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CubaBooks & Resources

Short Biographies of FREADOM Reviewers

Radames Suarez My name is Radames Suarez and I am Cuban born, but have lived in New York City most of my life. I am a graduate of Hunter College where I received my B.A. in literature and Pratt Institute where I graduated with a Masters of Library Science.

I am currently the Spanish Language Collections/Cultural Arts Librarian for the Queens Library. In this position, I do collection development for Spanish language material in at least 23 different branches of the Queens Library. I also prepare cultural programs with the purpose of drawing immigrants into the library, immigrants that might not otherwise use the library. We do this with the use of performing artists, craftspeople and author talks in the native language of the various immigrant target groups. Some of the large immigrant groups that we focus on are Spanish, Russian, Hindi and Chinese speakers.

Steve Marquardt's library career included 14 years as library director at UW-Eau Claire and ten years at South Dakota State University. 
A graduate of Macalester College with a University of Minnesota MLS and Ph.D. in European History, he has been active in local groups 
of Amnesty International USA since 1982, and in retirement serves as AIUSA Legislative Coordinator for his native state of Minnesota.

Steve visited Cuba with a People To People group in 2000 and developed a continuing interest in Cuban history, society, music, literature, 
film and especially human rights in this last outpost of romantic communism.

Walter Skold was inspired to become a journalist after befriending Jack Skelly, a boyhood friend of Fidel Castro, who fought with him to overthrow Batista and later fled the island after Castro announced he was a communist and had no intentions of upholding the Cuban Constitution. Skold began the road that led to librarian after working with a Ukrainian librarian in Brooklyn who introduced him to the works of Solz .

Skold has a degree in history and journalism from Fordham University, where he majored in intellectual history and specialized in Communist propaganda techniques and political philosophy. He and his 5 children also spent 6 years in Red China, where he taught journalism and English to university students, and brought "forbidden" books to underground churches. He used to be a reporter for the New York City Tribune and covered human rights issues for the Religious New Service. He currently lives in Freeport, Maine and is a technology teacher in a Middle School.

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