I do not have green eggs and ham (Val Prieto)
Imagine, if you will, that you have a child in your local city or county’s public school system and your government pays all of the costs associated with your child’s education. Let’s say your child is your typical third grader and does relatively well in his standard academic courses – reading and writing, arithmetic, science. He’s consistently brought home A’s with a rare B every once in a while and you are quite proud of him.
But then the day comes when he is to enter the fourth grade and you get a letter from your local school that your son will be transferred to a different school. A school much farther away from home and one that specializes in “at risk” children.
“At risk children?” you ask your self, knowing full-well that your son is the exceptional student. Smart. Honest. Well behaved. Always does his homework. Never missed a day of school.
So you go to your local school and ask to meet with his administrator.
“Surely there must be some mistake” you say to the administrator. “My son is a great student. Straight A’s. Never sent to the principal’s office. Never absent.”
The school administrator looks at you straight in the eyes with a serious frown. He pulls out a thick file, tosses it atop his desk and opens it.
He begins sifting through pages and you notice that he is going through your sons school file. The file seems pretty thick for a third grader.
“It must be a mistake,” you repeat to the administrator. “These things happen sometimes. My son is…”
“It is not a mistake,” the school administrator interrupts. “Your son has been found to be a troublemaker.” He is quite stern in his response.
“My son is nothing of the sort,” your voice raises a decibel or two. “He is the epitome of a great son.”
“Perhaps then,” the administrator says with a slight smirk on his face. “The trouble makers are his parents.” He then begins to read off the file on his desk, your son’s school file.
Why did you not vote in the last election?
Why are you not a member of the Party?
Why have you had more than family members in your home?
Why have you been seen in public talking to certain individuals?
Why were you not in attendance at the last event at the Square?
Did your brother not leave the country illegally?
And on and on. Every single aspect of your life, how many hours you’ve worked, who you have met with, what you have in your refrigerator, where you have visited, what you have bought, what you have eaten, everything, is recorded in your son’s school file. Every step you take is directly related to your child’s – and your family’s – ability to progress.
You are a parent of a Cuban child in Cuba.
I relate this short story just to give you a little background on how things actually work in Cuba. It will help you understand just why the issue of “Vamos a Cuba”, the controversial children’s book currently being debated in Florida, is so important to the South Florida Cuban-American community.
The book, found some weeks ago in the reference section of an elementary school library in Dade county, is part of a series of books by publisher Heinemann/Raintree, and is intended to be a non-fiction book about school children in Cuba. Yet it ignores the one vital aspect of school life in Cuba described by the story above. It offers a rather peripheral view of Cuba without a true glimpse of the reality that Cuban school children and their families face daily.
For example, there’s also nary a word in the book about las safras and las cosechas, where children are bused to the countryside to do their compulsory work on the fields, cutting cane or tobacco or whatever the crop du jour may be. They spend weeks away from their families, living in the countryside in makeshift dilapidated structures with little or no amenities. And every child must meet his daily quota for the harvest.
The debate over said book has garnered plenty of media coverage, and valid arguments can and have been made by both sides. Solutions from the outright removal of said book from all County School Libraries to companion literature being attached to the stamping of a book plate on the book stating that it includes false and inaccurate information have been made. The committee set up to review the book meets once again on Monday, June 5th, where a compromise is hoped for.
I happen to agree with Matthew Pinzur, who has been covering this controversy for the Miami Herald, when he states “This issue is not going away.”
Just read the story at the beginning of this post once again, and then put yourselves in a Cuban-American parent’s shoes. It is those same vocal parents that have lived through childhood in Cuba. It is those same vocal parents that know just how flawed Vamos a Cuba is. It is those same vocal parents who are exercising a right denied them in Cuba and protesting. And chances are, it is those same parents who will have to live with the committee’s decision, most assuredly much to their chagrin. Ultimately and by proxy, Fidel Castro will have had a say in their children’s education, if the local library organizations leadership is anything like that of the American Library Association.
Personally, I’m not at all comfortable with the banning of books or their removal from libraries. And there’s really no need to deface the book with a warning label or force kids to check out another book or two to accompany Vamos a Cuba. I’ve got a simple solution. One which should make all parties involved happy:
Put the book where it belongs, in the FICTION section. Right there next to Nancy Drew and Charlotte’s Web, a few bookshelves away from Green Eggs and Ham.
Val Prieto is the son of refugees who escaped from Cuba shortly after Fidel Castro came to power. He lives in Miami and blogs at Babalú.
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I enjoy the debate, this one has been among the best I have read. But, at what point is it irrelevant? I mean this is all politics now, and has been for a while at least to me. People just don’t say it.
Frankie B. is one slick politico. It is so, so clear that he has milked this for all its worth. This would be dead otherwise, it would have been settled between the school administrators and the parent.
Once, Bola~os got into it, all hell breaks loose.
Gotta love his chutzpah. Clever bastard pushed the envelope, he had to know he didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. He knew the ACLU would come in on this, and he knew they had a winning case. He knew the school super (who he doesnt care for) would get squeamish. So when the inevitable happened and the suit was filed he gets to go on TV and bitch about being persecuted by the ACLU. Ding, ding. Vote tallies up! He can go on Spanish talk radio, chat it up. more votes. fundraise.
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Then where he really gave it up IMO, was when he ordered the school administrators to remove the books, AFTER the case was filed. Normally as soon as a suit is filed and served, you don’t move a damn thing until the Judge says so. That is really pushing it, and maybe I am alone in thinking that he was trying to provoke the judge to find him in contempt, or at least to force it as an issue – where he would get EVEN MORE PRESS COVERAGE. And now he could look like even more of a martyr and victim.
But, he is relentless. then he comes up with that totally self-serving Op-Ed in the Herald. (press time…look and sound reasonable…votes, votes, votes, fundraising). If I went solely by the skimming the front page of the Herald and read Frank’s piece I would think he might be wrong, but he seems reasonable, and would in no way be aware of what Frankie B is doing – unless you tuned into Spanish radio.
Weird, maybe I am too used to Chicago, where the press beats up on politicians, because they know old school Chicago politicians will take anyone for a ride if they can get away with it.
28 de junio 2006
Dictatorship antidote: more speech, not less
BY ANA MENENDEZ
amenendez@herald.com
The controversy over the children’s picture book Vamos a Cuba is now more than 2 months old, but the bitterness surrounding the effort to ban it continues to grow. Time — said to so graciously heal wounds elsewhere — in Miami seems only able to reopen them.
In April, School Board member Frank Bolaños was an aspiring middle-of-the-pack politician, the book was a largely unknown volume and the incipient outrage over its inclusion in school libraries came stamped with an election-year manufacture date.
Today, after an emotional board meeting, a book-ban vote and a lawsuit, Vamos a Cuba, like so many controversies before it, has become a bloated symbol of the Cuban community’s supposed rocky relationship with the First Amendment and a reminder of the lingering tensions that continue to define Miami.
POLITICAL MANIPULATION
It began with one parent’s disquiet over a book he deemed too favorable toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba. And it might have ended there if not for the cynical political manipulation that too often attends issues of this sort.
By the time School Board member Robert Ingram said he was afraid that someone ”might find a bomb under their automobiles,” it was clear that this had all become about much more than a book.
Ingram’s comments at the June 14 meeting offended many Cuban Americans. But in a way, Ingram was simply following the script written by Bolaños. A few days before the banning vote, Bolaños said: “They will have a choice to either define themselves on the side of truth and with the Cuban community or on the side of lies and against the Cuban community.”
In framing the debate in such stark us vs. them terms, Bolaños invited ethnic interpretation, a move that placed him firmly in the finest demagogic tradition. Worse than that, Bolaños’ comment was based on the lie that the Cuban community speaks with one voice. And that was Bolaños at his most dictatorial: In one stroke, he excluded the many Cuban Americans who disagree with him from his definition of “Cuban.”
It is perfectly possible to come from a family that suffered terrible losses in the Cuban revolution and be opposed to the banning of a children’s book. The one has nothing to do with the other. Bolaños’ attempt to link the two is more than dishonest; it’s as offensive as the suggestion that all Cuban Americans are bomb-throwers.
IMPOSING UNIFORMITY
Dictators fear diversity; it’s why they go to such great lengths to impose uniformity of thought and belief. For a long time in Miami, the most politically active exiles displayed a weakness for tactics that mirrored those of their eternal enemy.
In the last few years, that has begun to change. Howard Simon, who heads Florida’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, traces ”the watershed moment” to the 1999 concert for the Cuban band Los Van Van.
‘It was when they said, `OK, they have a First Amendment right to perform,’ ” Simon said. “And we have a First Amendment right to protest.”
Since then, when Cuban-American leaders have needed legal support, they’ve often turned to the ACLU.
Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue and human rights activist Ramón Saúl Sánchez have both sought — and gotten — the ACLU’s help. And in 2001, when exiles were told they had to hold their planned demonstration against the Latin Grammys more than two blocks away, it was the ACLU that supported their right to protest closer to the arena in Miami.
Next month, the ACLU will be back in court, this time to try to keep Vamos a Cuba and 23 other books in the children’s series on the shelves.
There’s no doubt that people like Bolaños can still mobilize exiles with time and bitterness to spare. But the ACLU’s stand against book banning is an important show of support for the rest of us who believe that the best antidote to dictatorship is more speech, not less.
Fri, Jun. 30, 2006
Cuba book ban could end up as a costly error
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
The other day, I gave two teachers I know $300,000 apiece.
Hypothetical money, that is. ”If $300K fell out of the sky,” I said, “and you could use it to improve your school, how would you spend it?”
Mary Ann, who works at an elementary school in Los Angeles, wanted to hire classroom aides to work one on one with “troublesome students who have not been properly diagnosed so they can be educated and not just written off.”
Sonya, who teaches in the Chicago area, envisioned an incentive program — not necessarily monetary — that gave kids an attaboy for doing well in school and showed them “some kind of immediate connection between academic success and real-life success.”
That’s how educators in normal places would spend $300,000. In Miami, they want to use it to go to court. To fight a battle. That they will lose. That’s not my opinion, by the way. It’s their lawyer’s.
For those who live in normal places, a quick recap: Two weeks ago, the Miami-Dade School Board voted 6-3 to ban from school libraries Vamos a Cuba, its English companion, A Visit to Cuba, and 22 other titles in a series of travel books for children ages 5 to 7. This, after a complaint from a parent who felt that the book, which contains observations such as ”Many kinds of fruits grow in Cuba,” was inaccurate.
In this case, ”inaccurate” was a synonym for, “does not say that Cuba is a failed communist state where the president for life has people imprisoned or killed if they commit the crime of free speech.”
I did mention that this was a book for 5- to 7-year-olds, right?
Anyway, it was reported last week in The Miami Herald that the School Board’s lawyer warned repeatedly that banning the books violated the board’s own rules, not to mention multiple legal precedents. It seems that if you ban a book for inaccuracy, the law requires that it actually be, you know, inaccurate and not just something you disagree with. A legal expert consulted by the paper said that if the matter goes to trial, it could end up costing taxpayers $300,000 or more.
Three hundred grand. To fight over a children’s book. And, in all probability, lose.
Can you spell ”idiocy,” boys and girls?
If you were educated in a Miami public school, there’s a good chance you can’t. Yet, the School Board has $300,000 to waste on this foolishness?
Take it as further proof that these are harrowing times for civil liberties. Of course, civil liberties are always under siege in South Florida, where you can get pelted with batteries for being insufficiently anti-Castro, where a city commissioner once vowed to take to court anyone who ”offends” the community, and where a magazine was once pulled from newsstands because it advocated repealing the boycott against Cuba.
But lately, things are getting weird even in normal places. Like Bethesda, Md., where two employees from the county Department of Homeland Security undertook earlier this year to ban library patrons from accessing naughty websites. Like Albany, N.Y., where a man was arrested in 2003 for wearing a T-shirt that said, ”Give peace a chance.” And though it’s a stretch to define Washington, D.C., as a ”normal” place, what about Cindy Sheehan being kicked out of the State of the Union address in January for wearing an antiwar T-shirt? Not to mention the narrow margin (they missed the necessary two-thirds majority by a single vote) by which the Senate this week rejected a proposed constitutional amendment banning ”desecration” of the American flag?
You know what I’d do with $300,000? Offer civics seminars for lawmakers and other public officials. Apparently, the schools don’t do civics anymore. What else explains the constitutional illiteracy most recently epitomized by Miami’s would-be book banners?
As Sonya told me, “It’s a waste of $300 grand. I could do a lot with $300 grand.”
Spoken like somebody from a normal place.
THE MIAMI HERALD
July 8, 2006
TAXES FOR VAMOS A CUBA: “SINFUL AND TYRANNICAL”
By Frank Bolanos
Mr. Frank Bolanos is a member of the Miami-Dade School Board
If the Newark, New Jersey school board decided to issue “Little Black Sambo” as a third grade reader, how would that largely African-American community react?
Famed progressive educator Carl L. Marburger posed this question in 1974, when he said controversial schoolbooks in rural West Virginia showed the public school system’s “astonishing insensitivity to local cultural values.”
Those aggrieved local folks endured the insults, catcalls and jeers of the liberal elite until Marburger, a self-described liberal’s liberal, spoke up and gave them pause. Today, the Miami-Dade school board and I are being accused of censorship for our efforts to remove from school libraries “Vamos a Cuba,” a children’s book that paints a false and distorted portrait of life in communist Cuba.
If the teachers’ unions, Herald columnists, the ACLU and Fidel Castro himself are to be believed, the Miami-Dade school board is pillaging school libraries, burning books, oppressing the intellectual freedom of helpless children, and stomping on the First Amendment.
None of this is true; this is not a First Amendment issue. Censorship occurs when government refuses to allow people to purchase material, not when it refuses to provide that material at no charge.
Just as the First Amendment grants basic freedoms to those espousing even the most repugnant of views, I support Alta Schreier’s right to author and publish “Vamos a Cuba.” I defend the right of any Miami bookstore to sell it and I defend the right of any American to read it. Indeed, let the author promote and sell her book and compete in the marketplace of ideas.
But taxpayers must not be forced to subsidize falsehoods, propaganda or insulting imagery. As Thomas Jefferson, wrote, “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Simply put, Jefferson, a framer of the Constitution our critics cite, would see no reason for our schools to spend sparse taxpayer money to promote the circulation of misinformation and lies many in our community equate to oppression and the loss of liberty and life.
If our public schools provided “Little Black Sambo” to African-America children, I would stand with their parents as this would be offensive, racist and an inappropriate use of tax dollars. If our public schools put the grotesquely anti-Semitic children’s book “The Poisonous Mushroom” into libraries, I would stand with Jewish parents to oppose this abhorrent act and misappropriation of public funds. The struggle against Cuban communism is no less important.
In 1995, the Miami Herald was forced to trash an entire section after an offensive cartoon of Martin Luther King, Jr. was mistakenly printed inside. Over the nationally syndicated cartoonist’s objections, editors made the bold decision to pull a half million copies of the magazine.
They did it by hand; it took two full days. It was hard and expensive work to correct a mistake that took only moments to make. Similarly, a foolish decision by an entrenched bureaucracy had to be corrected and has cost our school district valuable time, money and focus.
After the mess, the Herald’s executive editor at the time wrote that the newspaper’s First Amendment obligation is “to present the broadest range of perspectives and opinions in its news and opinion pages. But a newspaper also has an obligation to protect its readers from the outrageously offensive or the egregiously insensitive.”
If such an obligation exists at a privately funded newspaper, certainly Miami’s public officials have a responsibility to assure taxpayers aren’t forced to subsidize racism, anti-Semitism or communism with public dollars.
Likewise, taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for entrenched and misguided bureaucrats who want to whitewash the horrors of life under Fidel Castro and his brutal regime.
END
As i continue to read more personal attacks on me, I can only deduce one logical conclusion: the inquisitors are beginning to realize that they have no legal leg to stand on.
Petty insults and issue-clouding aside, I still have yet to read any rebuttal that focuses on the fact that this is, ultimately, a constitutional matter. Hence, any responses that do not either cite a constitutional article(s) and/or a judicial precedent(s) are merely whistling “Dixie.”
It is quite simple: the Bill of Rights protects that book’s place in a public school’s library. U. S. court history protects that book’s place in a public school’s library. Democratic tradition protects that book’s place in a public school’s library. What i think may be most frustrating to the small group of aspiring mind cleansers that continue to base their demands for the book’s removal from its rightful place in public school libraries on inherent insecurities is that the decision-makers that have decided to keep the book in its place are not “pro-Castro.”
The majority of the panel [15 out of 16 members total]— which included educators, administrators and community members … found [Vamos a Cuba] sufficient to meet the needs of its kindergarten-to-second-grade audience.
”I don’t think this book romanticizes modern Cuba at all,” said John Doyle, a panel member and the district’s director of social science curriculum, citing passages about child labor and a picture of a young boy working in an agricultural field.
In other words, they chose to maintain mature, objective, principled, professional standards be their guide when making the decision to keep the book in its rightful place. Something that Val or Alisa have so far failed to demonstrate in their remarks.
*I still would like to hear Val and Alisa’s comments regarding the district’s Materials Review Committee suggested compromise to present different perspectives on the subject of Cuba:
“Other materials that present a more accurate and complete description of life in Cuba will be identified immediately and, if not already available, be made available immediately in library media centers with Vamos a Cuba in their collections. These materials would include Cuba for Kids, the book mentioned at the most recent Board meeting. The District already owns many more copies of this book than Vamos a Cuba, although it is not present in all the libraries that own Vamos a Cuba.”
Thank you.
PS – i find it amusing that an avowed opponent of public education (“…my son goes to private school. He will NEVER set foot in one a classroom run by these [expletive]”) would attempt to hijack a discussion on freedom of information in public schools in the United States with an irrelevant personal attack. George, your immaturity is, as usual, showing through loud and clear. By the way, have you disturbed the peace with any juvenile outbursts at any movie houses lately?
Talking to a liberal is liking trying to teach a pig to sing … you waste your time and you annoy the pig. But I shall try again …
I mentioned obviously “obscene” works to prove a point. Not ALL books are allowed in school libraries. Did you get that? I shall repeat it NOT ALL BOOKS ARE ALLOWED IN SCHOOL LIBRARIES. Regardless of you being a bastion of openess to your child and allow him to read anything you will not find many, many books in school libraries due to their content. Are you with me? Or do you wish to remain utterly obstinant? Will you admit that you can’t find just any old book in an elementary school library? This has to do with what you mentioned about children’s maturity, etc. The question remains as to what is deemed acceptable and who decides.
The book in question, Vamos a Cuba, is one that paints a picture of Cuba that is not real. For those of us who escaped from Cuba or have family members who have find this book, if not offensive, annoying since it is giving children a dangerously false impression. False impressions frequently lead to false beliefs. This is one way that the left perpetuates myths like “McCarthy was a witch hunter.” If the message keeps being repeated it will become reality to too many who will not explore the subject. This willful ignorance is what the left counts on. Even I had bought the McCarthy myth for many years since it was shoved down my throat for so long.
We fear, yes fear, that this type of book, given to our children in public schools, will have a derrogatory effect on our children. It is to me much like the idea of my child being given anti-Catholic books in school. Catholicism is my faith and Cuba is my heart. And how dare you or anyone else try to endoctrinate MY child to your political agenda.
And as for Posada Carrilles … he was acquited 3 times. I don’t believe that people should be tried over and over until a conviction is made. You don’t get “do overs” in a civilized nation. Many people think that OJ should have fried but the prosecution mishandled the case. Too bad. Trials are not perfect but you don’t get to do it over and over until you get what you want. That is utterly childish. “Wait … one more time. I know I’ll make it!” If you can’t see the real travesty in the Posada Carrilles case than you really are the proverbial pig who will never learn to sing and I really shouldn’t bother trying to teach you.
Were not a pig delicious and a great devourer of garbage it would be an utterly worthless and smelly creature.
¡Ay Hassan! When are you just going to be honest with everybody and admit you’re nothing but one of the many pro-castro operatives here in Miami doing your master’s dirty-work. Chico, your loyalties are showing through loud and clear and the deception is getting tiresome…
Val
I am curious: when did you finish your accreditation as a school librarian?
After all, who else but a properly-trained and accredited librarian could write the following in good faith?
“I am not calling for a ‘reclassification’ of Vamos a Cuba, but a correct classification of it. It is not, by any means, a social studies book. At least, not a very realistic or truthful one.”
Whenever it was that you completed what can be a long and challenging process, I commend you.
Unfortunately, that is really all that needs to be said in response to your incessant calls for taking unprecedented and, borrowing from you, unrealistic license with the Dewey Decimal. The same must be said regarding “Are children in Cuba used and treated in the manner depicted in my editorial or not? “
In both cases, your point is moot because, and this has been made frustratingly clear already, this debate on what is acceptable for a public school system in the United States must looked at solely from the perspective of and taking into consideration established U.S. laws, precedents, and principles. This is not Cuba. You are not Cuba anymore. You are – and have been for almost forty years – in the United States. The laws and principles are different – and have been different – here than what your parents told you they were in Cuba then or what Radio Mambi tells you they are in Cuba now. You have not yet offered anything – concrete or even jello – to address or even acknowledge that.
Why is that?
I am reminded of the First Division Marines who, as they ran out of ammunition, their M1’s jammed, misfired, or froze, were forced to throw rocks because they had nothing left to fight with at the Chosin Reservoir.
Thank you.
Oh, and one more thing, Hassan. Nowhere in my my writings will you find that I condone the Batista dictatorship or its actions, and no where do I profess that Cuba was a perfect paradise or utopia or an eden of equality. However, it is quite clear that today’s Cuba – fidel castros Cuba – is much much worse in every single aspect of life than before.
The rafts still only go one way, they just never make it to Minnesota. They stay here in South Florida, that den of rabid anti-castro extremism.
Hassan,
Thanks you for your very eloquent and verbose responses. I only have a couple of things to answer.
First, yes, I did ban you from my blog, as it is my right to do so. There’s just so much “Posada-Carrilles” and Free the Five I can take, or wish to deal with. Perhaps if you had commented respectfully, as you have done here, and without prolific and duplicitous innuendo as you often displayed at my blog, you might still have the privilege of commenting at Babalu. BTW, I am not squashing your free speech, you are obviously still able to speak quite freely. The constitution does not make it compulsory for me to allow your comments to be displayed on my personal web journal.
I am not calling for a “reclassification” of Vamos a Cuba, but a correct classification of it. It is not, by any means, a social studies book. At least, not a very realistic or truthful one. And I would also like you to point out, specifically, where it is exactly that my calling for this work of fiction to be noted as such can be construed as my trying to deny anyone anything. I state it quite cleary that I do not want the book removed from the shelves. Thus, nobody’s constitutional rights are being trampled on, except of course, those with a specific agenda who prefer the book, however misleading and lacking in honesty, to remain as reference tome.
The only thing you should be debating here is: Does the book offer a fact based analyses of the life of a child in Cuba? And that’s it. There’s really no need for melodramatic quotes from Voltaire or Tolstoy. Sure, they look pretty and intellectual on the page, but in this context, they are a moot point, as neither on of us wants the book banned.
Now, since you have taken the time to so pedantically “respond” with such ineluctable intelligence on the Cuban-American community, Posada Carrilles, The US constitution and the bill of Rights, bombings from the sixties, Celia Cruz and her biography, my not having returned to Cuba since childhood, my censorship tyranny, etc…can you kindly take a minute or two to prove story in my editorial false?
Are children in Cuba used and treated in the manner depicted in my editorial or not? And does Vamos A Cuba clearly depict such treatment or not?
Alisa, Val
One compromise that neither of you have suggested is the following:
from the school District’s Materials Review Committee:
“Other materials that present a more accurate and complete description of life in Cuba will be identified immediately and, if not already available, be made available immediately in library media centers with Vamos a Cuba in their collections. These materials would include Cuba for Kids, the book mentioned at the most recent Board meeting. The District already owns many more copies of this book than Vamos a Cuba, although it is not present in all the libraries that own Vamos a Cuba.”
This is fair.
Plus it sounds like a great opportunity for y’all’s book project.
Start typing.
Val
What more could I possibly expect from you but continued personal attacks in lieu of substantive dialogue?
Your use of double-talk in your most recent attack on me personally is particularly interesting to this discussion as you speak of “the pinnacle of hypocrisy” in the same space in which you call for the de facto banning of a children’s book (insisting on a social studies book’s “reclassification” as a work of fiction is a conveniently disguised way of censorship in the same way that forced exile is a conveniently disguised way of jailing someone) because the contents of said book do not fit into your fundamentalist view of a country you personally have not seen since you were a small boy. All of this while admitting that you are in the habit of censoring and squashing free speech vis-a-vis the banning of me and many other people from your blog.
This dovetails into the problem the censorship advocates are having understanding why this book will very likely remain on the shelves of Dade County’s public school libraries: I have serious doubts that the people that are against the banning (direct or the Val-sponsored indirect methods) are “pro-Castro.” This is not Cuba. This is the United States and this matter must be approached, framed, discussed, and handled in a manner that is consistent with U.S. laws and precedents. Whether we like it or not, the Constitution and all related court precedents insist that this book stays exactly where it was when that little boy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary first picked it up.
Several years ago, at the first ever Cuban and Cuban-American Film Festival held at the Cosford Cinema, a pair of sisters debuted a documentary that chronicled their trip to Cuba to visit their parents’ previous lives as well as the present lives of their relatives that stayed home. The film closed with a lengthy indictment of the current Cuban government by a cousin of the filmmakers.
When the house lights went up, a question-and-answer session started. A man seated in the middle of the audience stood up and scolded (to put it mildly) the two women for, according to the man, effectively endangering their cousin by showing his comments on camera. The man said that it is common knowledge that Castro agents are everywhere and, hence, the cousin in Cuba would be punished for making such comments on film.
The debate that ensued over whether or not the young ladies were being irresponsible was finally quashed when someone else stated that to censor ourselves in this country because of the Cuban government is defeating the very reasons why so many people left their homes in Cuba to come to the United States in the first place. In other words, if a person comes to the U.S. to enjoy the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, how is it morally, ethically possible that that same person could even think of denying someone else the opportunity, the right to enjoy those same freedoms?
I have never been able to fathom that hypocrisy.
Val, I know that you were not born in this country but you have been in this country long enough to know that the conditional application of democratic practices that worked in Cuba for so many generations cannot be applied here – for both legal and moral reasons. Any expressions of democratic values that are less than unconditional are dangerous steps towards tyranny.
To whit, in my earlier comments I spoke of the “the ideas that inspired the founders of this nation” and I feel compelled to share with you and Alisa and the readers of this blog as well as your blog that are reading this exchange of ideas and opinions:
“I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.” – Voltaire
There are many, many things that you write, many ideas that you espouse that I disagree with to the very core of my being however I cannot even ponder the thought of denying your right to write the things you write, to think the ideas you think. To do so would be against my conscience and, as Martin Luther said centuries ago, “it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
Alisa, you keep bringing up books that are obscure books that are difficult to find for even adults relative to the ease with which one can find Joel Osteen’s latest book. But I see where you are going and I will give you a book that fits perfectly with the particular point you and i have been exploring.
There is another children’s book about Cuba and this one is called ¡Azucar!. As one can easily deduce, it an illustrated biography about Celia Cruz. I first found out about when someone sought me out to share the book with me. “I saw this book and I thought of you,” I was told. “You’re going to love it.”
I was instantly smitten by the rich illustrations and the lyricism of the writing. The prediction was on point: I did love it. Of course, the past tense did is even more accurate because my delight was dashed as I was proceeding to the checkout counter to purchase copies of this book for gifts.
Something inside of me had me take a moment out to read the entire book from cover to cover before someone sits down at bedtime to read the story to his/her Cheoito and Fulanita.
Towards the middle of the book, when describing why Celia had to leave the country described so lovingly in the beginning of the book, the author writes that, one day, things changed. In the land of song, no one sang anymore and in the island of happiness, no one was happy any more.
I thought, and continue to think, that this is an unfair and unnecessary indirect insertion of ideology and i did not buy anything.
I don’t like that book and I am not sharing that book with anyone I care about for the same reason I am not sharing Andy Garcia’s The Lost City with anyone but I refuse to tell anyone else that they cannot read that book or see that movie. I refuse to write letters to Barnes & Noble or Books & Books demanding that they pull the book or put it in the science fiction section of their stores. I refuse to prance around with pickets protesting a fantastic depiction of a Cuba where everyone was rich, white, and could dance the mambo at my local movie house.
Just like it is my right not to like it, it is not my right to impose my dislike on anyone else.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy
Thank you.
Post Scriptum: Alisa, if you and Val were to write your own book, whether or not I would let my children read it would depend on the subject matter, how it was conveyed, and the reading level of the book relative to children’s abilities and maturity at that particular time. Thus, it is possible that I would let my children read y’all’s book. If, by chance, I deemed the book inappropriate for my children, that is a decision i would make solely for my children and no one else’s children which is the point I have been trying to make along.
Does the worm hassan get a check from fidel? Do his kids go to ‘cane camp’?
Hassan,
I have more than enough proof of my assertions, given all the archived comments I have saved which you made on my blog before I banned you. I could look them all up and post them here if I had the time or inclination, but obviously it would be a waste of my time. You have ulterior motives and thus honesty is not something I would expect from you. Nor, I believe, is it something you would expect from yourself.
Also, you follow “the script” in your original comment quite well. First denigrate the Cuban-American community in South Florida, of which you were supposedly a member, and then toss in a mention of Luis Posada Carriles. You must be slipping as you couldnt work in a mention of the 100% literacy and free universal healthcare and low infant mortality rate in Cuba as required.
I have had the book in question in my hands and read every single page, from cover to cover – a feat not for the weak of stomach I might add. And I can vouch for its value as a propaganda tool for the revolution you so admire vicariously from the comfort of your home in Minnesota.
If you will read my editorial once again, you will notice that I do not call for the banning of the book, nor do I call for any disclaimers added to said book. I call for the placement of said book in the proper section of the library as the context of said book is hardly worthy of the “non-fiction” attribution and certainly shouldnt be used as any reality based form of reference.
And please, do not consider the following an ad hominem attack on you, you are entitled to your opinion as am I, but you are truly the worse kind of Cuban: professing a love for fidel castro and the revolution, knowing full well the conditions that your felllow Cubans live under on the island, while feeling all safe and snug, tucked in the security blanket of your American freedoms. That, my friend, is the pinnacle of hypocrisy.
Hassan, I am hardly naive. I have actually been to Cuba and seen the reality. It is a place that destroys the human spirit. Some cousins of mine escaped last month I got a fairly up to date account of what life is really like there just a couple of weeks ago. It is not the bluebird and happiness version that this book promotes by any stretch of the imagination. The children are still in awe that they CAN EAT and that juice isn’t just for when they are sick They eat like people who were starving and are finally given food! Oh wait … they were!
But by all means allow your children to read fluff that suggests that Cuba is lovely. Perhaps we should add a fairy godmother to the book.
My choice of book titles was simply to point out that what may be acceptable to you may not be acceptable to me. Will you fight to put books by organizations like WAR or the Klan on the non-fiction shelves of public schools? I am certain that NAMBLA would love to have a couple of special books in your kid’s library. There is ALWAYS going to be some measure of control over what books are deemed “acceptable” in public school libraries. Fact of life. So there will always be someone deciding that your child can’t read something. Sade was an example. In fact, perhaps you might enjoy his work. If you are OK with this depiction of Cuba for children you might really enjoy reading of Justine’s fun. Bondage is bondage. 😉
But you ask why are we so opposed to this book? Presuming that you really are the child of Cuban exiles you should really know better. It is because this books helps continue perpetuating ideas that are patently false. The American public (European too) seems to go about with these deluded notions of what Cuba is like. Certainly we must keep a child’s book light but when you teach children lies they grow up to be ignorant people. Ignorant people think that Cuba is a wonderful place and close their eyes to the realities there regardless of the suffering of the people. I shall not deny how lovely the beaches are. I will also not deny the fact that a place without freedom is nothing more than a cesspool. The fact that you and I may argue openly about this book is a prime example of how our lives and our societies are superior to anything Cuba has at present. Did you not read Val’s article? In Cuba you would have no choice as to what your child read and would hope to God (secretly, of course) that your kid doesn’t rat you out if you suggest his schooling isn’t 100% accurate.
If you wish your child/ren to grow into ignorant boobs that is certainly your perogative. Teach him/them that airplanes fly using fairy dust for all I care. I, for one, would prefer that my children learn facts and not drivel. My children will not be raised with false ideas that everywhere in the world all the little children are happy and go to bed with full bellies and can say and do as they please just like he.
My children will read all the fiction they want, knowing that it is precisely that. Fiction. They will also know that there are places in the world where children are not free and don’t get enough to eat because their “lider” sends all the food away.
Best regards,
Alisa
PS Val, why don’t we write our own book? Will Hassan allow his/her children to read it?
Val,
In response to some of your assertions, I have some questions for you.
You insinuate that I “despise my own community” and that “I work to undermine said community.” You further imply that I “attempt to erase the suffering of that community’s past.” What proof do you have to corroborate this? Have you eavesdropped on conversations I’ve shared with my elders as they grieved for what they loved and lost and left behind in Cuba?
Additionally, can you cite just how Vamos a Cuba “is a whitewash and replete with propanda and fallacies”? Until a fact is refuted with contrary evidence, said “fact” is actually an opinion. Thus, what contrary evidence can you offer to render the contents of this children’s book to be what you alledge them to be?
Have you read this book?
Again, as stated to Alisa, I know of no child minus an intellectual prodigy that has the capacity to process a work like Mao Zedung’s Little Red Book, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, or even John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage or Newt Gingrich’s Winning the Future so the natural question one is compelled to ask is: what is your point?
Alisa
With all due respect, I am not basing my point of view on a “rant;” i am basing it upon Constitutional principle.
Your rationale for citing works such those written by Sade, Miller, et al is naively flawed. The appropriateness of the content you cite has more to do with maturity than obscenity. I would not expect those books in an elementary school library any more than I would expect to see copies of the Warren Commission or Ordinary Resurrections. Any first year ed major knows enough about cognitive development to know that your argument is naively flawed. I say “naively” as a benefit of the doubt on your behalf because otherwise the natural conclusion would be that your argument is intentionally flawed which would cause one to question your true agenda.
Regarding your call for “some compromise,” please allow me to share with you the words of Robert L. Payton of Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy:
“… while compromise is acceptable, and indeed necessary for sound policymaking, compromising principles for political expediency or personal gain has disastrous consequences for our system of government.”
Not only is your proposed compromise contrary to constitutional principles and the basic democractic tenets upon which this country’s supreme body of laws is rooted, it also poses an unnecessary source of confusion from a taxonomist’s point of view.
If a small yet vocal group of laypersons taking issue with the contents of a children’s book is sufficient cause to label and subsequently house a book like Vamos a Cuba into a library’s fiction section, would it be fair for fans of Bill Russell to insist that any and all books stating that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time to be placed in that section also? Could that same argument that you and Val are advancing be used to justify the demand of an omnivorous parents’ action group to place all Vegan cookbooks in the fiction section because said books are based on the belief that eating meat is unhealthy?
Of course, reflecting on your assertion that “Children are NOT stupid,” I wonder why you and Val are so concerned about about children being deluded. If the content of Vamos a Cuba is, as you claim, “patently false,” wouldn’t a child who is”NOT stupid” be able to tell the difference between true and false?
Listening to and reading all of the arguments put forth thus far to justify a 21st Century intellectual cleansing, I wonder who the would-be usurpers of academic exploration do think are stupid.
Thank you.
Hassan, I do NOT support the idea of banning books, I never had nor will. But in this case there needs to be some compromise.
Since you are concerned that people not interfere with a child’s right to read what he pleases will you insist that there be a copy of the bible at every school? Can your child read any of Henry Miller’s work in the school library? Anais Nin? Marquis de Sade? You can’t deny MY child the right to read “120 Days of Sodom” when he is in the public school’s library.
Certainly elementary school children have no interest in Justine but the point is that there will always be people who prevent certain works within public schools. Don’t try that “you can’t interfere with my child” rant. If you like this book so much you may buy a copy for him. But be reminded that it suggests things that are patently false. Children in Cuba do not have happy-go-lucky lives. There is no reason to push the reality on them but there is also no reason to delude them. Children are NOT stupid. They are sensitive to right and wrong which is more than I can say about many adults.
Keep the book in the library but, as Val writes, put it in the fiction section.
Cheers,
Alisa
Hassan,
I can say with all honesty that your upbringing and mine weren’t even remotely close. I don’t despise my own community nor do I work to undermine said community and attempt to erase the suffering of that community’s past.
Clearly, my editorial does not call for the censorship or banning of said book. Just its proper placement within the proper department in the library. The book is a whitewash and replete with propaganda and fallacies and thus does not belong in the non-fiction section of any library, be it a school library or otherwise.
Unless, of course, you have no problems with Mao’s Little Red Book and Mein Kampf being made readily available in the reference, non-fiction section of any elementary school library. Then by all means, keep the book where it is.
My wife, who grew up in the Soviet Union, had to suffer the same thing, going out to some farm to pick potatoes every year. She can hardly stand to drive by a farm anymore. And she can hardly stand for books like this, because she knows they are usually written from the tenured comfort of some American university.
Like Val, my parents also “escaped from Cuba shortly after Fidel Castro came to power” and raised a family in Miami. My experiences growing up in Miami were probably very similar to Val’s. I still remember the amazed reaction I experienced when I saw a letter my father received from Gerald Ford. It was a very big deal for a little boy to see his dad getting mail from the President. Of course, at the time, I was too young to know that it was a form letter the Republican party sent to its financially active members but it was still a big thrill for the son of a simple guajiro, or country boy, from Cuba.
Growing up in Cuban Miami during the 1970’s, I was taught like other Cuban-American children in South Florida a distinct and dysfunctional version of the old American adage “If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” The way that saying works in Miami’s “Cuban” community is as follows:
“If you don’t have something nasty and hateful to say about Fidel Castro, don’t say anything at all.”
Anything else can run one the very real risk of being branded a Fidelista. That is a very serious concern in a community that openly and proudly harbors several anti-Castro terrorist organizations and, thus, has a history of bombings and the like.
I think it is very interesting that the same group of people that continue to call for the removal if not outright burning of a children’s book are calling for the release of convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles who is responsible for the bombing of a civilian airplane in October 1976 killing everyone on board when the craft blew up in midair.
I sympathize with the mother of the little boy who first brought Vamos a Cuba home. She is certainly within her rights to tell her child not to read that book. I also contend, however, that her child has a right to have Mommy explain why she does not want him to read the book. *Giving the mother the benefit of doubt, I am supposing that she did just that.
What this parent does not have the right to do is to tell other people’s children what they can and cannot read. By demanding that Vamos a Cuba be pulled from the library shelves, that is exactly what would be accomplished: arbitrary censorship.
This debate has reminded me not only of my family’s origins in Cuba but also the origins of this country’s unique experiment in enlightened democracy. I cannot help but reflect back on the ideas that inspired the founders of this nation when they first laid out the document that we know today as the Constitution of the United States of America.
The following was written by Dr. Marty Lewinter, a professor of mathematics in New York:
“As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.’ Rights must apply to everyone in the same sense at the same time. So rights must therefore be limited to claims of freedom to do anything which does not violate the freedoms of others. This requires recognizing, respecting and abiding by anyone else’s wishes to be left alone whenever he wants, and his wishes to be free to do anything which doesn’t violate others. This is why no one can claim a ‘right’ to interfere with your life in any way without your explicit, personally-given consent for a specified purpose. There can be no such thing as a ‘right’ for anyone (or any group) to mess with you whenever he wants (or whenever they want) since it obviously isn’t applying to YOU in the same sense at the same time.
“The purpose of a Bill of Rights is to prevent anyone (including the majority-of-the-moment) from violating (or even voting away the recognition of) the rights of anyone else (including a minority of one).
“We who use the English language are blessed with the words ‘allowing’ and ‘permission’ to refer to a freedom of action granted by another person or persons. This helps emphasize the clear distinction of a right as being a freedom of action a person claims for himself.”
Whether or not this freedom of access to diverse information and perspective is possible in Cuba is moot. The context of this debate is an American context as its ramifications are American. Thus, any attempts to introduce myths and realities about another country is clouding the issue and, hence, counterproductive and inappropriate.
Parents have the right to screen information to which their children are exposed. Parents do not have the right to censor information to which other parents expose their children.
Thank you.
Chagrin
cha·grin (sh-grn) n. A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event. If someone asked me what it felt like to be Cuban, that’s the word I would use. There…
Venimos de Cuba
Today could be the day we learn the fate of the book “Vamos a Cuba” found in numerous public elementary schools here in Dade County. If you’ll recall, many parents contacted the school board urging them to take action and…