photo by Kalp Juthani ’15
“I simply cannot take anyone’s word about what exactly my CDR visit meant. While the experience was obviously scripted, the Cubans we met showed genuine warmth toward us…”—Matt Binder ’16
Cuban economist Professor Esteban Morales
Professor Dan Rogers
H O O S I E R H O S P I TA L I T Y, H A R D Q U E ST I O N S At first, the students were hesitant to ask tough questions. They are exceedingly polite, and they didn’t want to appear unappreciative of our hosts. But some time in the middle of the second day, you could see them get more persistent—maintaining their Hoosier congeniality, but not backing down. To see Wabash students asking Cuban government representatives about free speech in Cuba or about what happens to dissidents who speak out against the government—it was exactly the kind of engagement that makes us know that taking students to Cuba was the right thing to do. This was the very definition of highimpact learning.
—Professor Ethan Hollander
Ethan Hollander and students
PA RT Y I N G W I T H T H E C D R We drove 45 minutes through scores of blacked-out neighborhoods to the outskirts of Havana for a meeting with a leader of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). We were expecting a state-sponsored lecture on the advantages of socialism. Instead we arrived at brightly lit streets lined with hundreds of people who had come out to greet us. The CDR commander read a formal proclamation ending with shouts of “Viva Fidel! Viva Raul! Viva Cuba!” Then we were treated to a rollicking block party featuring children’s dance groups. The kids smiled as they shared their national tradition of music and dancing, and their proud parents tried to squeeze in to take photos as their children performed in front of American college students. As we left, we felt compelled to shake every young person’s hand and give hugs and kisses to all of the women involved in the event. It was a beautiful and unusual moment. But as we started back to the hotel, we realized it was also a carefully choreographed show designed to convince us that the CDR’s role is to safeguard culture and tradition—not to serve as neighborhood watchdogs for the party. Wi n t e r 20 1 4
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