Thank You Miami Dade College

I’m in the metromover. I walk to my classes. I can see construction and complete buildings, change is constant around me. I can obtain news about my country on my iPad. Where I come from, nobody knows what instantaneous news is.   

A student in Cuba wouldn’t know what it feels like to be sitting alone in public transportation. Nobody has Internet, much less free internet, coming from a telephone or iPad. This is because in Cuba, average earnings vary 350 to 500 pesos. This is equivalent to fifteen or twenty dollars for a month’s worth of work.

I have seen many caricatures of President Obama and constant criticizing of his administration on the television.  In my country, we have received news covering elections and the different presidents of this nation.

Now, my friend Gorky Aguila, musician and director of the band Porno para Ricardo, is being held captive in jail for simply ridiculing the president in some of his songs; a president who has been in power for fifty years and chose to transfer power to his brother.

The abuse of women in public streets for demanding freedom from their husbands is a norm and our government is to blame. This same government is also responsible for the murders of opposing pacific leaders like Laura Pollan and Osvaldo Paya Sardinas.

I never grasped the concept of an election, much less the idea of another political party that wasn’t communist.

Shock is what I felt when I learned that here you only need five students in order to form a group of some sort while in my country, the only group for the youth to join is the UJC, the Union of Young Communists, assuming they are not expelled from school, like San Miguel Molina, who got thrown out of medical school for having contrasting political views.

All around me I see young adults with so much ambition and dreams bigger than life, who all speak different languages and do not share the same political views, characteristics, ideas, or beliefs. Many of these students are committed to their dreams and have goals of a great future.

In my country a student is seen through the eyes of their parents, neighbors, and friends, and most do not understand what difference it makes to have an education. Schools constantly tumble or are closed down, and recreational areas like baseball and soccer fields, pools, and schools of art simply disappear.

I’m impressed with how much money is invested in technology for educational institutions for the sake of the student’s future.

I am fascinated by how much growth and construction surrounds me, and I am moved by the countless success stories Miami Dade College has to offer.

There’s only one success in Cuba and the history books only talk about one triumphant man as if everything else is of less importance. According to these books, the rest of history is not nearly as important as our leader and his work. No newspapers, radio, and television programs have ever opposed the regimen.

For these reasons nothing new seems to grow; it’s a product of the simple refusal to cut the wings of those who fly above us.

Miami Dade College, I thank you for all the help and self discovery that has been offered; this gratitude is for my English teacher and the entire faculty of the college, but I also want to say thank you to all the Cubans.

This column was translated from Spanish to English by Amanda Aracena of The Reporter.