Our whole life, Cuba is preached to us as some horrible place because of communism and how the government was ran for so many years. Personally, after my visit there, I think that is a load of crap.
Cuba has a lot of history and if you’re interested in the intense history that they have, I recommend watching the documentary called “The Cuba Libre Story” on Netflix. It thoroughly explains and provides a plethora of Cuba’s history in a way that we can understand it.
This blog is strictly based on my opinions, but after talking with others of our group, I feel that we all have some of the same feelings. Cuba has been dealt the wrong cards, received the short end of the stick, or however else you want to call it. After a rough start with sugar cane, slavery, and deforestation then the United States enacts the Platt Amendment that allows them to invade Cuba whenever they feel like it is “necessary”. Um how about, its not necessary because it’s not your country to control and they’re not going to invade you because they’re TINY compared to the USA.
Anyway, the reason for the United States embargo on Cuba is because they had a “communist government.” What about China, North Korea, Vietnam, and all these other countries that are either communist or walk very closely to the communist beliefs of government that we have always traded with. What kind of sense does that make? The United States STILL has an embargo on Cuba forcing them to wash and reuse rubber gloves in hospitals, scrounge for food and medicine, and make fans out of old washing machine motors for absolutely no reason. A country that small is not going to drastically change the economy and government of the United States, but if we were cordial with Cuba we could drastically change their economy and government.
I guess with it being 2022, I don’t see and understand why we STILL have an embargo with a country as small as Cuba that could benefit tremendously by trading with us and having Americans as tourists. I don’t think that it would have enough of an impact on the United States for it to matter much.
When we told those that asked that we were from the United States. They were absolutely shocked. Everyone was incredibly nice to us, wanted to know how we got there, what we were studying, etc. I think this trip opened my eyes to see a completely new perspective on Cuba and the people there. The pre-departure materials and studies helped me to better understand and direct the information that was given to me when I got there.
