American University Alternative Spring Break in Cuba

This travel seminar took place March 10-17 in Cuba.  The theme was Education and Social Justice. 

J. Crew.  Mango.  Filibuster.  Roadie.   Sassy.  Girl with a magnet tattoo. 

What do these things have to do with Cuba?  Everything.  They are nicknames a CGE group from American University bestowed upon themselves while spending a week in Havana. I share these seemingly inconsequential monikers to demonstrate not only the uniqueness of the individuals, but also to communicate the special group dynamics that make an international seminar like this an exceedingly significant experience. 

Those group dynamics do not just happen.  A group becomes dynamic when people step up to the plate, eager to engage.  A group becomes dynamic when they exhibit confidence blended with sensitivity.  A group becomes dynamic when the questions do not cease and answers from inside are not withheld.  A group becomes dynamic when they grab hold of each moment as one where learning can be had.  And if not learning, then a little bit of fun.  A group becomes dynamic when they offer one another companionship deep enough that it results in terms of endearment.  Dynamic, this group was.

And without these group dynamics, which provided support and encouragement for each individual, Cuba wouldn’t have been Cuba for these students.  During a visit to a school, I watched one student (at the invitation of the Cuban teacher) step to the front of the classroom and engage each child in the room – without a second of hesitation.  At another school, I listened to an American University student eloquently and sensitively explain U.S. attention to the Cuban Five when a Cuban student asked her opinion.  Yet another group member, who plans to teach science in the future, utilized an early morning chat with our translator (the fabulous Edelso Moret, professor at the University of Havana) to get his advice on the development of a classroom activity.  They seized moments to interact with Cubans in a truly Cuban way – through conversation, dance, and song.  I will never forget their joint rendition of “We Are the World” with Cuban high-schoolers.  It was off-key, most of the words were missing, and I would never listen to it again by choice.  But it is a beautiful memory for me. 

Ultimately, as their CGE leader, when I asked them to jump, they said, “how high?”  Not really.  But when I asked them to push, they said “how hard?”  And I said “hard enough to make our bus start up again!”  We had a few bus issues, obviously.  Even in those moments, frustrated by being stuck, they showed flexibility, compassion, understanding, and solidarity with our Cuban hosts. 

On behalf of the American University group, I thank Edelso Moret and Rita Maria Ojeda – our Cuban friends and guides – for their invaluable contributions.  Dynamic, you are.  

By Jesse Haas

CGE's first people-to-people licensed Cuba group is a success!

CGE's first group traveling under a people-to-people license recently returned from Cuba.  It was an intensive week with excellent information-sharing, learning, and fun.  The group was comprised of professors/educators, artists, retirees, corporate and non-profit workers - each bringing different perspectives into the experience.  

 

Some highlights of the week included: 

• A visit to the National School for Circus Arts where we participants were able to meet with administrators and students and watch a unique performance
• Hearing about Cuba-US relations from a professor at the University of Havana's Center for US and Herispheric Studies
• Traveling to the rural community of Puerto Esperanza and speaking with farmers about their lives pre-revolution and after, as well as how recent economic changes are impacting them
• Participating in a guided tour of the Museum of the Revolution, which made key historical events come to life,
• Meeting contemporary artists and seeing a number of animated live music performances.
• Most participants were also able to engage with Cubans in any informal ways throughout the week to learn about Afro-Cuban culture, business ownership, and daily life. 

 Participants returned home ready to implement ideas that will build upon and share their experiences in Cuba.

Study Abroad in Cuba!

The Center for Global Education at Augsburg College is pleased to announce that we will be launching a semester study abroad program in Havana, Cuba in the Fall of 2012.  The program is entitled History, Culture, and Politics of Cuba.

Building on experience in the country that dates back to 1999 - including more than a dozen seminars between September 2011 and January 2012 - this program will introduce students to decision-making processes, citizenship rights, paternalism, centralism, bureaucracy, the role of mass organizations, collective rights, and the means of community.  Students will also explore social justice as it relates to wealth production, market mechanisms, and socialization.  The program will also delve into race, class, gender, and sexual orientation in the Cuban context.   Earn credit in Sociology, Political Science, History, and Spanish.

Experience this unique island nation and experience a culture few others ever will!

Application deadline for Fall 2012 is April 1, 2012

More information can be found at: http://www.augsburg.edu/global/centralamerica/cuba.html.

The Cuban Economy

On June 7 we met with economist Gladys Hernández to talk about the Cuban economic situation and the effects on the Cuban economy by the US trade embargo. One of the first things that Mrs. Hernandez said to us was that Cuba and the US do have a relationship, but it is a love hate relationship. The effects on Cuba from the United States and vice versa go way back from when The US won Cuba from Spain as a spoil of the Spanish-American War. Nowadays many Cubans jokingly say that the second largest city in Cuba and almost every Cuban we met has some sort of relative in the United States. Because of such a large populations of Cubans living in the US remittances are big businesses making up about 2% of Cuba’s GDP. Many Cubans live off of the money they receive from relatives in the US. Cuba also had close relations to other socialist countries during the time after the revolution up to the ending of the eastern European socialist block. There was a time when Cuba received 98% of its oil, 75% of its food and 80% of its spare parts from the socialist block. Obviously once the Soviet Union ended in 1991 this affected Cuba greatly when these things no longer came to the island, between the years of 1991 and 1994 the Cuban economy decreased by 40% because of the lack of materials. During this time as well there was a large increase of Cubans crossing the Florida straits by any means necessary to get to the United States for a better life. During this time the Cuban government decided that instead of changing from the socialist model they would focus on areas such as Sugar production, Agriculture, Mining, Fishing and Biotechnology. Biotechnology being the most interesting and productive and in 2006 this sector had a 11% growth. Learning more about the complexities of the Cuban economic system and its relation to the United States was very interesting and really made our time there so much more impactful.

US Interests Section

On Friday June 10th, we visited the US Interests Section in Havana. Unfortunately, our meeting there was officially an informal ‘information session’ and we’re prohibited from publishing anything we discussed. Oddly, for a country as censorship-happy as Cuba, none of our other meetings that week came with the same disclaimer. Instead of leaving the rest of this post blank, here’s some background on the US Interests Section in Havana.

Because the US government has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, neither country has official representation in the other. Instead, the United States has a pseudo-embassy in the form of an ‘interests section’ hosted by the Swiss embassy in Havana. The US Interests Section is held in a nondescript building on the Malecon, with the view from one side practically hidden by empty flagpoles. The empty flagpoles could be a metaphor for US-Cuban relations, if you’re into that kind of thing. One side makes a moderately aggressive PR move that condemns the ideology of the other, and the other side makes its own PR overture, then nothing is resolved and the situation stays essentially the same. For example, in January 2006, the Interests Section set up an electronic billboard on the top floors of the building to project scrolling anti-revolutionary messages to the Cuban people. In response, the Castro government erected over a hundred flagpoles with black flags on top to block the message from public viewing. In 2009, the Interests Section removed the billboard, claiming that it was not an effective use of money.


The problem with breaking off diplomatic relations is that it eliminates the possibility of future communication should the need arise, as well as diminishing the leverage both sides hold on each other. The US prefaces most of its demands on Cuba with the promise of easing the embargo upon successful completion of the task, even though previous overtures by Cuban governments have resulted in little economic or political opening. The US continues to trade with China and Vietnam, which have similar human/civil rights issues as Cuba, and the explanation for why this is not hypocritical was interesting but unfortunately we are not at liberty to discuss it.

Okantomi & Afro Cuban Dance

During the early 20th century Afro-Cuban art went through a period of rediscovery. In the past, the art form had only being represented to the mass bu white artists who ¨discovered¨it or took an interest to it. Many images displayed by white artists tended to have very stereotypical images of Afro-Cubans. Artists such as Cuban poet Nicholas Guillen emerged with art that truly represented the Afro Cuban population and the traditions they had brought with them to Cuba when they arrived as slaves including music, poetry, and dance. Now in Cuba, Afro-Cuban art plays a huge role. We were able to enjoy a form of this art on Thursday June 9th when we visited the dance group Okantomi.
With infectious beats, eclectic voices and hard steps, Okantomi communicated with deities from the Yoruba religion and told stories of a man selling fruit and a woman washing clothes. The show represented many music genres made popular by Afro-Cuban artists such as Son and Cha Cha Cha. As a dancer myself I enjoy witnessing many genres of dance. At one point during the show, Okantomi requested the hand of the students and taught us dance moves. Since the reemerging, Afro-Cuban people have been able to retain their art-forms and represent it to the world with Afro Cuban artists. Okantomi has traveled all over Cuba and has even performed in the United States.

Alfredo Prieto : Cuba in the 21st century

On Thursday June 9th we had a two hour discussion with Alfredo Prieto, a Cuban intellectual who had written extensively about the history of US-Cuban relations and had travelled widely within both the United States and Cuba.

To begin his talk, he explained that the relationship between the United States and Cuba had always been defined by asymmetry, contrary to a dominant US perception that a positive bilateral relationship had existed between the two countries. He explained the deep historical connections between the US and Cuba, that women from Havana sent George Washington money during the American Revolution, and that John Quincy Adams came up with the desire of Cuba's rapid transition from Spanish to American hands. He went on to explain the 20th century history of the unequal relationship, from the platt amendment, to the CIA's rapid response to the Cuban Revolution with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Most of this we already knew, so it was more relative to us when he began to elaborate on the current state of relations. He pointed out, with more than a touch of irony, that Cubans were even more up to date on American culture than Americans, given that pirated American movies and music arrived in Cuba before they were released in the United States. He acknowledged all the complexities of the embargo, citing the common understanding in Cuba that the continued US support for the embargo lay with the old generation of Cuban-Americans in Miami that had fled when the Castros took power.

We discussed the current thorns in the side of the bilateral relationship, like the Cuban 5, Cuban-American terrorists, and Alan Gross. He said that Alan Gross would most likely be freed one day, and that his detention was primarily a warning to the US not to try any more covert actions in Cuba.

Finally, he discussed his partnership with the Hampshire College in Cuba program, which was very interesting to me as I had a friend from Philadelphia who had participated in that program just a couple of months ago. It turned out we both knew her, which was pretty cool, and made me think again about just how connected the US and Cuba are, despite 50 years of officially existing in mutually exclusive isolation. Mr. Prieto brought an independent viewpoint to our studies in Cuba that underlined continuing difficulties in the governments of both countries, and really furthered our knowledge of the Cuban situation en actualidad. My thanks to both Alfredo Prieto, and the CGE in Cuba program.

Daniel Rosenfeld

Oberlin College '12