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Por petición popular, a continuación posteo la discusión con el estadounidense acerca de la situación de los cubanos en el hotel Sheraton, que después se transforma en un argumento sobre la censura en los medios de información estadounidenses… Es una línea de 4 posts bastante largos, pero si tienen tiempo de leerlos se los recomiendo. sobretodo al final se ponen muy interesantes.

Comienza con el envio de las noticias a la lista de correos de mi maestría en comunicación intercultural, el asunto no es solo político, sino que discutimos su trascendencia en mi campo de estudio. Los primeros 2 correos no son mu interesantes ya que son muy locales, pero son necesarios para entender el contexto de la conversación.

el post 4 lo recomiendo ampliamente pues me tomo un par de horas de insomnio armarlo y es un argumento sobre censura en los medios estadounidenses.

Si van a dejar algun comentario sobre el tema déjenlo en el post 1 que es este, de hecho agradecería mucho su participación.

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Hei! all

I’m sending to you a document with the timeline of the situation when an official delegation of cuba was meeting with US business men, and were expelled (the cubans of course) from the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, because of a direct order from Washington to the headquarters of the hotel in Phoenix.

It is very interesting to see, how external and historical elements influence intercultural communication… at the end, the exit of the mexican government is ver clever. :) enjoy the reading.

Im sending this because it was used as example in class, and I think is good to share this kind of information.

Unfortunately is in spanish, and is too long to translate; but is a very good excuse to learn spanish!

Carlos

Dear Carlos,

The 1996 Helms-Burton law prohibits Americans from conducting business with either Cuban businesses or with the Cuban government either from within U.S. borders or from outside U.S. borders. I’m sure the U.S. business “men,” as you describe them (are they in fact males or business “people,” there seems to be a stereotype in action here), were well aware of this law and were attempting to skirt it even if the meeting was exploratory in nature. Many American tourists go around the present travel ban by entering Cuba from another country, and asking the Cubans not to stamp their visas : ) Even so this is risky. Complicating the present matter is that the hotel that hosted the meeting is American owned, in effect placing themselves into or finding themselves in the morass. Whilst the meeting was successfully relocated to another venue, I am sure the U.S. businesspeople involved will have to explain their activities to the American government. And now the respective parties have the opportunity to sort out the matter from their own legal perspectives.

Any attempt to persuade the U.S. government to lighten its stance on the present Cuban government will first have to go through the millions of Hispanic people in the U.S., and particularly foremost through the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens that comprise the post-1950s Cuban exiles and their now extended families. These are the citizens that are pressuring the U.S. government to maintain a strong anti-Cuban government stance; one which should be pointed out is not an anti-Cuban people stance. Sadly, people are always at the tail end of these matters. These Cuban-Americans have their own deeply personal voices and experiences that must be heard in the discussion of this political matter, and I detect here that you ignore this important historical context even though you point out the importance of “external and historical elements.”

Speaking of political matters, I fail to see how this incident, which is clearly a political matter, has much to offer a classroom in intercultural communication. While there were likely some interesting critical incidents at hand during the attempted meeting, I can find no account of them in the press from a Google search. All of the stories I have found discuss the matter in purely political contexts. As I personally view our profession, interculturalists are professionals that attempt to bridge cultures by facilitating communication between individuals. Suggesting that we (those in the ICIR list) should assume “of course” that it would be the Cubans that would be expelled from the premises, or that one side of the dispute is “clever,” or that we should “enjoy” reading about the situation being discussed has the appearance of politicizing the matter by injecting your own political views into the discussion. Perhaps I am mistaken about my perceptions of your comments, but I believe that ordinarily it should not be our objective to openly politicize a communication setting, any more than a translator would inject their own thoughts while translating for a client. Even so, separating our own political views from our work is particularly challenging but remains an important aspect of our own intercultural awareness and sensitivity in professional contexts.

Regards,