‘Vamos a Cuba’: Should the Children’s Travel Book be Removed from Miami Schools?

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  06.07.07 | 5:39 PM ET

imageNo way, I say. The fate of “Vamos a Cuba,” however, rests in the hands of a three-judge panel at the Federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Miami, which yesterday heard arguments regarding a Miami-Dade Country school board decision to remove the book from school libraries. According to the Miami Herald’s Tania deLuzuriaga, the controversy started when Juan Amador Rodriguez, a parent and former political prisoner in Cuba, complained that the travel book failed to accurately depict life on the island. The school board removed “Vamos a Cuba” in June 2006. A federal judge soon ordered the book back into the library, setting the stage for the current appeal process.

The New York Times also has the story. Some details about “Vamos a Cuba” from reporter Terry Aguayo:

The book, written by Alta Schreier and published in 2001, is part of a 24-book series for children in kindergarten through second grade that discusses travel around the world and different cultures. Its cover shows smiling schoolchildren dressed in the uniform of the Pioneers, the Communist youth group to which every Cuban student must belong.

“Vamos a Cuba,” however, doesn’t say “that there is a dictatorship, that there is a regime of 48 years is not mentioned,” school board attorney Richard Ovelmen told the court.

No Castro, no can do, apparently.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the school board, with attorney JoNel Newman arguing that “Vamos a Cuba” isn’t a political book; it’s a geography book, and “the school can’t require a book to carry a political message.”

The proceedings, as should be expected when it comes to Cuban issues in Miami, seem charged with politics. Here’s one exchange, as reported by Aguayo:

The third judge, Ed Carnes, questioned a page in the book that states that the Cuban people “eat, work and go to school like you do.”

“That’s simply not true,” Judge Carnes said.

Two of the three judges on the appellate panel questioned the ACLU’s reasoning during the hearing, the Herald’s deLuzuriaga reports. A ruling should come down in a few weeks.

Related on World Hum:
* Inside Raśl’s Cuba: ‘Es Exactamente Igual’
* In Cuba, ‘Fidel Has Always Felt Revulsion Toward Tourism’
* Nicholas Shumaker in Havana: ‘I Felt Like a Character Straight Out of Midnight Express’
* The Move to Open Travel to Cuba

Tags: Caribbean, Cuba, North America, United States, Florida


1 Comment for ‘Vamos a Cuba’: Should the Children’s Travel Book be Removed from Miami Schools?

ourman 06.07.07 | 8:30 PM ET

Just commented on a piece about Americans getting less holidays than everybody else. 

Cuba keeps coming up.

Now even books about Cuba are being banned.

And don’t even start me on the Patriot Act.

So when are people going to start questioning this Land of the Free tag?

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.