BY PATTI IIYAMA AND JERRY FREIWIRTH

HOUSTON, Texas - A speaking tour of Texas by Dagoberto Rodríguez, First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., sparked controversy and attracted sizable audiences throughout the southern part of the state.

Some 150 heard Rodríguez November 12, at a public meeting at the University of Houston. The next night, a similar size crowd came to a meeting at a church in Houston's Black community. Around 100 heard and asked questions of the Cuban diplomat at the University of Texas, Pan American, a few miles from the Mexican border.

Tour sponsors ranged from the regional director of the local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to the president of Local 4-227 of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers union, the coordinator of the Refugee Immigrant Rights Coalition at the Rio Grande Valley, and several university professors and student groups.

Rodríguez spoke at nearly a dozen other meetings and receptions during the week-long tour. His visit received prominent coverage from major newspapers and TV stations in Houston, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley. `Is it a sin that workers take power?'
One of the highlights of the tour was the day Rodríguez spent in the Rio Grande Valley, a major agricultural and industrial center along the border with Mexico. Many of the predominantly Mexican-American youth and workers in attendance were hearing a representative of the Cuban government for the first time.

"Is it a sin that workers take power in a country and begin for the first time to decide their own destiny?" Rodríguez said, speaking at the San Benito Community Center. Despite an unceasing economic war by Washington, he added, "the immense majority of people in Cuba are deeply proud of their revolution and committed to continuing forward."

Rodríguez detailed the reasons why the Cuban people overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Prior to the victory of the revolution, he explained, Cuba was completely dominated by U.S. imperialism. This colonial-type relationship was "maintained by the overwhelming presence of U.S. corporations and, when necessary, the U.S. Marines. There was massive corruption and Havana became a giant casino crawling with the U.S. Mafia. Before 1959 unemployment was rampant in Cuba, 40 percent of the people were illiterate, and life expectancy barely exceeded 50 years."

In contrast, Rodríguez said, "Cuba today has 100 percent literacy, life expectancy is equal to that of the industrial countries at 72 years, and infant mortality is down to 9.4 per 1,000 children - the lowest in Latin America. Furthermore, free health care and education through college are available to everyone." Misconceptions about revolution
One of the most frequently asked questions during the tour was whether Cuba is governed by a dictatorship. At a meeting with Presbyterian and other church leaders, Rodríguez described the decision-making process in Cuba. "We do have elections," he said. "We vote every two and a half years to elect our local officials and every five years for national offices, including the President.... All of our officials are subject to immediate recall if the people don't like what they are doing, unlike here in the United States where you have to wait for several years just to vote again.

"We think that just voting every few years is not the most meaningful part of democracy," the Cuban diplomat stated. "We operate by national consensus, where the people are consulted about the decisions that affect them. For instance, our legislators proposed that an income tax should be established to balance the budget. Eighty thousand meetings were held in schools, factories, and other workplaces all over the country to discuss this proposal, along with others. The workers were overwhelmingly against it. So the legislature did not institute an income tax on wages and instead adopted other measures."

Rodríguez pointed out repeatedly at his public appearances that "Cuba is not at all perfect. There are still many problems that we have to solve." The Caribbean nation has faced its most severe economic crisis since 1990, when, overnight, it lost aid and trade on favorable terms with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. Through the active mobilization and self- sacrifice of workers and farmers in Cuba, however, the economic crisis has bottomed out and a recovery has begun. "Even with the difficulties," Rodríguez said, "the Cuban people continue to defend the gains of the revolution. Not a single school, not a single clinic, not a single hospital was closed." Tour connects with Chicano militancy
A special feature of the tour was its interaction with the rise in political activity among Chicanos and Mexican youth evident in recent months. Attacks against immigrants and affirmative action, in particular, have sparked growing protests in high schools and colleges.

The campus MEChA or other Hispanic organizations were prominent among the sponsors of every university meeting. At a special gathering hosted by the Pan American MEChA chapter, students discussed with Rodríguez the relationship between culture, revolutionary nationalism, and socialism. Rodríguez also spoke at a Texas-wide Tejana/Tejano Student Unity Conference at the University of Houston (see article on page 11).

"How Cuba Has Dealt with Racism" was the topic of Rodríguez's talk at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a well-known Pan-African Christian church in Houston's Black community. This was the first time a figure from socialist Cuba had ever spoken to a large African American audience here.

Rodríguez described how racist "Jim Crow" segregation was introduced into Cuba by the U.S. occupation forces after the Spanish-American War. He described how the victory against U.S. imperialism in 1959 and the subsequent elimination of capitalism opened the door to taking rapid leaps toward the eradication of racism.

Rodríguez spoke to hundreds of working people in Texas. The ad-hoc tour committee gathered some significant endorsements from trade union officials as well. Four members of OCAW Local 4-367 at Shell Oil pitched in to help organize the speaking tour, and two others attended tour events. But organizers were less successful in arranging speaking engagements before local union bodies, which are headed, in most instances, by officials who lend support to Washington's policies against Cuba.

In San Antonio, some 15 right-wing Cubans picketed two of the events featuring Rodríguez. They were protesting the socialist policies of the Cuban government. Representatives of the groups opposed to the Cuban revolution attended both meetings and participated in the discussion.

But such opposition was the exception.

The broad support for the tour, helped deter any disruptions of Rodríguez's meetings. Debbie Perkey, for example, Regional Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, co-chaired one of the public events in Houston. Lenwood Johnson, chair of the Allen Parkway Village Residents Council, took Rodríguez on a tour of public housing in Houston, including the now half-demolished Allen Parkway Village, the center of a 20-year battle to defend low-income housing here. Rodríguez also met with activists in this struggle.

A breakfast was held with leading Chicano and Latino activists in Houston, sponsored by María Jiménez and Benito Juárez, nationally prominent figures in defense of immigrant rights. Sissy Farenthold, a well-known liberal activist in Texas, hosted a reception for the Cuban diplomat at her house. At the public meeting at the University of Houston, Farenthold presented Rodríguez with a proclamation from Mayor Robert Lanier welcoming him to the city.

Patti Iiyama, a member of OCAW Local 4-227, was an organizer of the Ad Hoc Committee to Tour Dagoberto Rodríguez. Jerry Freiwirth is a member of OCAW Local 4- 367.

FROM PHOTO BOXES -- Johana Tablada, third secretary at the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C. (left), speaking with MEChA activists at Yakima Valley Community College in Yakima, Washington, at a meeting of 60 people, hosted by that group. The November 13-16 tour in Washington State included several campus meetings that drew 250 students and city-wide meeting in Seattle, held at El Centro de la Raza community center with over 140 attending. Tablada also spoke with 40 farm and agricultural workers, in Sunnyside, Washington, where workers asked the Cuban representative about conditions of workers in Cuba today. --- Norberto Codina, Cuban poet and editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the magazine of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, is shown above at public forum at Casa de las Americas in New York November 22. Joining Codina on the platform are translator Vivian Ara (left) and Rosina Rodríguez (right) of the Dominican Friends of Cuba, one of the dozen organizations that sponsored the event. Some 140 people attended the gathering at Casa, the final event in Codina's five-day tour in New York and New Jersey. In all, the Cuban poet addressed over 400 people at 10 meetings. These included poetry readings and presentations at Hunter College, Pratt University, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Hostos Community College, and WestBeth Gallery in New York. Codina also had dinner with a dozen workers in garment, rail, and Machinist unions. One of the most successful events of the tour was a meeting of nearly 100 students and others at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, sponsored by the campus Latin American Student Organization.  
 
 
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