All posts by Casa de las Americas
Travel Bound Educators
Travel Bound Educators:
Casa de las Américas is planning their second annual trip to Havana during the February NYC public school winter break. The focus of the trip will be on exploring the educational system in Cuba. As such we will obtain an education license to keep within the State Department guidelines and requirements to travel to
Cuba.
We will build on last year’s experience to maximize the benefits this trip will offer – as we attempt to renew, or continue our efforts to create a better educational system here in the USA.
Cuba has had a legacy of quality education for its citizens that is well known and documented. Cuba, from the path it has embarked since 1959 called the Revolution, began its well known journey of eliminating illiteracy to guaranteeing higher education achievement to its citizens – within the context of its
own trials and tribulations for economic growth and sustainability – and the roadblocks imposed on it from the major capitalist economic giant to its north.
In this vein, we urge all interested travelers on our trip to read on Cuba’s educational system and achievements. We will make available a reading list to this end in the coming weeks before the trip. In addition we will plan a meeting on the trip’s logistics. We hope to make this as interactive as possible within the constraints of time and costs.
An itinerary will be made that will include different levels of educational institutions, educators, students and parents. We plan to visit a number of auxiliary educational settings such as museums and related points of interest.
In addition to the above and of primary importance are the details concerning the cost of the trip and subsequent steps. You will be asked to provide proper documentation proving US citizenship and identifying your profession.
You will be identified as an educator, retired educator, educational activists, or a concerned citizen for a better education in the USA.
In your RSVP, please indicate if more people will be traveling with you and their current passport name, the passport number, and state residence of the identifying categories mentioned above. For contact purposes please provide us with an email address and a cell phone number if possible. Right now there is no space limitation, but depending on the response, one will be drawn. Trip details will be provided via email, and other available social media.
Please RSVP as soon as possible to William Gerena, with the requested information.
Trip Coordinators:
William Gerena Rochet Gerena339@gmail.com
646.283.9666
Nancy Cabrero Nycgab95@yahoo.com
917.412.4451
Cuban Rebel Trial Starts
Brownsville Herald, May 18, 1958 (front page)
Cuban Rebel Trial Starts Here Monday
The trial in Federal District Court here of 15 Cubans charged with conspiring to violate U.S. neutrality laws is slated to being Monday.
The group under the leadership of Arnaldo Goenaga Barron was captured off Padre Island last March while en route to join the revolutionary forces of Fidel Castro in his fight against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba.
After a hunger strike the rebel group was freed on bond, and many of them have stayed in Brownsville pending their trial. Barron returned from New York Friday.
Coincidentally with Barron’s return the rebels launched a wave of handbill propaganda, apparently to drum up popular support for their position.
The rebels’ newest “manifesto” asks that “the people of Brownsville be present at Federal Court when we stand accused of fighting for liberty and democracy in our country.”
The manifesto charges “the bestial assassin of Cuba” with the death of “more than 5,000 persons, especially among the youth.”
36 Nabbed On Way To Cuba
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1958
36 Nabbed On Way To Cuba Rebels New Yorkers’ Boat, With Arms, Halted by U.S. in Gulf
BROWNSVILLE, Tex., Mar. 27 (AP)—The United States today seized 36 New Yorkers—all uniformed and heavily armed and on the way to join Fidel Castro, Cuban rebel leader.
The cloak-and-dagger sea action came just before dawn in the Gulf of Mexico. Their boat was stopped off shore by the Coast Guard.
The little band’s fiery commander, Arnaldo G. Barron, said all 36 had saved for months to buy the $20,000 in arms seized with the men.
Interviewed in Jail
Barron, in a jail interview, told the Associated Press most of the men are United States citizens. All were born in Cuba except one Puerto Rican. Some fought for the United States in World War II, he said.
The roster of the little band included a doctor and a man described as “a Protestant minister.” They range in age from 17 to 53.
Most of the information on the pre-dawn action came from Barron. Here is his story:
He flew to Mexico about 40 days ago to make arrangements. He made a deal for the arms—he won’t say with whom—which, he says, came from the United States. Barron rented a boat in Panama. The boat is the El Orion of Nicaraguan registry, an 83-footer.
The volunteers assembled last night on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico after arriving during the night from San Antonio, Tex. The arms and ammunition were delivered to him—Barron would not say how.
Then the band began ferrying the weapons to the El Orion, using rubber boats.
One Boat Overturns
One boat overturned but the weapons in it were saved. Barron blames this mishap for the capture because the rebels took time to dry the weapons.
Just before dawn the El Orion pushed into the gulf and was about ten miles from shore when a Coast Guard cutter hailed it.
The El Orion sought to make a run for it but was no match for the fast cutter.
The commander of the ban is 34. he was a construction worker in New York, and has a wife and two children still there. He was born in Camaguey, Cuba, he said, and is a naturalized United States citizen. He wears a small mustache and is 5 feet 10. He identified the doctor as Carlos Torreons. The minister, he said, is the Reverend Ignacio Mosquezo, a “Protestant” but not pastor of any church. The rebels wore gray-green uniforms resembling United States military battle dress.
“This expedition was stopped by the United States Coast Guard but there will be lots of others,” Barron said.
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