About 200 people gathered at the Koubek Center Saturday to pay tribute to well-known Cuban historian, journalist and politician Carlos Marquez Sterling.
The ceremony was in celebration of a resolution passed by the Florida House of Representatives earlier this month honoring Sterling for his contribution to "Cuba, democracy, justice and liberty."

"I was very honored by the event," said Marquez Sterling. "It was very unexpected."

Sterling, a lawyer, was a professor of economics and law at Havana University who became the respected Speaker of the Cuban House of Representatives in 1940. He also served as president of the Constitutional Assembly, which created the 1940 Cuban constitution.

Presently, Sterling teaches history at Miami's St. Thomas University and continues to write. He has published 20 books on Cuban and U.S. history.

State Rep. Ileana Ros, R-West Dade, who introduced the resolution in the Florida House, spoke at the gathering.

Jose Ignacio Rasco, a member of the Instituto de Raices Cubanas, a local group that promotes Cuban traditions, also spoke at the event. Rasco called Sterling a modern "Don Quixote."

"I called him our Don Quixote because he is a visionary who has always been on the side of democracy in his politics, teachings and journalistic writings," Rasco said.