González, a 24-year-old representative of the Federation of University Students (FEU) from Cuba, spoke to students and media here. González will visit five cities with Alejandro Pila, Third Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C. Pila, 27 years old, has been in the United States for three months.

The two Cuban leaders are inviting U.S. students to attend the Continental Latin America and Caribbean Students Organization (OCLAE) conference in Havana April 1-4.

The Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba organized for González and Pila to meet with nearly 300 students and others at five colleges and universities and at a middle school in the area. The two addressed the UCLA student government assembly and the Latin American Studies Department at the California State University at Los Angeles. The Progressive Student Organization at Occidental College hosted a meeting of 35 students, and teachers at Scripps College and Glendale Community College opened their classes to hold discussions.

They were interviewed by La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the city, and two radio stations. The week ended with a youthful public meeting of 50 at Loyola University Law School. Twenty-five students who had met González and Pila during the week met prior to the Loyola meeting to organize a contingent from the area to attend the conference in Havana.

González explained that OCLAE was founded in 1966 in Cuba. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, both central leaders of the Cuban revolution, proposed the organization, he said, to bring together students of Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the reality in their countries. The meeting in April will be the first time students from the United States and Canada have been invited to attend.

"This will be an excellent opportunity for students from the United States to get to know Cuba and for Cubans to learn more about the U.S.," said González. He noted that "the situation for students in the continent is more difficult. With reduced budgets, college is becoming something only for the rich. We have observed that there are more protests by students throughout the continent in the last few years." He pointed to the 10-month strike that ended in February at the Autonomous University of Mexico, the largest university on the continent. "I have also heard from students here in Los Angeles how difficult it is to afford school," he said, explaining that in contrast Cuba has free education, including at the university level. "It is a mistake to think that students in the United States and Canada don't have problems. We want to let them know the reality of the rest of the continent. And we know a lot of people on the North American continent come from the other countries on the continent."

González said that the last OCLAE congress, which met in Brazil in 1996, had 500 participants. "This year we hope to have 5,000," he said. The call to organize this larger and broader OCLAE congress was put forward last August in Cuba at an international meeting entitled "Seminar on Youth and Neoliberalism."

Forty representatives from the FEU are spreading out to visit every country in Latin America and the Caribbean, along with Canada and the United States, to invite individuals and organizations to attend. A broad agenda is planned for the congress, including topics on the environment, national and cultural identity, economic development, and how students can participate in society.

"Our purpose is to present the reality of the continent, to tell the truth as Cuba has always done in its foreign policy," González said. Participants will be housed in dormitories.

When asked what it's like to be a student in Cuba, González explained, "The main thing we learn in Cuba is to sacrifice ourselves for other people, not to think of how to get rich as individuals. Even though we are poor, our priorities are education, health care, and security. When we graduate from the universities--which are free--we want to give back to society. The most important thing for us is the future for our children."

The OCLAE conference will be, as González said, "an excellent opportunity to share the reality of the continent" and discuss solutions. González and Pila have already visited New York. They will also speak in San Diego, Seattle, and Minneapolis over the next several days.  
 
 
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