Sep 05, 2008
Walking into Mrs. Uva de Aragon’s office, located in Deuxieume Maison 365, there is an immediate sense of joy and excitement that cannot be contained in this usually soft-spoken woman.
"I’m just ecstatic we won. If you would have come a few days earlier you would have seen me jumping for joy,” said Aragon, who is the current head of the Cuban Research Institute at the University.
That’s because recently, a federal judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by Aragon, alongside other professors on campus, that challenged a Florida law which barred professors and faculty members of state universities from doing academic research in countries listed as “state-sponsors of terrorism” such as Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Iran and Syria.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz struck down a section of the law which barred academics from using non-state funds for the trips.
According to The Miami Herald, the judge concluded that the law was an “impermissible sanction” and served “as an obstacle to the objectives of the federal government.’’
Since the Cuban Research Center uses grants from private institutions, they can visit the island and other blacklisted countries.
“The law reaffirms my faith in the system,” said Aragon. ‘It was not a fair law and I’m happy it was overturned.”
According to Aragon, the Institute prides itself in having a history of academic relations inside the island. In 2004, before the travel-ban was passed, she took a group of students to Cuba for a week to teach a class in humanities in the country.
She also helped graduate students get an academic visa to visit the island for their thesis statements. These students were only allowed if they were working on their thesis. Aragon would speak to facilitators and contacts inside the University of Havana in order to secure them passage.
“The students wrote on a variety of subjects such as an outbreak of cholera, colonial history, religion, art, etc,” Aragon said.
She noted, however, that there are subjects that are “sensitive” in the island nation.
“Cuba is not a democracy, so [FIU students] are limited in what subjects they do,” she said.
Still, Aragon attempts to help students approach the subject in a way that they can make it happen.
The travel ban was originally proposed by David Rivera, a representative in Florida’s Legislature, on the eve of a scandal surrounding two former FIU employees, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez who had admitted to being spies for the Cuban government.
Carlos Alvarez, who used to work for the Cuban Research Institute, made five different trips to Cuba from 1993 to 2003 under the organization. The only trip Alvarez made with FIU students was in 2000, with a group not affiliated with the University called Puentes Cubanos (Cuban Bridges).
Now that specific bill provisions have been taken out, Rivera has vowed to fight for thetravel ban, which he says has been fully within state power and looks to appeal the decision, according to the Miami Herald.
Amid all the criticism of the hot button issue, Aragon states that the free exchange of information is the key component to cultural connections and may foster change on the island.
“There are some truly amazing student to student interactions [between FIU and Cuban students]. It’s a good way to get information to the Cuban people,” she said. “In spite of the [Cuban-American] Revolution, students should have a sense of where they came from. Only then will they be inspired to do something.”