After reading “Letter From Cuba: Our Man Woody in Havana”, I have to tell you that I am weary of the barrage of anti-Cuba columns that have appeared in your paper over the past several weeks. And having been in Cuba recently, I am increasingly angry at the unfair representation of Cuba and its people.

Such views are as irresponsible as are the descriptions of “cultural exchanges” in Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez’s impressions of her time there. To have gone to Cuba for a potentially significant event (Music Bridges, or, in the case of other columnists, the Orioles baseball game) and to have come home with nothing more significant to write about than journalists’ questions about an actress, gropes, accented English or an American actor making a fool of himself in Havana, is appalling.

I also spoke with journalists, artists, musicians, composers and a host of other Cubans during my 10 days there. Never did anyone refuse to acknowledge that life in Cuba is difficult or that when change occurs, there will be more problems before things get better. I did hear constantly of an abiding hope.

The chief obstacle to the openness that Cubans desire is the U.S. blockade, an anachronistic barrier that does nothing but keep Cubans from access to many things the rest of the world has. If those who write the columns for our papers are interested in improving the situation in Cuba, they might try writing against our longstanding and historically misguided policies.

It is tragic that one could go to a place like Cuba and, no matter what happens personally to the traveler, see nothing except eight boys who beat a crab to death with sticks and rocks (as if that, or something worse, would never happen here), hear nothing except broken English (as if we all speak intelligibly here) and feel nothing except a groped body (which doesn’t happen in a civilized society like ours?).

— Ken Nafziger

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez’s piece describes a Cuba I have not experienced. Having just returned from Havana, I wonder what place she is describing. First of all, the story contains stereotypical and inaccurate portraits of Cuban men, characterized as sitting around in the Hotel Nacional (which is not seedy) or groping people in the streets — which I never saw them do. Certainly neither my husband nor I found cockroaches or any other insects in any of our meals. Havana smells no more like a “jar of Vaseline” than any city in the United States, and one’s skin certainly does not get “coated with black goo.” There are no oil refineries belching black smoke, nor is the sea “oily and black.”

In “good-white-liberal-speak” (to use Valdes-Rodriguez’s term) I can say that Cuba is a very mixed bag. I was welcomed by my hosts, in this case a crafts organization that took me to the workshops and houses of many artisans and to several museums. Everyone was friendly and helpful. At the same time they despaired of the trade embargo that has gone on for 40 years, and they welcomed the increasing number of cultural exchanges and visits.

Cuba is short on consumer goods, and Havana is run down. However, there is universal medical care and education and there is no evidence of racial discord or prejudice, nor are there any slums or grinding poverty. The Cubans are struggling economically. They lack civil liberties and a free press. And some, such as noted writers and artists are, in George Orwell’s words, “more equal than others.”

I nevertheless question the report of a journalist who allows her animus against Castro’s Cuba to cloud her judgment and to distort the truth, thus damaging her reporting. As a journalist, she should stick to the facts and respect the truth.

— Caroline Ramsay Merriam

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