Michael J. Bustamante

Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Florida International University.

Dr. Bustamante specializes in modern Cuba and Cuban America. He is the author of Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile (2021). With Jennifer Lambe, he coedited The Revolution from Within: Cuba, 1959–1980 (2019). He earned his Ph.D., M.A., and M. Phil. in Latin American and Caribbean History from Yale University. He also holds a B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) in History and International Studies from Yale.

Dr. Bustamante’s scholarship has appeared in the Journal of American Ethnic History, Latino Studies, Cuban Studies, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. His writing on contemporary Cuban affairs has been featured in Foreign Affairs and The Washington Post, among other publications. In 2019, he joined the editorial board of the journal Cuban Studies.

Prior to pursuing academic work, Bustamante served as Research Associate for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He is a frequently sought-after commentator on contemporary Cuban and Cuban-American politics for U.S. and international media. Likewise, he speaks frequently on U.S.-Cuban relations and Cuban affairs to public and policy audiences.

Dr. Bustamante’s research has been supported by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, and Casa de las Américas in Havana. He was a two-time research fellow at the Cuban Heritage Collection (University of Miami). His 2016 doctoral dissertation won Yale’s Arthur and Mary Wright Prize.

At FIU, he teaches courses on Latin American, Latina/o, Caribbean, and U.S. histories.