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YACUBA
begin's the community discussion with this intriguing short film
recommendation. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8000277199435450739&q=lunaticas+producti\ons&hl=en Our chief reviewer at FREADOM, Radames Suarez, wrote this about the film: "This video is called "Regression". It's made by Ricardo Vega who is a Cuban film maker and professor of Latin American Civilization in France. He is also Cuban novelist Zoe Valdes's husband. It's a subtle but powerful critique of Che Guevara only using images and song. The revolutionary song, "Guerrillero adelante" [translation: Forward March Guerilla Fighter] is used while images of Che in reverse are played." http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8000277199435450739&q=lunaticas+producti\ons&hl=en Take a look and be careful not to miss the final question of the film. This is an excellent short film that can be used for a class discussion, or as a prompt for a writing assignment related to Che's role in human rights violations, Cuban history, and revolutionary lore and mythology. Reviewed by Walter Skold |
| NR | Ancona,
George. Cuban Kids. New York 40 p.: ill. col. map: 21 x26 cm. ISBN: 0-7614-5077-7 15.95 While photographer George Ancona's "Cuban Kids" provides its young readers with colorful and lively photographs of Cuba's people and her landscape, it fails to provide them with an unbiased report of life inside Cuba. For instance, the author mentions the word "embargo" at least three times in a 40 page book and alludes repeatedly to the hardships that he says that the American embargo imposes on the Cuban people, but never mentions that these same people live under the longest surviving dictatorship in the world. On January 1st, 2007, it will be 48 years long. Surely, that is an important fact that any American child hoping to learn about Cuba should know. Why this omission? It's not politicizing or pontificating to mention this, it's just a reality integral to the understanding of life inside Cuba, pure and simple. "Cuba Kids" is both subtle and overt propaganda. Subtle, because the photographs depict a country of abundance, a fact that any Cuban rafter escaping Cuba will testify is not true, and overt because Mr. Ancona constantly repeats government sound bites about "hunger," "illiteracy," "sickness," and "racism" before Castro by contrast with Cuba today where all of this has been presumably eradicated, or at least would we think from reading this book. This book which is for children up to 7th grade is not recommended for schools or libraries. |