"We met many people who have confidence that the day will come when people in the United States will have had enough of exploitation," said the Cuban youth leader. "What happened in Cincinnati confirmed that for us--just hearing about Timothy Thomas who died at the hands of police is one thing. But it doesn't compare to being at a meeting of 600 to protest this and hearing Timothy's mother speak. Or to hear the community challenge [the city government] as to why more schools are not being built, as compared to prisons."

"It has reaffirmed my belief in our revolution, and that our revolution is not just for us Cubans, but for people all over the world."

Commenting on the numbers of youth who attended the meetings on college campuses during the tour--many of whom knew little about Cuba before--Javier Dueñas said, "We were able to raise doubts about the false image presented by the U.S. media about the revolution. We hope these encounters will inspire youth to learn more, to read about Cuba, and to come to Havana this summer to participate in the conference of Cuban and U.S. youth."

The tour of Martínez, a law student at the University of Havana and member of the national secretariat of the Federation of University Students, and Dueñas, a teacher of journalism at the University of Havana and a leader of the Union of Young Communists, ended with an enthusiastic send-off event April 18. Tour organizers reported to the meeting that the two Cuban youth had spoken on 28 different university and college campuses in seven states to more than 2,100 students, faculty, and others. A broad array of professors, academic departments, and student groups helped make the tour a success.

The final campus meeting during the visit was at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb, Illinois. Some 100 students packed the Latino Center for the event, which was sponsored by the Center for Latino and Latin America Studies, History Club, Organization of Latin American Students, Latino Law Students Association, and the National Lawyers Guild.

Questions raised at NIU, and at a meeting earlier that day at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois, included those often asked in meetings across the country: What will happen to the revolution when Fidel Castro dies? Is there democracy in Cuba? What do Cuban youth think about the future of the revolution?

In their responses, Dueñas and Martínez emphasized the role of the masses of Cuban people, including youth, in making the revolution and confronting the economic crisis that followed the cutoff of economic trade and aid from the Soviet Union in the early l990s.

"The secret to why the revolution has lasted is that the people are involved in the decisions; they are informed," Martínez told the students at Rock Valley. "They know that it is up to the people themselves to have the solutions. Undoubtedly the people feel strongly about the need to continue the revolution," she said. "This last decade has proven that. With the crisis and privations we have suffered, the revolution is still there."

At the meeting at NIU, Dueñas said the mobilizations of young people are strengthening the revolution today. Those born since the revolution triumphed in l959 are a majority of the population, he pointed out. "In the demonstrations in Cuba today, it's the youth who raise the outcries against capitalism and imperialism," he said.  
 
Read and study Marxism
One participant in the meeting asked about the future of the United States. Dueñas encouraged those who want to discuss that question to first read some books by Marxists, including Marxists in the United States. "Then let's talk about it," he said with a smile. Martínez added, "To talk about the future of the United States you have to talk about the whole world." After the meeting a number of students asked the speakers what books they suggested reading. Many crowded around the display of Pathfinder literature and purchased books and pamphlets on the crisis of world capitalism, on socialism and the Cuban Revolution, as well as subscriptions to the Militant.

On the last day of the visit Martínez and Dueñas met with Basu and Pamela Basu, two farmers from Pembroke Township, Illinois, who are part of the struggle of Black farmers to form a cooperative to help them stay on the land and who have joined with others there to prevent a prison from being built next to their farmlands.

Since l980, 17 new prisons have been built in Illinois. The Basus explained they are opposed to the prison, not only because it will ruin farms in the area, but also because they see the prisons as institutions that are part of oppression of Black people. The Basus were especially interested to hear from the two Cuban youth leaders about the campaign being spearheaded by Cuban youth organizations to release young people in Cuban prisons who have been convicted of a range of lesser crimes and to get them involved in school to become qualified as teachers or in other professions.

Dueñas and Martínez were also interviewed on WVON, a radio station with a large Black audience in the Chicago area. "We have impressions of our discussions on university and college campuses, but it has been the discussions with factory workers, farmers, and people in the Latino and Black neighborhoods that have been the most intense," Dueñas said on program. "This gave us a broader image of society here. We have seen how people are exploited and excluded and that this is leading to resistance."  
 
Talk show interview
Listeners on the WVON talk show, like many at the campus meetings, asked about racism in Cuba. "In Cuba before 1959 we had a similar situation as in the United States before the l960s," Dueñas said. "Then we made a revolution and eliminated segregation and racist measures. There is still some racism in the minds of the people, and more consciousness-raising needs to be done. Forty years is a short time in history to get rid of this legacy."

A caller to the program who visited Cuba several years ago reported he noticed that jobs dealing with customers at the Cohiba Hotel in Havana were held by whites, while cleaning and security jobs were done by Blacks.

Martínez explained that discrimination by foreign companies investing in Cuba is one of the many problems brought by the development of tourism in the period of economic crisis. There have been growing inequalities within the working class because those with jobs in tourism receive tips in dollars. During the worst years of the crisis, she said, many professionals left their jobs and took jobs in tourism to make more money.

"We knew measures we took, like the development of tourism, would bring problems," she said. "But we are taking on these problems." She said that steps have been taken at the Cohiba Hotel to end the discriminatory practices of management. "The main thing has been to prepare people, to educate from a political, a social point of view. It is precisely the people who have helped combat these negative effects," she said.

"What bothers you most about the United States?" asked Cliff Kelley, the moderator of the call-in show. "Here you have to pay for everything," Dueñas replied. "In Cuba there is a wide variety of services that are free, such as health care, education, and social security. It's a different concept than in the United States. For us, these are all a right. We have a right to take vacations with all our pay and to have access to culture and to sports."
 

"The current generation carries in its hands, along the trail blazed by its forefathers, working America...the seeds of the new America!" --19th century Cuban revolutionary José Martí

Cuban youth are organizing an exchange that will give young people from Cuba and the United States time to join together in discussions and strengthen the solidarity between the people of both countries. The conference will challenge everything that keeps the youth of the two countries apart. It will be a way to stand together and show the world that unity is not a dream, and that if we fight with all our hearts to unite the divided peoples of the Americas, we can turn the dream of Martí into reality. -- Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange Organizing Committee

For further information contact the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange Organizing Committee. Telfax: (537) 60 0225 or 67 0225. E-mail: ujcri@ujc.org.cu or ri@ujc.org.cu

Or contact the Young Socialists, Times Square Post Office, P.O. Box 33, New York, NY 10108. Tel.: (212) 695-1809. E-mail: youngsocialists@attglobal.net
 
 
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