[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 45 (Friday, March 10, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     THE REVOLUTION AND ITS CHILDREN

                                 ______


                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 10, 1995
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the following article by 
Ivan Arellanes be included in the Record. I believe that ``The 
Revolution and Its Children'' provides a worthwhile insight into 
problems that unfortunately many have chosen to ignore.
                    The Revolution and Its Children

                          (By Ivan Arellanes)

       One of the most disquieting aspects of my recent trip to 
     Cuba was learning about how young people my age live. Despite 
     living in a country where most information concerning the 
     West, and particularly the U.S., is censored, they are aware 
     and even have some contact with the ``materialist, 
     capitalist, imperialist'' culture, as Fidel Castro might 
     categorize it. I wanted to meet those young people who, 
     although they were children of the Cuban Revolution and had 
     been indoctrinated from childhood, had many of the same 
     concerns, interests and ideas that I or any other young 
     person might have.
       I arrived in Cuba with this in mind, and my first 
     impression was disappointing: children and young adults were 
     asking for money, food, candy, pencils or any item we 
     tourists might want to give them, as we got off the bus that 
     had brought us from the airport to the hotel. I wasn't 
     surprised to see beggars, since this is not an occurrence 
     unique to Cuba, but rather by the fact that there were so 
     many everywhere.
       Next I encountered the much-reported phenomenon of 
     prostitution. Without going into too much detail, let me just 
     say that I saw a sea of men, women and children selling 
     themselves to the highest bidder. The only way I can describe 
     what I saw is to call Havana an enormous brothel.
       My first night in Havana, I was lucky enough to meet a 
     group of five young people between twenty-four and twenty-
     eight years old. I spoke at length with two of them, Ronie 
     and Ernesto. One of the main topics of conversation was 
     entertainment. What did they do for fun? (I met them sitting 
     next to the hotel.) They answered, ``This is what we do, sit 
     here and watch people go by.'' They also like to bring some 
     rum to a friend's house and dance to salsa music all night. 
     But since the start of the daily blackouts, twelve hours long 
     in some cases, It is no longer possible to have such parties. 
     There is also nowhere to buy the very expensive alcoholic 
     beverages unless you have dollars.
       Both, Ronie and Ernesto are professionals; one is a 
     biologist at a hospital. Though head of his shift at the 
     time, he was just ``hanging out'' because there was no light 
     and no supplies to help the sick.
       Both laughed when I asked them where there might be a 
     restaurant, not for tourists, but where one could find only 
     Cubans. One asked, ``Why do you want to eat with Cubans? Why 
     don't you eat in this nice hotel that has everything, where 
     we aren't allowed to enter?'' They were surprised that I 
     hadn't come, like other tourists, for sex.
       They told me openly of their resentment, disillusionment 
     and hatred of the revolution, which according to them lied 
     about its supposed achievements. Later on I realized that in 
     order to enjoy a better life than most Cubans (they earn the 
     equivalent of $6 a month) they hooked up with tourists who 
     would take them to discos, dinner, hotels, and who would buy 
     them clothing in exchange for certain favors.
       On my second day in Havana, I talked at length with a 
     couple who were thirty-three and twenty-nine, respectively. 
     They have a daughter who suffers from acute anemia owing to 
     the lack of food. The husband works at the University of 
     Havana and earns the equivalent of $5 a month, while his wife 
     stays at home. They excused themselves for not offering me 
     anything to eat or drink, because the only thing in their 
     refrigerator was water and some old rice. She told me that 
     sometimes days, even weeks go by when they eat only sugar 
     water, so that they could give their daughter what little 
     food they had.
       We talked politics. Checking often to make sure the 
     neighbors couldn't hear, they told me openly of their 
     opinions on the Castro regime and the desperate living 
     conditions in Cuba. I asked them to consider the extreme 
     poverty, injustice and corruption in other countries, such as 
     Haiti, and then asked them whether they would rather live in 
     Cuba or Haiti. In a few words they summed up their 
     disillusionment with the Castro regime: ``Let me put it to 
     you this way. We would rather live in the worst country on 
     earth, anywhere but Cuba.'' During our conversation we 
     listened to music by their favorite artists: Willy Chirino, 
     Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada.
       I would also talk to another person who practically broke 
     my heart. His name is Yojiro, a thirteen-year-old boy who 
     came up to me on the street and began to walk with me. He 
     told me that his classmates were doing agricultural work, and 
     that he hadn't been able to go because he had injured his 
     foot. He also told me his favorite music was rap and Michael 
     Jackson. When I asked him if he had ever seen Fidel Castro, 
     he told me that Castro never got close to the ``common'' 
     people and could only be seen from a distance. As with all 
     the young people I had met previously, his major interest was 
     in knowing what the United States was like, what we did for 
     fun, what we thought of Cuba. Nevertheless, what most 
     endeared him to me was that he would not accept any gifts 
     from me. He just wanted to talk, to be treated like an equal 
     and not a beggar, to go into a restaurant with me and sit at 
     a table without having the waiters bother him, in short, to 
     feel like a human being.
       When I returned from my trip to Cuba, friends and relatives 
     asked me if I had liked it, if I had enjoyed myself. I 
     answered that it had been the worst vacation I had ever had, 
     that I hated Cuba--not the country and certainly not the 
     people--but the injustice forced upon them by the 
     dictatorship they live under.
     

                          ____________________