Professor Ernesto Fidel Dominguez led a discussion on Fidel Castro and U.S.-Cuban relations, leaving many students in disagreement about the future of relations between both countries.
Dominguez, a visiting scholar to the University and professor at the University of Havana, Cuba, came to the Watson Forum on Monday to discuss U.S.-Cuban relations in the context of world power struggles and to address the structural deformation of the country’s underdeveloped economy.
He spoke about the United States’ relationship with Cuba throughout history, from the 19th century to the present. “Most of the time when we’re talking about Cuba and the U.S., we go first to maybe the Cold War, maybe go to the Missile Crisis, or something that’s in very recent history,” Dominguez said. “But relations are very old, even before the 19th century.”
Dominguez led the audience through Cuban history, from Cuba’s beginnings as a “sugar island,” a major exporter of sugar, to the U.S.’s multiple occupations of the region. The country’s heavy reliance, even dependence on one main crop, sugar, made it more difficult for Cuba to reach autonomy in the future because it depended on the help of other nations. “You have to really struggle because it’s like your jeans are made to be dependent. You have to have political will to change that,” Dominguez said.
Eventually, Cuba gained its independence in 1902, but according to Dominguez, it was left dependent on other countries, like the United States and later the USSR, for many years. The inequity of power was very clear throughout Cuban history. “Every time there was a kind of uprising in Cuba, the president of Cuba requested the intervention of the United States because they [Cubans] were really incapable of fixing it,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez also informed the audience about major Cuban political events in the 20th century, mainly the Cuban Revolution and its aftereffects, including the ensuing tension between the Communist government of Cuba and the very anti-Communist United States. “The revolution was not a whimsical action,” Dominguez said. He described Fidel Castro, the former dictator of Cuba, as “a very interesting personality.”
First-year Yusnavi Machado, a native Cuban student who attended the talk, believed that Dominguez “sugarcoated” the picture of Cuba and Castro. “My opinion on Fidel Castro is totally different, that he’s a dictator, that he’s a murderer, and he didn’t touch much on how people have suffered, and Che Guevara,” Machado said. “It might be getting better, but as of now, people still don’t have running water, the rations are not enough.”
Dominguez saw the Cuban revolution in a different light. “The revolution was really an engaging moment in the Cuban history, so people really felt that they were having participation for the first time in the political process,” Dominguez said. He said that the leaders of the revolution “were saying, ‘we’re going to change everything. We’re going to give something to the people that never had anything,’ so people really got engaged with that.”
Throughout the 20th century, the Cuban people suffered through many crises. Dominguez has personal memories from the 1990s, during the euphemized “Special Period,” which he feels was the worst of many crises that Cuba has experienced. “I remember that,” Dominguez said. “My mother trying to cook something and there was nothing.” Dominguez said the announcement of the normalization of the relationship between the U.S. and Cuban governments was like a dream.
Dominguez has a positive outlook on the future of Cuba and the changes that are coming for the country. “The future of Cuba, I believe, lies in the normalization of relations with the United States,” Dominguez said. “It’s been such a tense situation for such a long time, and Cuba is exhausted. The crisis comes over and over again; it’s a country that’s experiencing many crises, and people get exhausted.”
Another native Cuban student, junior Natalia Fumero, saw the changes in power as hope for Cuba’s future. “Obviously he [Fidel Castro] is not a saint, and he basically broke the country, but for the most part, the real Castro is gone now. [Raúl Castro] is kind of a softie and things have changed, so it kind of makes sense how relations have been normalized a little bit,” Fumero said.
Senior Travis Wegren called Dominguez’s optimism “really interesting.” “I think that largely, relations between the U.S. and Cuba are criticized in a lot of ways,” Wegren said. “But I think that to get the perspective of a Cuban on campus,... it really is an interdisciplinary focus, to bring politics and economics and social justice to the DePauw community.”