...first because then I can ask them for help. Couple of days later, half of the people went and all received C’s and below. My good friend, Victoria, she got a D, and she was one of the smartest people in my class. When I asked her and many of my friends who went before what their report was about, they said they have no idea what they did wrong. I panicked and automatically thought ‘I am going to fail’. Also, how was I to pretend to be a Cuban immigrant when I know nothing of Cuba? And even talk Spanish fluently for five minutes straight? With all those questions alarming in my head wildly, I just froze and thought about my next move. Was I to just blab nonsense about what I know about Cuba- which is nothing, and receive a D like everyone else or to work for at least a B? I am not a quitter and since I have not even started on the report, I decided to give it a try. I sat awkwardly on my desk with my laptop humming silently in front of me, waiting for me to give it a tap. First, I googled what life would be like if you are a normal Cuban. I never realized how corrupt the government is and how the people have to...
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...CEO Wiederhorn states "Since Fatburger opened its first international location in Canada in 2006, the chain has gained a reputation for opening in unexpected places, such as Pakistan, Libya and Iraq.” (Taylor.2015) On what he foresees as a possible deterring agent to the franchises’ success, Wiederhorn points to the economy, and the spending abilities of the people there. Hopefully the economy will see a boost with the embargo being set aside, and this franchise can do good things to the Cuban people. From a social science perspective, I believe it is also a morale booster. While Mcdonlads is an american Company with locations all around the world, I do not believe the Cuban people are ready for that kind of corporate involvement. Moreover, having a relatively small franchise move into the company could help in keeping certain relations under boundary. Additionally, the name of the franchise, FatBurger, also proves as a way to establish positive change thinking in the country. Since many Cuban citizens have had issues with sustenance due to the embargos, the namesake of the franchise would prove as a beacon of hope for better things to...
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...A year ago, I was driving around and listening to a local news station talking about the price increase for use of public buses. The general public did not make a big deal and complain about the price increase. Miami is a city where most people have their own means of transportation, so most people here don't use the public buses. The majority of the community was not affected by the price increase, and because it did not directly affect them, they are unable to see how it affects the minority. I am Cuban, and many Cuban people want to visit our island but the cost of tickets is absurd. The Airlines are basically charging whatever they want for luggage. Despite the astronomical costs of traveling to Cuba, Cubans are still going to Cuba and do not really complain much about the costs. Another issue that people have ceased to complain about is the raise in the cost of rent. Every day many people are losing their jobs, and they have not money to satisfy their principal needs. Despite all of this, the cost of rent is increasing every day. Another example is how the country is going through an economic crisis, and as a result people feel pressure to keep jobs that they may be unhappy with. Because of this, employers take advantage of their employees. Many companies are only offering part time positions and not paying medical insurance and overtime. Yet despite all of this, low salary is an issue that our society rarely complains about...
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...Silent Dancing – Judith Ortiz Cofer When Cofer says that they were one of the firsts to have a TV in El Building she now realizes that it was because of her father’s decently paying job that they had some finer things than their neighbors did. When her father explains that they should keep to themselves I was confused and then realized that it was so they would not become attached because he had plans for a better place. We all do this at some point. This is my senior year at Central and even though I allowed myself to get close to my roommates I have already started to distance myself by being progressively less present in our pod and in our room. It is easier to say goodbye to something that you do not feel attached to. I feel that by the time I have to say goodbye to my roommates distancing myself will make it less of a ‘change.’ If I start the process now it will hopefully not feel like such a big change. Cofer’s reference to the silent homemade film draws me in when she describes her own experience. “It is both comical and sad to watch silent dancing.” (77) I do this as well; all I could think about is watching some of my own home videos and seeing the facial expressions and the body language of everyone. It is comical. In one of my own videos all four of my siblings and I are going off to school. We were all smiling and in good spirits. When we came back everyone was in a pissed off mood and shoving each other. It is very comical to watch it especially to see the changes...
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...According to Sergio, a developed person is someone who is cultured and educated and moreover someone to whom he could equate himself as an intellectual (Underdevelopment). As previously stated his wife Laura is depicted as superficial like most Cuban bourgeois women at his time; hence, it did not work out between Sergio and Laura (Underdevelopment). Sergio failed in trying to educate both Laura and Elena (Underdevelopment). The film suggest that women in Cuba are underdeveloped intellectually and culturally, unlike the “mature” Hanna who is of European descent, since Laura and Elena are both Cubans of two different classes (Underdevelopment). Notably, Hanna the ideal European woman was portrayed to be very fair with fine, pale blonde hair while Sergio’s Cuban bourgeois class wife Laura had coarse hair streaked with blonde and the Cuban working class Elena is even darker than Sergio, comments on how class differences often match color...
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...an Argentine equivalent of "pal") broke off his studies in order to set out with a friend on a transcontinental trip which included motorcycling to Chile, riding a raft on the Amazon, and taking a plane to Florida. He returned to Argentina to resume his studies, graduating with a degree of doctor of medicine and surgery in 1953. Late in 1953 Guevara left Argentina, this time for good. He moved to Guatemala, where he had his first experience of a country at war. He supported the Jacobo Arbenz regime, and when it was overthrown in 1954 Guevara sought asylum in the Argentine embassy, remaining there until he could travel to Mexico. It was here that Guevara met the Castro brothers. At the time Fidel Castro was planning an expedition against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Guevara agreed to go along as a doctor. On Dec. 2, 1956, the expeditionaries landed in eastern Cuba, becoming the nucleus of a guerrilla force which operated in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The guerrillas contributed to the crumbling of the Batista regime on Dec. 31, 1958. In January 1959 Guevara was one of the first rebel commanders to enter Havana and take control of the capital. He held several posts in the Castro government: commander of La Cabaña fortress, president of the National Bank, and minister of industries. But always, most important of all, he was one of Castro's most influential advisers. Guevara visited Communist countries in the fall of 1960 to build up trade relations with the Soviet bloc...
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...of World War II until the mid-eighties, most Americans could agree that communism was the enemy. Communism wanted to destroy our way of life and corrupt the freest country in the world. Communism is an economic system in which one person or a group of people are in control. The main purpose of communism is to make the social and economic status of all individuals the same. It abolishes the inequalities in possession of property and distributes wealth equally to all. The main problem with this is that one person who is very wealthy can be stripped of most of his wealth so that another person can have more material goods and be his equal. The main reason for the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba was the change to communism. On January 1, 1959, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country for the safety of the Dominican Republic. Fidel Castro and his guerrilla warriors overthrew the old government dictated by Batista. During the next couple of weeks, Castro established a new government and on February 16, he was officially declared premier. The United States accepted this new regime as a relief from the harsh, corrupt, and unpopular government of Batista. Soon after everything settled down, Castro and his men made a rapid move to change...
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...Emmanuel Mensah Nathaniel C. Leonard English 144 6 – 3 – 2011 Medea in the Mirror The story Medea in the Mirror was written by Jose Triana in the early 60s during the period of the Cuban revolution. The play clearly explores some thoughts similarly to the Roman edition of Medea myth written by Euripides. Medea in the Mirror furthermore represents Latin American plays base on Greek novels, because they all contain a sequence of similar elements such as, the outline of both plot, the task of the characters and the intrusion of songs. It can therefore observed that Jose Triana wrote Medea in the Mirror to shed light on the racial, gender, social, spiritual and economic disparities during that era of Batista rule. Jose Triana main character known as Maria a black woman of high social class in pre- Revolution Cuba, is posed to accept discrimination imposed by her society, but fights against them with her status within her nuclear family. Maria faced eviction from Perico while her husband Julian was chasing after a newly a white woman as his new bride. All these circumstance in which Maria was going through made her feel alienated. However Maria is able to identify herself via her position within her nuclear family. Maria’s role in her society as well as her household makes her speak in commanding tone of voice to others in her environment making...
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...after her parents had fled from Cuba in 1964 during the Cuban Revolution. Her family having first settled in Los Angeles, California, Menendez could not speak any other language apart from Spanish until she enrolled in Kindergarten. However, she later moved with her family to Florida where she attended high school and thereafter joined Florida International University from where she graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts in 1992. Her story Traveling Madness basically involves four main characters who are all “dreamers”. The story is based on and highlights the plight and disillusionment visited on the Cuban population by the communist party and the ways in which different people dealt with the economic and social adversities that typified the era of communism in Cuba. Self-aware of the dangers that confronted them, some wished to fly away to the moon; others desired to set sail and vanish; and others actually thought they could drill a hole from Havana to Miami (Delbanco and Cheuse) From the foregoing, while self-awareness is a critical aspect of personal development and self-exploration, it does not always bear positive fruits – sometimes it acts as a source of frustration, conflict and stress. In spite of her age, Menendez has proven herself to be a prolific fiction writer; a fact attested to by her works of fiction such as In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, Loving Che, and Adios, Happy Homeland. Borrowing from her Cuban heritage, Menendez employs a repertoire of literary tools...
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...poverty, hunger, and disease observed in those countries. This experience inspired him to become a revolutionary. He later joined a group of Cuban revolutionaries with Fidel Castro in Mexico. Even nowadays, he remains the symbol of rebellion and revolution all over the world. However, recent research has proved that he was a murderer. So can we consider Che Guevara as a hero? In order to answer to this question, we will first explain why Che is a hero and then why he was also a villain. First of all, a hero is a person who is admired for his courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. So now I am going to explain why we can consider Che as a hero. Che Guevara was a revolutionary and as I said before he joined a group of Cuban revolutionaries with Fidel Castro. His goal was to fight against the Batista dictatorship (who was a Cuban dictator close from the Americans) and to establish a Marxist regime in Cuba. He proved himself to be both a good soldier and a leader. He was fearless and courageous. By May 1958, Guevara became the second-in-command of the large group of revolutionaries. Castro’s group had grown in size and strength during few months. Using guerrilla tactics, Castro and his men successfully took over town after town. Guevara was very known for is strategies. Finally, on January 1 of 1959, Batista fled Cuba. The Cuban Revolution was now over and Che was seen has a figure for revolutionaries against imperialism oppression all over the world. He is the founder...
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...John Van Buskirk History 131 Professor Ehrlich October 10th, 2015 Lázaro Cárdenas, Juan Perón, Jorge Gaitán and Fidel Castro are four people that are famous for what they did for their people. The main agenda of each person is what shaped that person’s future. Also every person strived to help the poor people of their country or town. Even though it did not always work in the long run. Each person had their own unique way to do this. Lázaro Cárdenas’ main agenda as president was to fix the Mexican economy. With fixing the economy he wanted to give back to the poor people of Mexico. Cárdenas did this mainly by getting rid of all the haciendas. They way haciendas had workers is by giving the workers loans and making them work to pay them back. With the end of the Haciendas was the end of the imprisonment by loan. Every time he stopped a hacienda he distributed the land to the people who worked them. On paper this idea looked great but in actuality it was not. Cárdenas distributed 18,352,275 hectares among 1,020,594 peasants. He shut down perfect and terrible haciendas regardless of the status. According to the Biography of Power, a witness stated “no one really knew which way to go ... they expected us to know everything overnight”. Each worker on the haciendas only knew one job, their job. This lead to catastrophe and a drop in agricultural productivity. The major problem people had with Cárdenas was that he took away a working system instead of fixing it. But in the end...
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...Lydia Garcia Professor Raul Rubio November 20, 2014 Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights Directed by: Guy Ferland 1. Set against the corrupt glamour and escalating danger of revolution-eve Cuba, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights follows the blossoming love affair of young couple Katey and Javier against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution in 1958. Katey is an American girl living in Cuba with her parents who meets Javier, a local. Javier takes Katey to a nightclub where he teaches her how to dance dirty Cuban-style. They prepare for the big Latin dance contest, but Castro's revolution is about to change everything. The two grow closer and closer, but when Castro takes over, Katey's parents decide to flee for the U.S., leaving Katey to make the ultimate decision. 2. The story tries to balance youthful flirtation with the serious theme of political revolution. Castro demanded power and tried for a long time to overthrow the Batista’s government. The Cuban Revolution was a turning point in recent history and because of Castro and his status as dictator is highly opposed by many nations because of the violations of human rights practiced under his rule. 3. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights didn’t really didn’t display many scenes that brought the filled tragedy of the revolution but there were two parts that struck out to me the most. The first scene was when Katey and Javier were walking down the street and they stopped to hear and watch a group of men that were singing beautifully...
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...The bay of pig was supposed to be a full scale breach with one thousand four hundred exiled cuban-american soldiers into Havana. The plan was formulated because of young cuban nationalist Fidel Castro who had pushed his men the guerilla army in to Havana. Fidel successfully drove his army in and overthrew general Fulgencio Batista on january first nineteen fifty nine . Batista was corrupt but he was considered to be pro-American and he was an allie to the american companies. Also very wealthy individuals and corporations had owned almost half of Cubans sugar plantations. Batista was openly against communist. Fidel felt that it was time for his people to take back their island and short after taking over the he took the steps he needed to...
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...Critique 1: The Durability of Revolutionary Regimes The following article given is set to explain to the reader on the persistence of revolutionary regimes, as the title suggests. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have comprised an article on the persistence of revolutionary regimes in comparison to other authoritarian governments. Countries like Cuba have remained resistant to democratization and other challenges that existed during the post-Cold War period. Levitsky and Way set to explain this occurrence through four factors that enhance the ability for revolutionary regimes to persist. They are as following: 1) the destruction of the independent power centers; 2) cohesive ruling parties; 3) tight partisan control over security forces; and 4) powerful coercive apparatus (Levitsky and Way, 7). With these following factors, authoritarian regimes are able to withstand that numerous obstacles that descended onto them after the Cold War period. The destruction of independent power centers consists of the abolition of immediate rivals and centers of power. These centers of power consists of any kind of power that can help serve the opposition power within a revolutionary regime. Traditional and religious institutions also needs to be eliminated because it can also be used to the opposition’s advantage. It can serve as a threat to the power and ideology that regimes hold, thus, must be removed for the government to be politically powerful. Its existence may provoke loyalty to the masses...
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...José Castro was an undocumented factory worker from Mexico, hired by Hoffman Plastic Compounds, located in California. Seven months after he was hired, Castro began participating in union activities, organizing and distributing authorization cards. After his involvement was discovered, Hoffman laid Castro off along with two other workers. Castro later sued Hoffman Plastic Compounds for violating his right to freedom of association (Sensiba and Yavrom 18). The case Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board eventually made it to the Supreme Court, where on March 27, 2002, the Supreme Court decided that Castro was unlawfully fired, but was not to be given back pay. In this case, the National Labor Relations Board found Hoffman Plastic Compounds to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Section 7 states, "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” (National Labor Relations Act). The Court found that Castro had the right to participate in union activities; however, they “held that undocumented immigrant workers could not recover back pay for unearned wages as a remedy for discharge in violation of the National Labor Relations Act” (Vu and Schwartz). In general, workers who are illegally fired are granted...
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