In Havana, a Real Education

Related Stories

• Why Cuban Dissidents Aren’t the Future of Cuba
• We’re All Terrorists
• Afghanistan Is Surpassing America
• Now You Can Attend Stephen Colbert ‘University’
• Demos Asks Obama to Step Up on Creating Good Jobs

A mural of Cuba’s controversial revolutionaries. (Chris Lewis)

Cuba and the United States have a troubled relationship to say the least. The island nation was once a de facto colony of the United States, from its 1898 independence from Spain until the Revolution of 1959, led by a fiery young lawyer-turned-guerrilla named Fidel Castro. In the decades since, Cuba and the United States have clashed numerous times, beginning with Cuba’s nationalization of U.S. corporations and followed by a botched U.S. invasion at the Bay of Pigs, a barely averted crisis over Soviet nuclear missiles, and a U.S. policy of economic and diplomatic isolation that continues to this day.

Suffice it to say, it hasn’t been easy for Cuban and North American citizens (some Cubans, who live in America, are insulted to not be included in the definition of “American”) to get to know each other. Under current U.S. law, it’s illegal for US citizens to travel to Cuba, with a few specifically defined exceptions.

One of those exceptions is academic license. Right now, small bands of North American students roam the streets of Havana, taking classes, attending concerts, eating in Cuban pizzerias, and hanging out on the Malecón, Havana’s scenic drive along the coast of the Straits of Florida.

Anasa Hicks had her eye on Cuban travel for years. While still a senior in high school in suburban Detroit, Hicks learned that the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill has offered students a chance to study on the island since 2004. “I basically decided then that if I went to North Carolina, I was going to study abroad in Cuba,” she says. Hicks is now in her junior year and spending a semester at the University of Havana with 13 other students from her school.

Gina Bruno hails from New Jersey, the state with the largest concentration of Cuban-Americans outside Florida. “My whole life I’ve been in contact with people who have really strong feelings about Cuba,” she says. UNC’s program was her chance to see the country for herself.

Peter Posada’s dreams of Havana academia hit a bit closer to home. “My father was born in Havana the month after Castro took over,” he says. But after Posada’s grandfather was imprisoned by the Revolutionary government in 1969, his dad left the island. “My heritage is technically Cuban,” he says, “but I’ve never understood what it meant to actually be Cuban.” Here with eight fellow students from Burlington College, Posada says he’s in Havana to better understand his roots.

Today, the University of Havana—Cuba’s oldest institution of higher education—partners with 12 North American colleges and universities to run study abroad programs, nine of them come from schools in the United States. The partnerships started in 2000 with the Institute for Study Abroad. In the last academic year, the University of Havana hosted nearly 100 foreigners.

The cultural exchange has given U.S. students a unique chance to immerse themselves in a nation few others have had the opportunity to visit. Hicks says her most memorable experience so far was aLos Aldeanos show, at which fans of Cuba’s most well-known hip hop group packed the venue enough to force her to watch from the roof of a nearby building. “It was just so cool,” she says. “People were really, really into it—enough to be up on a roof waiting for these people to come on.”

Less exciting—but just as telling of Cuban life—was Posada‘s experience: waiting in a ration line. “I’m big fan of bread,” he says. “The line was literally two blocks long, and I asked, ‘Is it worth it?’ But I was really hungry.”

In 2004, the University of Havana had partnerships with nine U.S. colleges. According to Brita Doyle, study abroad advisor for the Cuba program at American University, “there were over 200 education programs operating in Cuba” from the U.S. at the time. Doyles said in an email that this number included a host of shorter programs, including summer sessions, alternative breaks, and so on.

But 2004 brought a harsher Cuba policy from the George W. Bush administration. Bush tightened regulations on study abroad, requiring that programs be at least 10 weeks long, and telling universities that they could only send their own degree-seeking students, not any type of transfer or guest student.

According to Doyle, the new restrictions had a huge impact on the Cuban educational exchange. “The majority [of programs] had to shut down because they didn’t meet the new requirements,” she says. In the immediate aftermath of the policy changes, Doyle estimates only three or four programs were left standing. But things are picking up again in recent years. This semester, the University of Havana is hosting a total of 62 students from nine U.S. schools.

The reemergence of these academic programs has given young people a chance to get to know a country that has been represented in the United States with mostly polemic. “What you hear in the States is very different than what’s actually going on,” says Alyssa Vasquez, a junior from American University. “It’s so much more open here than I thought.”

It makes sense then that for most foreign students, the Cuban experience has had its surprises.

“I kinda had this silly view that the only cars in Cuba would be the 1950s Chevys and Fords,” Bruno says. “I was really shocked at the fact that the majority of the cars are newer cars.” Even if, she says, many of the newer cars are owned by the Cuban government.

“What really struck me is the lack of poverty,” Posada says. “I’ve had the opportunity to travel to Lima, Peru, and I went to Mexico for a little bit,” he says. “In those places, you have people everywhere asking for money. It’s just something you don’t see here. It really took me off-guard.”

Besides changing their own misconceptions, the 62 American students currently in Cuba could be helping to thaw U.S.–Cuba relations. “Cuban people love the American people; it’s the governments that don’t come together,” Vasquez says. “We’re participating in their educational system; we’re learning from them. What we bring back to the United States will definitely help.”

In the meantime, the students are grateful for what they’ve learned. “Coming here has just proved that Cuba is definitely one of those places,” Bruno says, “where you need to see it with your own eyes.”

Chris Lewis is a staff writer for Campus Progress. He is currently studying at the University of Havana through an exchange program at American University.