American in Cuba: Unfamiliar Territory?

I disembarked from the chartered plane in Havana, Cuba without a complete picture of life in Cuba and without a complete understanding of what I should expect to see and experience once I arrived there. I knew about the blockade (embargo). I knew politically, the country was somewhere between communism and socialism. I knew that they had an impressive healthcare system that attracted patients and students from all over the Americas. Having been to the Caribbean and other places in South America, I could guess what the landscape would be like. While I felt as though I was entering unfamiliar territory, I appreciated being able to put together my own image of Cuba as I went along.

In my image of Cuban, healthcare, education, and propaganda are very important. Ironically, those topics are also important in my image of the United States. In Cuba they have universal healthcare and universal education at a time when in the U.S. both healthcare and education is expensive, and the value of higher education is being questioned.

In Cuba, images relating to the Revolution (which is seen as ongoing in Cuba), defending socialism, and honoring Che, are everywhere. Instead of the commercial advertisements that we would see in the U.S., in Cuba, they appear to be "selling" the Revolution. I felt inundated with government "propaganda". At the same time, however, I recalled how I would wait for a show to record before I watched it so that I could fast-forward through the commercials. I felt inundated with capitalist "propaganda." I even thought about how we as students are instructed to look for peer-reviewed sources and also to have a variety of sources, despite mainstream society often "selling" specific images.

From the outside of Cuba it seemed that Cuba is "sheltered" from other propaganda. To some extent, information is definitely screened and limited for various reasons, but through tourism (people from other countries are allowed to travel to Cuba) and education, other images do get in. Considering the prevalence of very strong opinions towards Cuba despite how little the average American knows about Cuba other than what we have been told, it begs to question the reliability of the information that we as Americans receive and if we are not also being fed our own propaganda.