Cuban businessman addresses student union

A Cuban businessman addressed a crowd of students, professors and community members in the multipurpose room of the student union Thursday afternoon.

Francisco Miyasaka, a Cuban of Japanese decent and President of the Japanese Community Association in Havana began with a smile and apologized for his broken English.

Through lectures, literature and videos Miyasaka is hoping to revive the Japanese heritage in Cuba and instill its history into today's youth throughout Cuba and abroad.

In a brief address entitled "Japanese Cubans: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," Miyasaka recounted the hardships of Japanese immigrants to Cuba.  He then responded to questions ranging from the impact of the African slave trade on Cuba to the effects of Cuba's revolution on its cultural harmony, a harmony Miyasaka described as complete.

"I have never felt, in Cuba, as a minority," Miyasaka said.  "We don't understand the term."

Miyasaka portrayed a culture in which people reside with one another free from religious persecution and racial discord.

"We have a very homogenous society," he said, "and we are a homogenous people."

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Chair of Black Studies at Cal. State Long Beach, provided one possible explanation for such unity.

"The defining element... is the revolution," Karenga said.  "It is [the revolution] that has pulled the community together in a homogenous kind of way where people see themselves as Cubans in struggle rather than different ethnic groups."

When Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government in 1959, instigating the revolution, he established Communism as the main form of government promoting the practice of socialism.  Under socialism, wealth and its distribution are controlled by the state.

"There's not a difference between any Cubans," Miyasaka said, as education and prosperity are equally available to all citizens regardless of their ethnic origin.  "It all depends on personal achievements."

A poor country with few natural resources, Karenga further noted a developing trend in Cuban society.

"You can see the erosion of that homogeneity with the coming of tourists," he said.  "Tourism is actually changing the way people see themselves and how they relate.  As the Europeans come in with more money, relationships are being changed."

Miyasaka took questions for nearly an hour, half of which centered on the pursuit of racial harmony.  Yet he was at a loss to explain with any certainty the cause for such a condition other than the difference in historical background between Cuba and the United States.

In addition to historical context, Karenga cites personal strife as a motivating factor in cultural harmony.  "You have to struggle," he said.  "You have to have ideas and you have to struggle for them.  And the ideas have to represent the best of what it means to be human.  That's the key to it."