Gov 40 lecture on alternative approaches to the study of U.S. foreign policy."

"The idea of 'alternatives' was mind-boggling to them," Dominguez said. "One man came up to me and asked, 'Professor Dominguez, which is the correct approach?'"

Cuban scholars are very competent in their chosen fields of history and some types of practical economics, but "there are huge chunks of social science they simply don't do," Dominguez said.

As a result of his visit to Cuba, Dominguez was able to arrange some joint projects with Cuban scholars, including the preparation of a book of "social science as it is practiced in Cuba, by Cubans, about Cuba."

Dominguez will edit the book along with his Cuban colleagues, and it will be published in both the U.S. and Cuba.

Future Paths

Dominguez said he has "no illusions" about doing research in Cuba in the near future, but he hopes the scholarly ties his trip formed might eventually help open Cuba to American academics.

Dominguez's trip to Cuba was more than a scholarly diplomatic mission, however. He said it was an "emotionally moving experience" to return to the house where his grandparents had lived and where he had grown up.

Dominguez is involved with a variety of other research efforts focusing on Cuba, including tentative discussions of the possibility of an opinion poll of Cubans, which would be the first ever taken by foreigners.

He is researching what policies Latin American businessmen think their governments should follow towards multinational corporations. He is also studying why some Latin American nations rebelled against Spanish rule in the early 19th century while others did not.

With the exception of rare events like the recent trip to Cuba, Dominguez works out of his office at the Center for International Affairs. It is filled with a wall-and-a-half of books and journals on Latin American politics--but the wall above his desk is reserved for a poster of Lucy, the character from the comic strip "Peanuts," shouting, "Vote for the blockhead of your choice!