Transcript of Student Perspective (Cuba series pt. 3) [Bill Kelly Reporting] For the students, it seemed the hardest part of getting to Cuba would be waking up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the Miami Airport on time. Lining up for the boarding passes and baggage inspections was the final step of three months of study and preparation for the journalists. In just 40 minutes, they would arrive in Havana, the capitol of a country they knew nearly nothing about when they signed up for the University of Nebraska's depth reporting class last fall. THEIR PERCEPTIONS BEFORE THE TRIP [DAVID PITTOCK, Lincoln, NE] I thought it would be a very poor country with people with lots of sadness, not very complex at all, almost kind of a dirty cold town. ... kind of get Communism, it's cold and. [JILL ZEMAN, Sac City Iowa] In terms of Communism, I didn't have that kind of hard line like Communists are horrible. They're terrible and you should be afraid to go there for your safety. Though a lot of people in my family kinda did. [LINDSEY KEALY, Sutherland, NE] And I told my mom and she said, she's usually so supportive of everything I do and she said, no, you're not going to Cuba. She's like, they'll throw you in jail. [SARAH FOX, Salina, Kansas] I guess when you think of like a Communist country it seems like it's really boring dull like people, just uniforms and factories and like not very sexy or anything, just really boring. [SHANE PEKNY Norfolk, NE] I don't think anybody understood that Havana in many ways is a safer place than most American cities you go to. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CUBA [CARA PESEK, Brainard, NE] The first day I was there everything I thought was beautiful. Everything was so just amazing and like the outside of the buildings, even-even the ones that were in some of the worst shape like they were still impressive. But then on the 3rd day and the 4th day, by the time we were like going inside or getting glimpses inside of these places and we saw that they were falling apart. [SHANE PEKNY] The lack of paint is a huge-makes a huge impression on you. Um you just-all these very elaborate buildings, very complex architecture, very sophisticated architecture, with no paint on the outside. You know, things that just aren't taken care of. [SARAH FOX] It was really said just to see how far behind Cuba was behind Mexico and behind so much else in the world. I think Cuba was honestly the poorest place I've ever been in my life. [MELISSA LEE, Lincoln, NE] This was right after we were coming off of about seven-course meat meal, as you definitely recall. You know, that's too much meat for anybody. I mean, you know, we loved it. It was great. And so I'm still full from all this meat. And we're talking-I'm talking with this guy and he tells me like "you know this ration system is bullshit. I get rice and potatoes all the time. I don't have enough to eat. I don't remember the last time I tasted meat." I'm, you know, right off of-I'm still digesting my dinner last night, you know. I mean there's meat in Cuba, you know, it's just not getting to the people. THE CUBAN PEOPLE [LINDSEY KEALY] It was mostly the people and I'm sure anyone would agree that, I don't know, despite all their problems, they're just so upbeat and interesting to talk to. And of course, they probably initially want something from you, but after that, they just want to talk to you and they're just happy people and they really exude that. [JILL ZEMAN] He was a street clown who came around and had this little plastic guitar where if he pushed a button it would play Old McDonald Had a Farm in English. He was an extra in The Old Man and the Sea and had traveled to Europe and South America and all that just doing his acting and then after the revolution, he just decided not to work anymore as an actor. He would rather go out and not really beg for money, but just kind of go up and get in people's faces and he just-he thinks the revolution was the best thing that ever could have happened, which blew my mind. I guess in my thoughts, in my Americanized mind, I see someone who's an actor who's on film, who someone's who's not Hemingway and all these great actors and actresses versus a street performer. It's a no-brainer to me that obviously things were better then. But he just didn't believe it whatsoever. [DAVID PITTOCK] Estravo. Gus for short. He was actually a Big Red fan. I remember one comment. It just kinda cracked me up. We asked him, would he ever want to go to the United States to live before or even after the embargo was lifted. He made a comment. Yes, I'd love to go back if they'll hire me as a defensive coordinator. So I thought that was oh my god, he knew more, at least more than I did about Nebraska football. It was unbelievable so. [CARA PESEK] And even in like one of the nicest restaurants we ate, there's this beautiful like baby grand piano and this woman was playing it and she said later on, someone, Matthew or someone, made a request. I can't remember who it was. And she was like, "well, the eight keys in the center are broken so I can't-I can't play that song. I can play this song. Or I can try." Just how nothing was what it looked like. No matter-no matter where you were. Even the in like the fanciest places. [DAKARAI AARONS, Washington, DC] We went to go visit a family in central Havana and I think that was probably one of the things from this trip that made the biggest impression on me. I was walking into the house of this family. There were five people living there. They had this bed. It had holes in it. They had put pieces of cardboard in it to keep it somewhat firm. We walked out to where they hung up their laundry and you could literally just fall to your death trying to hang up a piece of clothing. And the clothing that you did hang up got rust stains on it from the bars. From looking at that refrigerator and the stove that were both 50 years old, there was no food in the frig. The rations, the bread was maybe the size of an extra large hamburger bun, and this is what people are supposed to eat every day. And I think one of the things that really hit home was when I asked that woman about hunger and we asked her well, do you think things would get better if Castro was not in charge and someone else came in. And she says, well we've always been hungry and I think we'll still be hungry. I don't see that changing under anyone else. I think that was the thing that really made the impression. FREEDOM AND COMMUNISM [SHANE PEKNY] I think the lack of free media is what made the biggest impression on me. Um to see every billboard say to have every billboard has the same message, you know, the same-not the same exact message, but they're all messages that back the revolution. One point of view. They all back socialism. That to me seemed-it was just so pervasive to not have a different opinion sit in front of you in a newspaper or a billboard or a TV commercial or anything. [SARAH FOX] Like Cuba's not a boring place at all. You know, just everybody is so multi-racial and loves to dance and is really good at it and uh they have all this cool music and it's a tropical climate and it just-it doesn't agree at all with your preconceptions of a Communist country kinda being this stuffy place. [DAKARAI AARONS] The constant police presence, the people following us in the streets, I think that was probably one of the first things I noticed when I came back to the United States was that there wasn't anyone following me. Or watching my every move. At least not as um obviously as they were while we were in Cuba. [JILL ZEMAN] It almost seemed kinda like you were on a movie set or something where there's these wonderful nice people, but in the background, the setting had it so there was a cop on every corner and murals of Fidel Castro everywhere. But just the way people acted, for the most part, it didn't seem too terribly Communist. I don't really know what really Communist countries are like, but it didn't-nothing screamed Communism at all. RACISM IN CUBA [DAKARAI AARONS] Most of the material I read before going to Cuba, even talking to people in the streets of Miami was that, for the most part, race relations are fine. It was an afterthought in the Cuba society. And when I got there, I encountered something completely different. We were staying in the Habana Libre Hotel and every single day as many as three times a day occasionally, I would be stopped by the hotel security and they would demand to see a hotel identification card that had my name and my room number that proved that I was a guest at the hotel. I even got stopped by some of the same people more than once. And when we would ask government officials about it, well they said, there is no racism in Cuba and if things happened, it must be because you were doing something. Definitely, this was pointed out to us a number of times when we confronted people. There is lots of racism in the United States. But I think the difference between the two countries is that we admit that we have a problem with it here. We don't always go about the best way in the United States in resolving the issue. A lot of times we try to avoid it. But, first you have to recognize that there is an issue with racism and you can't simply say, well we have-we have all these laws that have legislated it out of existence. CUBA, NEBRASKA, AND THE WORLD [SARAH FOX] I've always felt foreign policy decisions will affect us. As far as Cuba specifically goes, now I'm more attuned to that. Now I'm watching that and seeing what's-seeing what's going on. [JILL ZEMAN] Cuba as it is now is so isolated that anything could happen here and it wouldn't affect. Anything could happen there and it wouldn't affect the United States. But from seeing the people and meeting the people, I feel more like emotionally tied to them and emotionally concerned of the island so I can see-I generally want the people to have a better life. [DAVID PITTOCK] There's that--you know, that country, you know, right next to Florida actually can-might help the farmers here in Nebraska if it's lifted. And that's gonna-that'd be an economic way. That could really affect Nebraskan. [CARA PESEK] Other Americans who I talked to in Cuba too had this vague idea before they went there that the embargo was sort of a bad thing. That it-There was really no reason for it, that it was outdated, but it wasn't something I'd ever like feel strongly about. Even-I mean once we were taken across I guess I was-became a little more clear. But it wasn't until I went there that I saw like how much just like not caring, not taking a stance on things and just like not bothering to find out about various policies and whatever can really really have an impact on other people. [DAKARAI AARONS] But to find people who said oh yes, Nebraska, that's in the middle of the country, and it's cold there. To find people who would say, oh yes, I have relatives that lived in Nebraska, or I have friends who left Cuba and they live in Nebraska, it shows that, you know, we can't just live in the world of Lincoln, Nebraska. We have to live in the world of the United States of Latin America, of Cuba, of Europe. Because we're all very much connected.