Vol. 71/No. 22      June 4, 2007

Donald Bray, emeritus professor of political science, chaired the event. He described how he and Marjorie Bray, another professor on campus, took students to Cuba annually as part of a study program until two years ago when the U.S. government put even greater restrictions on travel there.

The Brays sponsored the event, as did Latin American Studies, the Educational Opportunity Program, Department of Pan-African Studies, the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies, and education professor Stephanie Evans.

The meeting began with a video clip from the documentary Ancestors in the Americas describing how Chinese were brought to Cuba in the 19th century as indentured labor. It depicts these workers’ participation in the 19th-century fight for Cuba’s independence from Spain and in the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Mary-Alice Waters, the editor of Our History Is Still Being Written, then spoke. She said the book is an introduction to the Cuban Revolution. The story of its authors is part of the story of Cuban working people who refused to bow down to the indignities and brutalities of the dictatorship under which they lived.

“When the revolutionary government came to power, most didn’t think of it as a socialist revolution,” Waters noted. “They wanted a society based on justice and equality.” As the Cuban toilers carried out land reform, a literacy drive, and took the resources of their country into their own hands, “they came into a head-on collision with U.S. imperialism, which was determined to return the land and the factories to their former owners. The Cuban people decided to defend what they had won, and that was the beginning of the socialist revolution.”

One reason the book is receiving such a warm welcome in the United States and other countries, Waters said, “is the growing struggle for legalization of immigrant workers.” She pointed to the May 1 marches and plans for a demonstration here to protest the police riot against the May Day rally at MacArthur Park.

“How are the Chinese preserving their culture in Cuba?” was one of the questions in the discussion period.

“Cubans are proud of their heritage,” said Waters. “They say Cuba is one-third Black, one-third European, and one-third Chinese. Their nation was forged from the fight against slavery and indentured servitude. While there has not been a significant migration from China in many generations, there is a revival of interest in Chinese cultural tradition reflected in many Chinese cultural organizations throughout the country. More people are studying Chinese. The deepening trade relations with China are also a factor.”

“What percentage of the U.S. embargo against Cuba has to do with what the U.S. government wants and what part has to do with what Cubans living in Miami want?” one student asked.

“The foreign policy of the U.S. government is decided by the ruling class here, not the former ruling class of Cuba,” Waters said, referring to Cubans in Miami who fled after the 1959 revolution. “The truth is that organizations like the Cuban-American National Foundation are creatures of Washington. The U.S. government is hostile to Cuba because its people and their revolutionary leadership refuse to back down.”

“How did you get involved in editing this book?” asked another student.

“When I was a college student the Cuban Revolution was being born,” said Waters. “In response to that revolution and the deepening struggle for civil rights here, I became a socialist. This book helps show what a real revolution is—something made by millions—and what a revolution can accomplish.”

“I didn’t really know about Cuba,” Diana Ramirez, a student, said after the meeting. “Now I want to learn more.”
 
 
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