Faculty members reflect on post-Castro Cuba
Matthew Schroyer
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: News
After he stepped off the plane, theater and dance professor Otis Sweezey remembered choosing a 1957 Chevrolet taxi to get him to his hotel. He picked the vehicle because it brought back memories of a similar Chevy that his parents owned. But those memories were in America, and this place was Cuba, 2006.
"It was like going through a time warp," Sweezey said of that experience, his fourth trip to Cuba. "Everything is stopped in 1950."
The outdated transportation was there for good reason; American exports, including automobiles, came to a complete halt for Cuba in the 1960s. But since longtime Cuban president Fidel Castro, 81, officially handed the communist country's reigns to his brother Raúl, 76, on Sunday, the question whether change will come to the trade-starved country has come up.
SIUE faculty who recently visited Cuba said they were not surprised by the power move, and do not expect much change in the short-term. Raúl and his brother may have different agendas, but they are still closely allied. Still, some faculty members think change may be coming, even if only in the distant future.
"I think Raul is going to make (restrictions) less severe," Sweezey said. "He will allow the reduction of total control of the government."
Sweezey visited Cuba in March 2006 in a delegation with Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift and then-senior Spanish major Aleisha Steele. The purpose of the trip was to explore the Cuban higher education system, Vandegrift told the Alestle in the March 14, 2006, edition. But Sweezey was also there to take in Cuban culture, which inspired a 2007 dance performance.
Cubans, except for a small portion of the older population, have no animosity toward Americans; a very different stance than Europeans adopt, Sweezey said. Most Cubans are also mum about the government, with the exception of an older generation that supports Fidel Castro.
"The older ones are really pro-Fidel," Sweezey said. "The younger ones don't know anything different. They don't talk negative about the government. It's not a healthy thing to do."
"It was like going through a time warp," Sweezey said of that experience, his fourth trip to Cuba. "Everything is stopped in 1950."
The outdated transportation was there for good reason; American exports, including automobiles, came to a complete halt for Cuba in the 1960s. But since longtime Cuban president Fidel Castro, 81, officially handed the communist country's reigns to his brother Raúl, 76, on Sunday, the question whether change will come to the trade-starved country has come up.
SIUE faculty who recently visited Cuba said they were not surprised by the power move, and do not expect much change in the short-term. Raúl and his brother may have different agendas, but they are still closely allied. Still, some faculty members think change may be coming, even if only in the distant future.
"I think Raul is going to make (restrictions) less severe," Sweezey said. "He will allow the reduction of total control of the government."
Sweezey visited Cuba in March 2006 in a delegation with Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift and then-senior Spanish major Aleisha Steele. The purpose of the trip was to explore the Cuban higher education system, Vandegrift told the Alestle in the March 14, 2006, edition. But Sweezey was also there to take in Cuban culture, which inspired a 2007 dance performance.
Cubans, except for a small portion of the older population, have no animosity toward Americans; a very different stance than Europeans adopt, Sweezey said. Most Cubans are also mum about the government, with the exception of an older generation that supports Fidel Castro.
"The older ones are really pro-Fidel," Sweezey said. "The younger ones don't know anything different. They don't talk negative about the government. It's not a healthy thing to do."
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