What Georgetown students say about Cuba and why it drives me crazy

I used to think that many people here at Georgetown were ignorant for being misinformed about Cuba based on past conversations I’ve had on campus. Like last semester on Georgetown day when a friend of mine told me that she “can’t wait to go to Cuba before it becomes too touristy!” I could not imagine anyone wanting to visit a place where the regime that caused my family great hardship is still in power.

Then yesterday, I overheard a student in Leo’s say that he hopes to “take a picture next to a vintage car in Havana,” over Christmas break when he visits Cuba. He then asked his friend what he should “caption his Instagram”…

I was insulted.

But I’ve come to learn is that it’s not necessarily people’s fault that Cuba has been advertised as a touristic paradise of some sort. Most people’s knowledge about my country is solely based on media’s portrayal of it. In recent months, media outlets – along with the Cuban government – have romanticized the island by highlighting the ‘attractive’ aspects of the culture such as the historical city of Havana and the beautiful beaches of Varadero.

A photo taken of a young boy in the streets of Havana by my friend, Andrea Mora.

But Cuba is not all about cigars and classic cars.

So this past week I asked students around campus, “What is the first word that pops into your head when you think about Cuba?”

They responded with answers like the Cuban Missile Crisis, salsa dancing, rice and beans, Fidel Castro, Guantanamo Bay, Che Guevara, beautiful beaches, culture, tourism, a vacationer’s paradise, history, communism, vibrant colors, Spring Break, trendy, vintage, repressed. Their responses did not surprise me at all. What did surprise me was that only 1 student out of the 25 students around campus that I spoke to mentioned something about oppression and human rights.

He said: “Although I’m not entirely up to speed with the current situation in Cuba, I am aware that people there don’t have many rights.”

It was nice to know that there are students who are aware of the current situation. Most people don’t know that the average person in Cuba receives a monthly meal ration card, doesn’t have freedom of speech or religion, and gets imprisoned for disagreeing with the government. You can’t even express yourself through art or music without being detained. It’s like Hoyas for Choice being arrested in red square for being ‘too controversial’  – that would never happen.

A portrait of Fidel Castro hangs on the wall at a local market in Havana.

Yesterday, as I was sitting on Lau 2, I asked three girls if they thought that the average Cuban had access to the Internet. One of them said to me, “Of course they have internet access. It’s the twenty-first century.”

But the sad truth is that the average Cuban does not have access to the Internet unless they pay $2 an hour at a government owned internet cafe, and yes it’s the twenty-first  century.

Imagine being a teenager in Cuba without Facebook, Instagram, and Google. You probably wouldn’t be able to function. So why isn’t anyone talking about the fact that human rights do not exist on the island today, nor have they for the past 50 years? It’s because they simply don’t know. People don’t know the reality of Cuba, and this needs to change.

A woman walking in Havana.

I grew up in a Cuban, Pro-Freedom/Anti-Castro household, where hearing things like, “Our freedom was earned, not given”, “one day we will step foot in a free Cuba” and “you must always move forward, Adelante, Adelante” was the norm. My grandfather left Cuba behind to come to the US, where he became a milkman. No, that was not his ideal job, but he did this in order to be free – something he knew he would not be had he stayed in Cuba.

My grandfather, as an exile in the U.S., later founded the Cuban-American National Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting democracy in Cuba. That is why hearing things like “I don’t know much about the country but I hear they have great food!” really gets under my skin.

The Castro government  has stripped innocent people of their human rights, and nothing has changed since then. The only thing that has changed, according to the guy sitting behind me last week at Sweetgreen, is that Cuba is now one of the hottest “2016 Spring Break destinations.”

A crowd on 8th Street at my grandfather’s funeral in Miami, Florida.

Cubans, especially the youth, are longing for a connection to the outside world. So far they have just been prohibited from experiencing it. The more people are aware of Cuba’s reality, the closer Cuba will be to achieving freedom.

C’mon Georgetown, it’s time you smell the Cuban coffee and get a whiff of reality – Cuba is stuck in a Communist time warp and it’s up to our generation to help them. Cuba is not built to serve its people: most of their buildings can’t even stand up straight. Cuba is built to serve outsiders who are putting tourist dollars in the hands of the Cuban government. So…Cuba is paradise for who? Everyone, except it’s own people.

I hope the next time someone asks you about Cuba, cigars and classic cars are not the first things that comes to mind.