University of La Verne class and three professors relish opportunity to
visit Communist country, but worry about effects on its people.
By Joanna Corman. Los
Angeles Times. Tuesday, January 9, 2001
LA VERNE -- Zoila Garcia, 62, left Cuba in 1970 in search of freedom for
her family. On Saturday, she returned for the first time.
She did so with mixed feelings.
Garcia will be a translator for University of La Verne students and
their professors, a milestone for ULV considering the U.S. government opened
borders last April to students, government officials, journalists and U.S.
residents with family there.
American tourists still are forbidden in the Communist country.
"Here's a place that we've heard so much about" and with so
many mixed messages, communications professor Don Pollock said. "We said
what a great opportunity for our students to see firsthand and come to some of
their own conclusions. The main thing, it's just a phenomenal learning
experience for the students."
Each January, students take a monthlong class that often involves
travel. Pollock, communications department chairman George Keeler and Richard
Gelm, a political science professor, are teaching media and politics of Cuba.
Keeler and Pollock have visited the Amazon rain forest in Brazil.
They've taken students to Costa Rica. But this two-week trip proved to be one of
the most popular, Keeler said.
"Relations are going to thaw" between the U.S. and Cuba,
Keeler said. "We see this as a privilege to go to this country before it
thaws."
Twenty-one students and three professors went with Garcia. They know
they will have access to places from which Cubans are barred.
Student Michael Anklin told his classmates that he's looking forward to
comparing reality to his preconceptions. He wonders if conditions there are as
bad as people say.
"We're going to some posh resorts, some of the nicest resorts in
the world," Gelm told him. "We're not going to see the real Cuba."
The class will talk to students at the University of Havana. Students
will tour television and radio stations. They'll meet with officials from the
U.S. government.
Arranging these meetings proved to be more difficult than the
professors expected. The travel agent became so frustrated with bureaucratic red
tape that she went to Cuba in December to organize the meetings, Pollock said.
They plan to take in a baseball game and tour a village where the only
source of transportation is horse and buggy. Students are expected to do
projects that range from filming salsa dance and cigar factories to creating a
Web site that will capture the class's experiences.
But the trip is not without controversy or fear.
The class received a scathing letter from the Voice of the Cuban
Christians Inc., which has a post office box in Montclair. The group chastised
the university for supporting a totalitarian regime.
"You're not going to make everybody happy," said Raul Mena, a
student and Cuban native. "This trip for me is [about] family. ... I don't
care if I give $100 to Castro as long as I get to see my family" and bring
them money and other necessities.
Several students said they were fearful about going. Some were
apprehensive about the language barrier and the possibility of misunderstanding.
Some were concerned that in talking to Cubans, they would put the Cubans at risk
for losing their jobs, Keeler said.
"The danger is not for us," Keeler said. "It's for the
people we come in contact with. ... Cubans are second-class citizens in their
own country."
Garcia, a department secretary, said she is not scared; she never
actively opposed Castro. But returning was a hard decision, she said.
"I can put myself on the side of the Cubans because I lived there
many years," Garcia said. "I feel somewhat like a traitor going back
as a tourist. ... I could tell you so many stories, so many things I lived when
I was there that formed [my concept] of a suffering Cuba."
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times | 