Young Cuban-Americans get new impressions on island visits
Young Cuban-Americans get new impressions on island visits
Michael Weissenstein, Associated Press
Updated 6:51 pm, Monday, July 4, 2016
HAVANA (AP) — Miranda Hernandez's grandparents lost everything when they fled Cuba in the 1960s. She grew up thinking of the island as "North Korea with nice beaches," she said. But when four young Cuban-Americans started a program sending peers with similar island ties to explore their heritage after U.S.-Cuba detente, she applied.
On Friday, after a week in Havana visiting entrepreneurs, artists and relatives she'd never met, the 20-year-old senior at the University of California, Berkeley flew home with impressions certain to upset many of her grandparents' generation.
"Right off the bat I'm going to say honestly it's not that bad," she said on Thursday afternoon as she visited the Havana apartment where her mother lived as a young girl. "A lot of people perceive Cuba as a terrible place where people aren't happy, but that's not the case."
. . .
"It's a new community and a new culture in Miami," said CubaOne founder Daniel Jimenez, a 34-year-old digital executive at Ernst & Young, "Being here and listening to what 11 million Cubans have to say rather than the media in Miami is something every young Cuban-American should go through."
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Young-Cuban-Americans-get-new-impressions-on-8339987.php