Seeds of Change: From New Orleans to Habana

This post marks the sixth entry for the current Roots of Hope blog theme: Seeds of Change. To read previous entries, see What comes next: study abroad and youth-led change in Cuba, How Cell Phones Can Shake a Nation, and Begin from the Beginning: the need for open dialogue.

By Annie Gibson

A few days ago I arrived in la Habana with a group of students from Tulane University in New Orleans. They are about to embark on an amazing adventure, studying for a semester at la Universidad de la Habana in the Departments of Artes y Letras and Geografía y Filosofia. It is an experience that few North American students are granted due to the obvious hurdles caused by the strained relations between Cuba and the United States since 1959.

Tulane University has engaged in a semester long study abroad program in Havana, Cuba in partnership with the University of Havana since 2009. This program evolved out of several years of sustained effort by Tulane’s Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute (a part of Tulane’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies) to develop relations with Cuban counterpart organizations for the purposes of academic collaboration and exchange, curricular development, cultural exchange and international development and dialogue. The Cuban & Caribbean Studies Institute, a part of Tulane’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies, was officially established in 1997, and has been responsible for the organization of a variety of lectures, performances, courses, symposia, etc. aimed at promoting a true academic and cultural exchange between Cuba and the United States. (cuba.tulane.edu)

This August, we began our Cuba semester study abroad in Miami, where we made visits to key cultural and political leaders within the Cuban-American communitybecause in order to fully understand Cuba, one cannot leave out its diasporas. And for most in the United States, the term “Cuban-American” primarily evokes images of Miami. As the most populous resettlement of Cuban expatriates in the US, Miami has been the undisputed home of Cuban-American culture and commerce for half a century. For students coming to Cuba from Tulane, however, I am quick to mention that that not only is Miami an important city to study in connection to Cuban-American relations, but their own city of New Orleans has historical ties that date back to the 1800s.

From 1762 until 1800, New Orleans was a Spanish colony administered by the Captains General of Cuba stationed in Havana. That situation ensured close ties between New Orleans, located at the helm of North America’s most expansive riverine network, and Havana, the well-protected port at the Gulf Stream’s entrance to the Atlantic. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Havana and New Orleans were fundamental hubs along an “American Mediterranean” that also included Hispaniola and New Spain. Consequently, the ports at New Orleans and Havana enjoyed centuries of communication, and in the mid-20th century, Cuba was New Orleans’ most voluminous and lucrative trading partner. These ties were critical in the economic, political, and cultural development of each.

The Cuban embargo of 1963 transformed US-Cuban policy and trade into a vehement anti-Castroism. Bolstered by millions in CIA funds and a steady flow of Cuban migrants, while Miami instantly became the epicenter of the Cuban-American community, fifty years later, New Orleans’ port economy has stagnated, never fully recovering from the loss of its vital commercial ally.

This semester of study in Havana, is, thus, not only an opportunity for Tulane students to learn about Cuba, but also to see the historic and cultural ties between New Orleans and Havana that make New Orleans the city that it is today. These adventurous Tulane students will be ambassadors of culture, opening the gates of communication to better understanding the transnational ties between Cuba and New Orleans. We will keep you posted on their findings!

Annie Gibson received her PhD in 2010 from the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University. Her areas of specialization include Cuban and Brazilian performance cultures and Brazilian immigration to the United States. Her travels and research in both Cuba and Brazil have been supported by two FLAS Fellowships, the Tinker Foundation, and the Research Group for the Study of the Global South. At Tulane, Dr. Gibson teaches a diverse range of courses in Spanish and Portuguese language and literature, Latin American migrant cultures and literature, and performance cultures of Latin America. She holds a contract in both the Departments of Latin American Studies and of Spanish and Portuguese. Dr. Gibson’s experience with study abroad began when she was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, participating in study abroad semesters in Argentina and Brazil. In 2004, she directed a spring break trip to Costa Rica for Princeton Day School middle and high school students, in 2010 she was the Resident Director for Tulane’s summer in Costa Rica program and in 2011 she led a summer program for the Rassias Foundation in Pontevedra, Spain. She is currently the resident director of Cuba’s semester study abroad program in Havana, Cuba.

Seeds of Change - Begin from the beginning: the need for open dialogue

This post marks the fifth entry for the current Roots of Hope blog theme: Seeds of Change. To see previous entries, read about how cell phones can shake a nation and the potential impact of studying abroad.

By Ariel Elias

If you keep looking for answers, you will only find frustration. I’m not sure if this was told to me by someone in Cuba or if the conclusion was my own. No doubt it is a philosophy based on the efficiency and transparency, or lack thereof, of the Cuban government, a force that permeates every aspect of Cuban life. Whether you agree or disagree with the government itself, there is no denying that even the simplest, most innocent of acts can turn political. The meticulous eye of a good idea gone awry watches its people, sometimes subtle and hidden, other times so overwhelming it becomes humorous, bringing out the choteo, making you think, “Surely you have better things to do.”

Cuba is unique because of its complications. You must learn to recognize the difference between an answer and the answer. It is a country of layers that cannot be understood until experienced, and even then, your head will continue to spin as you attempt to differentiate between the real and the lie, the genuine and the exaggerated. Too much is hidden or covered up, blamed on los yanquis or people who have been dead for the better half of a century. Suddenly, you are faced with two choices: believe what you hear or develop an imagination, an imagination that does not blind you or foster naïveté, rather one that fills in the blanks and encourages hope.

So that’s what we’re left with. An imagination, an openness that does not exist with older generations, a restlessness that only occurs when you know there is a better way. We learn to work with what we have, taking it one step at a time. For now, we discuss. We argue, we culture shock, we fight the censors and demand to be heard, we empathize, but most importantly, we establish a relationship. We set the foundation and attempt to correct centuries of wrongdoing that we did not cause, yet we are now responsible for. We ease the tension and create the space. Ultimately, we do not find the answers, we discover them.

Ariel Elias is a recent graduate from Tulane University, and studied abroad in Cuba in the fall of 2009. She currently lives in New Orleans as a medical translator/stand-up comic.

Seeds of Change - What comes next: study abroad and youth-led social change in Cuba

This post marks the second entry for the current Roots of Hope blog theme: Seeds of Change. To read previous entries, see How Cell Phones Can Shake a Nation.

By Sam Tabory

It turns out that I didn’t spend a semester studying abroad in Cuba so that I could better grasp Cuban history, the Cuban experience, or the Cuban context. Instead, I spent that semester coming to the conclusion that the situation is so intricately and overwhelmingly complex, that all I could do was ride the wave, trying to take in as much as possible, until a Miami-bound flight spit me back out in the States four months later. Cuba opened my eyes to a lot. I could try to tell you about it, but that’s not what this post is about. My experience in Cuba ended months ago, and now I've moved on to a very different place in my life, albeit still carrying with me the lessons I learned while on the island. But the Cuban youth with whom I shared those experiences and with whom I formed deep bonds still live on the island. They still endure the daily struggle. They are still looking for a way out. For a new society. For something to change.

That’s what this post is about. It is about those youth, and the potential that study abroad programs have to help them as they seek to define their own futures. Just as cell phones and the Internet are opening new avenues that allow access to information and the outside world, so too are study abroad programs. When a foreign student steps off a plane at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, a new stimulus is being introduced to the island. That young person will not only take away his own impressions of the island to share with the world, but he will also leave impressions. As a university student, he will inevitably make awkward small talk in class, form friendships, chat with taxi drivers, join intramural soccer teams, get drunk over dominoes, go to clubs, have heart-to-hearts, argue about sexualities, fight about politics, debate moral and material paradigms, etc. He will, simply put, live his life for four months, a semester, a year…whatever it may be, and he will leave behind an impression, even if limited, of what type of people and what type of ideas are to be found in the broader global arena. In a word, he will become a vignette, to be added to a larger collection of vignettes of all outsiders who have set foot on the island. And it is these vignettes that become food for critical thought as young people in Cuba explore and experiment with what type of new society they want to create. This is the value of study abroad in Cuba.

But don’t make the mistake of assuming that study abroad should be seen as an evangelizing force to spread the gospel of the western world. The Cuban students with whom I built strong friendships were as discerning and critical as university students anywhere. They understand the need for change on the island, but they also understand that they must be careful as to which models of change they employ. Most Cubans will readily agree that their own model or status quo is not working, but that does not mean that they are ready to blindly adopt foreign norms. They have strong opinions about social justice and the role that the State should play in the lives of citizens. These opinions are real and genuine, firmly grounded in historical tradition and collective memory, not simply the rhetoric of Fidel. To assume that study abroad in Cuba is a force by which to indoctrinate Cuban youth is incorrect. Its purpose is to introduce as many new ideas and stimuli as possible, to give young people in Cuba access to as many models as possible, so that they can begin the individual but also collective process of deciding which qualities, characteristics and models of the outside world are best for them, and which are not. Who do they want to emulate, and whose likeness do they want to avoid? These are the questions that need to be answered as Cuba moves forward in forging its future.

But the work of forging a new society is not neat. It is messy and contradictory and ultimately a very human and imprecise endeavor. It requires that those undertaking the process are the most well-informed and worldly individuals a given society has to offer. But the youth of Cuba don’t have access to global travel opportunities and study abroad programs. If they cannot see the world, the world must come to them. Although they are an imperfect stopgap, study abroad programs administered by European and North American universities are an important resource in making sure that Cuban youth have at least limited access to the schools of thought and ideologies of the global arena.

I could write pages and pages about the personal benefits that I got from studying abroad in Cuba, but the real importance of study abroad programs has more to do with what Cuban students are able to do with the raw intellectual material of having foreign nationals studying in their classrooms. Study abroad in Cuba isn’t about benevolence or proselytizing. It’s about a two-way exchange of information. Anyone who spends significant time on the island will be changed, for better or for worse. But the Cuban youth with whom you interact will also be changed, for better or for worse. Societies are built, opinions are formed, and the world goes round as we are introduced to and react to stimuli. The more stimuli we are exposed to, the faster things move. To study abroad in Cuba is to be such a stimulus in the context of a national transition. Cuba will change, and it will do so dramatically. But what that change will look like is still a matter of debate, as it should be. Study abroad programs, and the foreign stimuli they introduce, are an important component of keeping that debate alive as young people in Cuba seek to define and mold their own futures.

Sam Tabory is a senior at Tulane University. He spent the fall semester of 2010 living and studying in Cuba as a student at the University of Havana. He can be reached at Stabory@tulane.edu