Louis A. Pérez Jr. is a New Yorker of Venezuelan, Cuban, and Puerto Rican ancestry. Letters, memoirs, and printed items pertaining to Cuba, Cubans, and Americans living in Cuba comprise the bulk of the Louis A. Pérez Jr. Collection. Letters dated 1991 to 1992 are from respondents to a query Louis A. Pérez placed in the New York Times Book Review. In these letters, the American and Cuban American authors describe their experiences living in Cuba during the mid-twentieth century. Topics include social interactions between Americans and Cubans, social customs, class stratification, American businesses such as the United Fruit Company, sugar plantations, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban revolution. Memoirs are by Cuban American authors writing at greater length on topics addressed in the letters. There are additional memoirs of women involved in the Cuban revolution. Other papers are chiefly printed materials, including pamphlets, books, government documents, and ephemera pertaining to Cuba chiefly during the twentieth century. Topics include Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolution, Havana, tourism, economic sanctions, public health, slave trade, Cuban literature and art, Cuban émigrés, politics, socialism, poverty, class stratification, public opinions, economic and social conditions, political prisoners, human rights, and international relations particularly with the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. Also included are copies of FBI files for Albert Anastasia, Meyer Lansky, and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, and research files relating to Pérez’s work on Cubans working in the sugar and cigar industries in Tampa, Florida
