BY LIEFF GUTTHIUDASCHMITT AND LEA KNOWLS
SEATTLE-Luis Morejón and Itamys García, two Cuban youth leaders, came to Seattle as part of their six-week U.S. speaking tour, and some 360 people in several meetings heard them speak about the Cuban revolution today. They met with mechanics, baggage handlers, and other workers at Alaska Airlines and spoke at Bastyr College, Garfield High School, the University of Washington (UW), El Centro de la Raza, and Seattle University (SU).

Morejón, 23, is a professor and general secretary of the Enrique José Varona Teacher Training Institute. García, 27, is a veterinarian and leader of the Federation of University Students. Both are members of the Union of Young Communists.

The local leg of the tour was organized by the Seattle Committee on Cuban Youth and Education, chaired by Anna Witte, professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at Seattle University. The committee included a high school teacher, three high school students, several workers, and several university students, including two leaders of the MEChA chapter at SU.

On April 27 Morejón and García spoke with five Alaska Airlines workers, as well as other workers and youth, at meeting near the Sea-Tac Airport. Arne Farstad, a stock clerk at Alaska Airlines and a member of the International Association of Machinists, explained the history of struggle of workers at the airline, dating back to the last strike there in 1985.

The Cubans made presentations, which were followed by discussion on the situation that workers face in Cuba, as well as in the United States. During the discussion Morejón and García were asked, "Are there strikes in Cuba?" Morejón's response was that there are no strikes in Cuba because workers run the factories in their own interests. By going out on strike, he explained, workers would only be hurting themselves.

The next day Morejón and García had the chance to meet with members of MEChA, a nationwide Chicano student organization, and the student body president at the University of Washington, along with a few other people. Miguel Bocanegra, the vice president of the campus MEChA chapter, welcomed them to the university.

Morejón made a brief presentation, mainly focusing on the things he had learned about the reality for young people living in the United States. He explained how he and García had met young Mexicans living in the United States today who are unable to learn in their own language because of attacks on bilingual education and who aren't able to go to a university because they are not citizens of this country. He pointed out the hypocrisy of this situation in light of the fact that half of the land that makes up the continental United States today was stolen from Mexico 150 years ago. Morejón explained that equal "access to culture presupposes access to all levels of education."

The Cubans discussed many topics with the UW students, including how Cuba was able to end the institutionalized discrimination against women and Blacks that was prevalent before the revolution in 1959.

Morejón expressed how glad they were to meet student and youth organizations in the United States. He and García have been inviting the young people that they meet on their nationwide tour to come to Havana this August for an International Youth and Student Seminar About Neoliberalism. After the meeting members of MEChA discussed the possibilities for building a delegation from Seattle to the conference.

Later that day they were part of a weekly Chicano-Mexicano- Latino class with 35 people, most of them youth, at El Centro de la Raza, a local Latino community center. A group of students from Seattle University, including some from the campus MEChA chapter, attended and participated in the class. Morejón reviewed the history of Cuba's struggle for independence, first from Spanish colonialism and then from U.S. imperialist domination. García described the challenges that Cuba has faced since the collapse of trade with the Soviet Union.

One part of the discussion focused on the role that different generations of young Cubans have played in leading the revolution. Morejón said that the generation of youth at the beginning of the revolution faced the challenge of carrying out a massive literacy drive to teach every Cuban to read and write, and to defend Cuba from U.S. invasion and other aggression. Now young Cubans confront the challenges of continuing to build a socialist society in the face of the U.S. embargo and to draw youth into leading the revolution in all areas. But he emphasized that "young Cubans are educated in internationalism" and anti-imperialism. Youth have played an important role in Cuba's history of internationalist missions, from Bolivia to Angola to the recent medical teams Cuba sent to Central America and the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.

The last meeting took place April 29 at Seattle University. Everyone was welcomed to the meeting by the university and student presidents of SU, the chairperson of the city Department of Neighborhoods, a member of the King County Executive Committee, and a representative of the SU MEChA chapter. One hundred fifty students, workers, and others attended the event.

A lively question-and-answer period followed the presentations by Morejón and García. One participant, interested in the question of "transnational investment" and how it affects countries of the Third World, asked, "Why wouldn't it shatter Cuba's socialist system?"

García pointed to the measures that the Cuban government has taken to make sure that investment is done according to the conditions set by Cuba. She said, "The government made sure that at least 50 percent of all profits stay in Cuba." Foreign capitalists don't own companies in Cuba , but can participate in a joint venture with the state and must abide by Cuban laws. The youth leader emphasized, "We knew that these measures would bring positive and negative" effects and "social inequalities" that the leadership of the revolution must be conscious of addressing.

Morejón pointed out that the current measures taken by the government were first discussed by the working class in meetings known as workers parliaments. These were organized in every workplace to discuss the measures proposed in the national assembly. Only after these meetings did the government adopt the measures agreed upon in 1994.

After leaving Seattle, Morejón and García made one final stop in Watsonville, California. There they met members of the United Farm Workers who have been fighting the big growers and pro-company thugs to unionize in the strawberry fields.

Lieff Gutthiudaschmitt is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.  
 
 
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