Ruthie Meadows, ethnomusicologist, writer and associate professor of ethnomusicology within the College of Liberal Arts, has been named as one of the two 2025-2026 Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Presidential Fellow's at the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection. This prestigious fellowship will support Meadows’ continued research into the overlooked contributions of Cuban women in jazz, culminating in her second book – an exploration of gender, tradition and transformation within Cuba’s evolving jazz landscape.
Meadows’ interest in Cuban jazz began during her undergraduate journey in Latin American studies and Spanish at Tulane University. During that time, she developed a deep appreciation for the Latin jazz band, Los Hombres Calientes, who were very popular in New Orleans. In addition to that, a Tulane course on Cuban culture and increasing interest in New Orleans’ historical ties to the island helped spark her passion for Cuban music.
This same passion for music continued to drive her academic endeavors, guiding her to pursue graduate studies in ethnomusicology at the University of Pennsylvania.
It was during her time at Penn that Meadows first traveled to Cuba, leading a study abroad program and beginning her on-site research into Cuban ritual music and jazz. Her focus quickly turned to the stories and struggles of women musicians, figures too often overlooked or marginalized within both Cuban and international jazz circles.
Meadows’ first book, the result of four years living and researching in Cuba, centered on Ifá divination, a form of Yoruba roots that developed during the transatlantic slave trade in Cuba. Her work illuminated how music, ritual and gender intersect within Cuban culture.
Now, with support from the Goizueta Fellowship, Meadows will take a year away from teaching to conduct archival research on Cuban women in jazz at the Cuban Heritage Collection, home to the largest U.S.-based archive of Cuban cultural materials. Additionally, she will conduct ethnographic fieldwork with Cuban women jazz musicians both on the island and in the United States.
This project will explore gender discrimination in Cuban and U.S. music industries as well as in academic and popular understandings of jazz. Meadows’ second book will also examine how Cuban women have incorporated Santería: an Afro-Cuban religion, into jazz, particularly through their use of the batá drums, sacred instruments central to ritual practice and rhythmic innovation in Cuban women’s jazz and fusion.
Throughout her research, Meadows is inspired and continuously supported by a growing network of women Cuban jazz artists, including Daymé Arocena, whose work has been featured in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. Groups like Okán, a Miami-based Afro-Cuban jazz duo, have also provided crucial insights and connections.
"Cuba is essential to the history of jazz,” Meadows said. “But Cuban women’s contributions remain underrepresented in popular and academic conceptions of the genre. This fellowship aims to center the contributions of Cuban women to island-based and U.S. American jazz histories, contributing to a women-inclusive jazz historiography both in Cuba and the United States.”
In addition to her work in Cuba and Miami, Meadows will conduct fieldwork in New Orleans, a city with deep ties to Cuban music and jazz history. Her second book aims to shine a light on the lineage of women artists who have shaped and expanded the boundaries of jazz across the Americas.
Meadows is embracing this next chapter of her career with gratitude and excitement, sharing how thrilled she is for the opportunity and eager to delve deeper into these powerful stories.
