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Abstract
This case study about the Cuban Revolution can be taught in courses on revolution, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Cuba which give background information on the history of the revolution of Cuba. The case is designed to promote discussion about the political, economic, and social context of Cuba during the 1950s. It requires students to argue from one of three different political perspectives as embodied in three characters. These characters include: a capitalist, pro-U.S., pro-democracy, moderate-conservative Protestant doctor; a radical,
anti-U.S. guerrilla struggling for large scale social transformation; and a politically neutral destitute mulatta prostitute. The characters and their confrontation raise the issues of social stratification in Cuban society, economic development, and how race, class and gender impact political perspectives. The case requires students to use their sociological imaginations as they read the life story of a mulatta prostitute from whose perspective they must evaluate two political positions to make the central decision of the case. The case facilitates students moving back and forth between the micro level lived experiences of Cubans during the 1950s and the macro level political issues at stake in the country during this decade.
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Historical Background
Political Backdrop
Fulgencio Batista. In 1955, a series of civic dialogues culminated with Batista's refusal to hold elections casting doubt in the minds of moderates about the possibility of meaningful political reform while Batista remains in power. In 1956, several army conspiracies reveal factionalism in Batista's military. Batista retains the support of much of the elite and conservatives, US backing, much of the army, and diverse sectors of the populace.
Yet opposition to the current regime has become widespread, also encompassing many segments of society. Fidel Castro's group, the July 26 Movement (M-26-7) is attempting to build a coalition between the most active urban and rural opposition groups with the goal of ultimately creating the appearance of a unified opposition. At this point there is a great deal of covert discussion in Cuba about the future of the island.
Moderates and some conservatives desire reform--restoration of the 1940 Constitution, elimination of corruption in government and the electoral system, and an end to the brutal methods of Batista's police apparatus. Guerrillas struggling in the eastern provinces discuss widespread social transformation including radical land redistribution and ending unregulated US economic intervention and "exploitation" of Cuba's resources. In the city of Havana, radical groups in the urban underground step up actions in the hope of bringing a speedy demise to
Batista.
Racial Stratification in Cuban Society1
Cuban society in the 1950s was deeply stratified by race, class and gender. Afro-Cubans in urban areas were disproportionately employed in low paying jobs in limited occupational sectors which included entertainment, construction, unskilled work, street vending, domestic service, and prostitution. Some career paths were simply unavailable to Afro-Cubans such as government jobs, an important employment option for white middle class Cubans. Restricted employment was perpetuated by discrimination in hiring, segregation--which was illegal but pervasive in practice, unequal access to education and training, and poverty. Another contributing factor was Cuba's unstable economy and job market. Unemployment and underemployment were a pervasive problem for most Cubans. Afro-Cubans had the highest unemployment rates in part due to the instability of their occupations. Widespread social segregation meant that blacks were restricted from exclusive hotels and beaches, certain areas of entertainment, private schools, and some residential areas. In clubs which admitted Afro-Cubans, blacks and whites were sometimes separated into two areas; for example, a rope across a dance floor dividing dancers with blacks on one side and whites on the other. Racism also affected the personal lives of many Cubans. Resistance to interracial marriage was common. Lighter skinned Afro-Cubans fared better, were less discriminated against, than dark skinned Afro-Cubans. Many stereotypes about Afro-Cubans contributed to discrimination including notions that blacks were less civilized, uneducated, oversexed--reflected in depictions of "the sensual mulatta" character in entertainment, and lacking in ambition--a financial risk in marriage.
Characters
Pilar López Gonzales: 17 year old mulatta prostitute working in La Victoria barrio of Havana.
Julio Ramos Latour: 27 year old member of the M-26-7. Long time student activist. From a working class rural family. Deeply concerned with rural poverty and labor conditions. In charge of the underground newspaper; also responsible for coordinating the transportation of arms and information between the mountain guerrillas and the urban rebels.
Fernando Cepa: 36 year old Protestant2 medical doctor working in a Protestant clinic in the city of Havana. Trained in the United States; has connections with US business investors and Cuban lawyers and government officials. Committed to improving medical practice in Cuba and facilitating connections between medical personnel in the US and Cuba.
Protagonist's Story 3
I, Pilar López Gonzales, was born in Havana in 1940, the second child in a family of eight children. My father was white and worked as a bus driver and in other odd jobs. My mother was a mulatta and a housewife. Our family was poor and we children never had enough to eat. This scarcity was due in part to mother's mismanagement of resources.All my childhood memories are painful. I was neglected and physically abused, the "punching bag" of the family. Because I was a dark-skinned girl, my mother rejected me at birth, openly preferring my brothers and lighter skinned sisters. My mother wanted more sons; "people used to look down on women who bore mostly girls, and my father's mother often made remarks about mamá being an
hembrera, a bearer of females, which made mamá furious" (240). Mother nursed the boy and light skinned girl babies longer than her other babies. I think she resented me from the time I was a baby. Mother had a bad temper and was abusive, both physically and verbally. She fought with my father often and squandered his earnings leaving nothing with which to feed us children. She lied chronically and had psychological problems which went undiagnosed because our family did not have sufficient income for her to see a psychiatrist. She was extremely dissatisfied and frustrated with her life.
I was also rejected by my "paternal grandmother, who preferred the grandchildren who could `pass' as white"
(xxxiv). My grandmother would only introduce her company to my lighter skinned siblings. When my aunt and grandmother went out, being from a higher social class, they would go to beaches and other segregated places taking only the light skinned grandchildren.
Our parents did not take any interest in their children's education. I was a difficult and disruptive student and did poorly in school. I had to quit school after sixth grade in order to help support the family.
I married at fifteen to a 30 year old laborer who earned 3 pesos a day. This marriage seemed like an escape from my home situation and a means of gaining financial stability. The marriage lasted only long enough for me to give birth to my daughter.
At thirteen, I worked as a live-in maid and sent my 30-peso monthly salary home to mother. Domestic work was grueling and the woman I worked for often tried to humiliate me. I became a prostitute not long after the dissolution of my first marriage, at the age of 16, and gave most of these earnings to my mother. I worked as a prostitute in order to feed myself and daughter and provide for mother and my brothers and sisters whose financial situation deteriorated due to father's illness. When I became a prostitute, I was working as a maid from 7 am until 10 PM daily earning 15 pesos a month. Someone offered me 100 pesos a month to be his mistress. Afterwards I began working in a brothel full time.
"I never wanted to be a prostitute. It's much more pleasant to do honest work and take on a man only when you feel like it....but as a servant I couldn't earn enough to keep us and there was no other kind of job for a woman. I had no alternative; if I tried to stay honest, I'd starve to death" (266). "Most of my customers were...rough and crude, and it wasn't a matter of education--a lot of cultured men went there. I think they had a morbid desire to humiliate a woman" (268). "We closed at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and opened again for business sometime around noon. I began to drink. I had to. I couldn't stand the men and suffered bitterly from shame. Unless I had a few drinks first, I didn't feel capable of going into that room" (268).
I've had an abortion about every two to three months while working at the brothel, all done illegally. A corrupt legal system makes life hard for prostitutes in Havana who are periodically arrested and sent to jail. I have experienced being propositioned by a police officer and upon refusal, being taken to a jail where I shared a small cell with both women and men. Prostitutes have no protection against abuse by customers who often know members of the police and escape prosecution for violence.
Prostitutes have consistent encounters with tourists. "On the whole, my memories of Americans are ugly. Oh sure, they'd take me to places like the Hilton, but it was as if they did it to humiliate me. And there were some who'd threaten you with a bottle if you refused to comply with their whims. Most of our American clients brought drugs along with them. they'd arrive in Cuba loaded with cocaine and marijuana, and they'd pay you extra to take it with them....I tried not to take drugs but I couldn't avoid it. to refuse was asking for trouble" (272). Women who are prostitutes are stigmatized in society, by men and women, as loose, riffraff, lacking morals and untrustworthy.
I've "suffered almost every form of degradation." My physical condition has "deteriorated...from heavy use of alcohol and other drugs, as well as...numerous (illegal) abortions"
(xxxv). I have tried to kill myself and think about doing it again.
Lately I've read in a paper things like " a number of merciless and impious men were killed at such-and such a place," but I never pay any attention. I am not political. I am living "just to stay alive...with nothing but my worries and my unflagging struggle to deep my family fed." I do not " stop to think about what is happening in Cuba, much less to figure out why or whose fault it" is
(xxxv). (In 1959 there were 10,000 prostitutes in Havana and 30,000 to 40,000 in Cuba), (279).4
The Setting
In the city of Havana, an attempted kidnapping of the doctor by the urban underground has gone awry. Fernando tries to escape but is pursued. Afraid of being shot, he ducks into a nearby building and runs up the stairs into the first room of a brothel. Julio follows also entering the room. As his eyes adjust to the dim light, he feels a gun in his back and hears a female voice command, "drop your gun and don't move." The guerrilla lets his gun fall to the floor and sees a tall, attractive mulatta woman step out from behind him and retrieve the gun. "Have a seat over there" says Pilar who is holding both men at gun point. She instructs the two men to sit down at different sides of the small room. Pilar recognizes one of the men as a doctor who vaccinated her daughter at a nearby Protestant clinic. Eyeing them with suspicion, she sighs and requests an explanation. Pilar learns the following from her uninvited visitors.
The urban guerrillas are attempting to kidnap the doctor and hold him for ransom in order to gain money and arms for their cause. Fernando, who is well connected politically and financially, has been secretly amassing information about Batista's government in order to convince government officials and other influential professional associates to discontinue support for Batista and replace him with an uncorrupted candidate. These documents are useful to the opposition. Julio at the moment is himself transporting documents containing names, locations, and other sensitive information that could severely damage the rebel movement should it fall into the hands of Batista's police. There is a large reward out for any information leading to his capture. With the police searching the streets outside, the two men relate their stories to Pilar describing their political positions; what is at stake in the present moment in the event that either is turned over to the wrong party; and a plea to Pilar to make the right choice. In the excitement they begin to quarrel.
Three Lives at a Crossroads
Pilar: I can't listen to you both at once! Do you want to draw the police in here? It's very late. Now what will it take for me to get you to leave me alone? One at a time you first (points the gun at Fernando). You're a doctor, aren't you?
Fernando: Yes, I work at the Protestant Clinic in Old Havana. I've been working there since I finished my training at the University of Chicago ten years ago. My family is Protestant and my father is a teacher in Villa Clara province. Social service is a family tradition medicine seemed to me the best service to bring to Cuba today. Our country is in desperate need of trained personnel, organized hospitals and health education. If you let him take me and the papers he's taken from me all that will collapse years of eVort to bring well-trained doctors to the poor, to build good clinics and hospitals, to establish links between private health workers like myself and American standards of medical practice all of it gone. If the guerrillas have their way, what will they bring? Upheaval, confusion. The guerrilla soldiers will be everywhere, armed bandits taking what they want, talking high ideals to hear themselves talk while precious monies and services are frozen. Do you realize how diYcult it is to organize doctors and hospitals so that someone like me can come to the corner with medicine for communities like this one? Do you expect a gunman to think so humanely as that?
Pilar: (looking at Julio) He did give my daughter medicine the other day. What do you have against something like that?
Julio: Nothing but did you ever get medicine from a doctor? When was the last time you saw a doctor? When was the last time any of your family saw a doctor? As a prostitute what kind of medical treatment can you get? When a corrupt government is being attacked by those it torments, doesn't it seem clever to send a doctor out to a corner in the poor part of town? Doesn't it make things seem not so bad after all, seem like all this complaint is for nothing really? But what if the attacks stop if the rebellion stops? Does your daughter get another visit next year? The year after that? Do you ever get a visit from the doctor? Does this doctor have a treatment for the police raids on your home? For the fact that for a poor black woman like you the only alternative to prostitution is to starve, and to watch your daughter starve too? To watch your daughter follow in your footsteps? What medicine is there for that? What University can you go to escape this situation? Would this good doctor's father take you into his school? Would his "tradition of service" extend to anyone other than the son of a wealthy, light-skinned Cuban not unlike the Americans our good doctor was brought up to join in Chicago from the day he was born? Even if he does come to that corner for an hour some afternoon, what is the rest of your life like? Is an inoculation enough to feed you every day, to protect you from arrests by an arbitrary and brutal police? Is there an inoculation for the statement that visit to the corner makes a doctor treating the bodies of poor black prostitutes out of charity, but leaving them, their minds, their souls, their world unchanged?
Pilar: (pensive yet skeptical, an eyebrow raised in thought) Yes Fine words. But I'm not a political person. I'm not an idealist. I don't have the time to read about politics. Would it matter if I did? You ask many questions I ask questions too, like "How will I eat today? How will my daughter eat today? What will I have to do to eat today?" I have one more question which I've already asked: "What will it take to get you two out of here?"
Fernando: There's more to it than getting us out of this house. What about the police that are searching the neighborhood? What about the fact that we'll come out of this house and very possibly be seen doing so a very much wanted guerrilla leaving your room. I can imagine how the police have already treated you; what would you suffer for harboring a wanted terrorist? I can't help you if you are beaten and taken to prison. I am not unaware of your plight, and I'm not at all insensitive to it. I came back to Cuba to help her people do you have any idea how much wealth I could command as a practicing doctor in America? I came back here to a government which sometimes makes my work as diYcult as the rebels do the best way to cure the government of corruption is to work from within, not to completely destroy it and rebuild. You can't tell people "Be sick in two years when the new government can tend to you." If I can be on that corner inoculating your daughter today in two years I'll see Cubans in better health than they have ever been and you in better health than you've ever been. And I'm not the only one struggling to achieve this. More people can read than ever, more people are working than ever. But there is a long way to go. How could a new government undertake the development of huge hospitals without tremendous
_nancial resources immediately at hand? We must start small, as the American doctors do; small clinics building from local service and networks then you'll have a chance to lift the standard of training and values without the disruption of needless military intervention. A local doctor like me knows the people in his community. He isn't just a government employee, he's a role model for the people. A network of doctors like me can achieve the same ends that the revolutionaries dream of much more effectively now. How can we get there by starting from scratch how can we be sure that we ever will get anywhere by starting from scratch?
Julio: Can you get anywhere now? Politicians talk like that all the time, and where has it ever gotten you? Why should you wait for him to get around to you eventually? Our movement isn't about giving you your choices, it's about leaving this exploitative way of living and making your choices for yourself, as I am, as the revolution is NOW. We have families, we have a community where you wouldn't have to live in humiliation, in hypocrisy; why should you and your daughter wait to be a family until rich people make a charity of you? We are already building clinics and schools and teaching peasants to read and write. You can join us you do have a choice about today other than how you will eat.
Fernando: And live like hunted animals in the process. What a long shot! Single men can run about in romantic abandon, but would you like to see your daughter running in terror at the gun points of Batista's guard? How many times have people tried revolution in Cuba? How did they fare? Do you know any of those revolutionaries? Don't put yourself in a _ring line,
Pilar. Taking your rights is a messy business and the fare is high for the trip. You are at this moment a potential party to a kidnapping are these the methods of a humane movement? As we speak the guerrillas are destroying property in Oriente province; many have been murdered by these vigilantes. My struggle is a gradual one, I can only do so much , but I do my utmost. Perhaps I can't help everyone but I could help you. I can put your daughter in school I can put you in school. I have connections. Let me help you and your family. It is a very sensitive very dangerous matter to put subversives in the hands of the authorities that's why there are cash rewards for such courage.
Pilar: What a suggestion! I am more than aware of the police and their methods. How could you say they are any less awful than those you accuse? What a hypocrite! So many doctors like yourself come here your honored Americans among them come to me at night but if they see me later in public when they are with their wives, they scorn me and treat me like
riV-raV. The things they want from me!! I know how it feels to be treated like a dog I'm not going to make a dog of anyone else.
Fernando: Wait, I'm not asking you to send him to his death as I said, I have connections. I can see to it that he is not killed or tortured. I don't want him to be tormented. I just want him stopped. I don't want anyone to suffer remember, it is my work to prevent it. We have to contact the clinic. The only way I can assure his safety is if he is apprehended through the clinic I can't protect him otherwise. Let me give you the number. If we wait the police may
_nd us, and then all is lost.
Julio: Don't let him do it. You've dealt with so many of his class are you going to trust him? Think of the suVering that will follow if my comrades are revealed not to
mention the end of a vision of Cuba that could be the only real opportunity you'll
ever get in your lifetime in your daughter's lifetime? How much longer can you
go on like this? We've come so far we've worked hard to plan for this change,
we don't want anyone in Cuba to suVer the present government's cruelties any
longer. Why do you think he's so desperate for me to be captured? I couldn't be dangerous unless what I'm proposing is an immanent possibility. Just because he makes oVers doesn't mean he will live up to them. Think about your daughter's future, your grandchildren. He comes from a long tradition and so do you. Do you want to carry on the tradition you've been dealt? His way has had its chance and is obviously not working you have lived the proof. Make the call for ME, call my comrades. We don't want to kill the doctor. We want him to do his work. We need him for the cause he'd be useless dead. I am a revolutionary; I need the gun to protect myself. The doctor has others to carry guns for him. Just because he doesn't have it in his hands doesn't mean it isn't there.(Commotion outside suggets that the police are nearby...)
Pilar: Your passion blinds you to one thing: neither of you are any diVerent than any man
that has come into this room. Neither of you will leave without taking part of me
away.
1 Information from this section is taken from: John
Foran, Linda Klouzal, and Jean-Pierre Rivera. "Who Makes Revolutions? Class, Gender, and Race in the Mexican, Cuban, and Nicaraguan Revolutions," Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 20 (JAI Press Inc., 1997) pp. 1-60. [Back to Text]
2 "By the 1950s 400,000 Cubans belonged to one of the many Protestant denominations in Cuba, by which time Protestant preachers outnumbered Catholic priests and Protestant chapels outnumbered Catholic churches." Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Essays on Cuban History Historiography and Research,
(Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1995), 221. [Back to Text]
3 This life story of Pilar López Gonzales comes from Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M.
Rigdon, Four Women: Living the Revolution, An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), pp. 237-275. Although the character is a real person, the authors have changed her name. The facts pertaining to this story are drawn completely from this text with the exception that the interviewee's age has been modified to fit the case. [Back to Text]
4Ibid. Footnote, p. 279.[Back to Text]
Outcome
Life in the Post-Revolutionary Period1
The quality of Pilar's life improved considerably after the revolution. Conditions at the brothel improved immediately. Owners and pimps fled or were rounded up by the government and taken away. Because the women were now working for themselves, they were able to take home their entire earnings. The new revolutionary government required and funded regular medical examinations for the prostitutes. The brothels were also cleaned up; no alcohol or drugs were allowed on the premises. Police treatment improved dramatically. Pilar recounts that the harassment stopped; instead of incarceration, the police merely questioned, spoke with, and released prostitutes who were party to a disturbance. Yet Pilar remained degraded by her work and attempted suicide for a second time in 1961. This same year, the government established a ministry for "rehabilitating" prostitutes throughout the island. Government officials visited brothels and offered the women an opportunity to attend schools set up to provide job training to ex-prostitutes.
At this point, Pilar left the brothel in order to attend school. The ministry supplied a monthly allowance for child support and free medical care. The women were examined, tested for syphilis and given vitamins. The ministry secured a house for Pilar which allowed her to live with her daughter. Rent was equivalent to ten percent of her salary. The program enabled Pilar to secure a job in a textile factory and she subsequently enrolled in night courses. At this stage in her life, Pilar found a new love for learning and school. She recalls: "I'd never known what it was to call my life my own. I'd done whatever I had to in order to survive. But now everything had changed. I had a chance to start over again" (280). Pilar worked hard and was a good student; she applied to and was accepted by a "workers secondary school." Attending a Worker-Peasant College2 at the University of Havana allowed Pilar to secure a position as a laboratory technician.
At the time of her interview in 1977, Pilar was working as a laboratory technician and aspired to attend graduate school in order to become an industrial engineer. She had been married and divorced again and had two daughters. Pilar and her daughters no longer experience hunger and many staple items such as meat, rice and oil are provided through rations by the government.
At this stage in her life, Pilar articulates greater awareness of political events. She expresses concern about the underdevelopment of Cuba and the need to improve transportation and local industries. She is anti-capitalist, reads about "world problems," and strongly supports the revolution as well as guerrilla warfare in Latin America to fight "imperialism." About socialism she claims: "I love living in a socialist country. I've lived under capitalism and I can see the difference. Maybe I haven't read about it, not even the Communist Manifesto, but to me socialism means there's real equality" (319). Pilar has a strong admiration for the guerrillas who fought the revolution and claims: "the man I admire most...is Ernesto Guevara. I've never idolized a man because he was good-looking or had beautiful eyes or that sort of thing. It's a man's attitude toward life that counts, but even so I couldn't single one out on that basis
alone...Che is head and shoulders above them all because he was so selfless, so just...a man in his situation, a doctor, well off...who left his wife and children and gave up a comfortable life to go and fight in Bolivia!" (317).
The researchers who interviewed Pilar make the following assessment of her life: "having been given an education, economic security, a home, and, more important, a sense of dignity and personal worth, it is not surprising that Pilar López became an ardent revolutionary. In addition to being responsible in her work and studies, she was active in her block Committee, the Federation of Cuban Women, and the student militia. But Pilar was not a blind follower; she had a cynicism that was lacking in the other...women in this volume, probably because she had had so many negative experiences with authority and had been such a constant loser....Her particular problems were so deep and difficult that despite the optimistic undercurrent and the `happy ending,' a complete recovery seems almost too good to be true"
(xxxv).
Assessing how her life was changed by the revolution, Pilar asserts, "believe me, if it hadn't been for the triumph of the Revolution I'd be dead by now. It was my salvation" (237).
Notes on Outcome
1 The information from this section is taken from: Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M.
Rigdon, Four Women: Living the Revolution, An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977). [Back to Text]
2 Worker-Peasant schools were established in 1963-64 . They offer a "three-year university-preparatory program that `prepares workers and peasants for enrollment in specific university divisions and for positions in industrial and agricultural enterprises,'...special emphasis is given to training workers `in technical and scientific studies on a level higher than or equal to secondary education'" (fn. p. 295). [Back to Text]
Sources
Batista,
Fulgencio. The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic. New York: The Devin-Adair Company. 1964.
Foran, John, Linda
Klouzal, and Jean-Pierre Rivera. "Who Makes Revolutions? Class, Gender, and Race in the Mexican, Cuban, and Nicaraguan Revolutions,"
Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 1997.
Franqui, Carlos. Diary of the Cuban Revolution. New York: The Viking Press. 1980.
Llanes, José. Cuban Americans Masters of Survival. Cambridge: Abt Books. 1982.
Lewis, Oscar; Ruth M Lewis; and Susan M.
Rigdon. Four Women Living the Revolution An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.1977.
Pérez Jr., Louis A.. Essays on Cuban History Historiography and Research. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida. 1995.
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Teaching Notes
Objectives
This role play is designed to be an exercise in using the sociological imagination. Pilar's life story is the individual context from which students must evaluate two political positions. This process encourages students to think about Pilar's "personal" life problems--racism, poverty, struggling to support a daughter without help, life as a prostitute--as constraints on her life which are rooted in society; and to examine how these experiences would influence her evaluation of a political crisis.
The case is an attempt to encourage students to think about micro level aspects of revolution or other types of large scale social change. The life story of an actual person is included to provide insight into how social problems were lived in Cuba at this historical moment. This hopefully offers students a tangible sense of the issues at stake for people in social transformation. The characters were created to raise the questions: how do gender, race, and class influence people's daily lives and political positions? How do people who are not politically active evaluate political movements and visions? What is a political resource? What resources do people draw upon from their past experience and present lives to control or change their environment? What is successful social change? Is there any long term compromise between disparate political visions?
Another objective is to promote students to analyze how privilege or access to resources influences people's political ideals and actions and to confront their attitudes about groups who have restricted access to resources.
Finally, the case allows students to compare and weigh a conservative vision of social change with a radical vision. Economically, the conservative approach argues for a trickle down theory of resource distribution, philanthropy over governmentally funded or nation wide social programs, and an emphasis on private property and foreign investment. A radical approach argues for the priority of access to social services (i.e. education, health care, day care, unemployment compensation) for all citizens; in the case of socialism, funded and administered by the state. This approach encourages protection of national industries and workers' wages and conditions of employment over profit and attracting foreign investment or capital. The radical approach argues for swift and unconventional action, including protests, grass roots organizing, and possible violence to bring about social change whereas the conservative approach prefers gradual change usually achieved by legal or electoral means.
Role Play/Discussion
This can be done in one of two ways.
Option 1:
The class is divided into three groups by alphabet and students come prepared to role play one of the three characters. Prior to the role play, students spend 5 minutes in pairs thinking about the position of their character and strategies. For the next 20 minutes, the students engage in the role play with the group playing Pilar controlling who speaks and when. (One option is to have the instructor be Pilar and only divide the class into two groups.) The group that is Pilar must make a decision by the end of the time and give a justification for their choice. For the remaining time, students discuss issues raised by the role play and the case questions out of character.
Option 2:
Small groups of 3-5 students are assigned to be either Fernando or Julio. the rest of the students in the audience play
Pilar--ask the two groups questions and decide at the end of the role play the course of action Pilar will chose. finally, the students discuss issues raised by the role play out of character.
Discussion Questions
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What are the positive and negative aspects of Cuban society in 1957; include political, economic and social issues?
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What is your character's vision for Cuba?
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How does it contrast with the other characters?
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What is most important in your character's life at the moment?
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What impact does the life experiences of Pilar and Fernando have on their
outlook?
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What are Julio and Fernando each offering
Pilar?
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Whose argument do you think would be more convincing to her and why?
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What choice should Pilar make in this situation? If you could advise her, what would you say and why?
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What influences the extent and nature of individual's political activism?
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In what ways does gender, race, class, and occupation affect the point of view of these individuals?
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