MIAMI -- A children's book about Cuba must be removed from all Miami-Dade County school libraries, the school board ruled.
In a 6-3 vote, board members decided the book -- "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba" -- was inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation.
The book, by Alta Schreier, contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba's communist youth group and a carnival celebrating the 1959 Cuban revolution. The district owns 49 copies of the book in Spanish and English.
The controversy over the book began in April when parent Juan Amador Rodriguez complained about its depiction of life under communist rule.
"The Cuban people have been paying a dear price for 47 years for the reality to be known," Amador Rodriguez, a former political prisoner in Cuba, told The Miami Herald. "A 32-page book cannot silence that."
Banning a book because it doesn't portray something (i.e. communism) in the light you'd like it to be seen? Sounds like communism to me...
"About the only way to look at it, just a pity you are not POTUS KFLLCFII, seems as if we would all be better off."
BHMBAGLOCK From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 2698 posts, RR: 5 Reply 1, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 988 times:
Sounds more like banning deceitful propaganda and shoddy writing to me.
Did you notice that they also pulled other books about countries other than Cuba for the same type of problems with facts?
Remember these are elementary schools, the kids really aren't old enough to evaluate what is believable or not.
LTBEWR From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 12331 posts, RR: 12 Reply 3, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 980 times:
This involves a school system which can determine the books that are available and in a community that has very strong anti-Castro views of Cuba. If the book didn't note the serious political repression in Cuba under Castro that is unbalanced view. I am quite sure it wouldn't be withdrawn from a general Public Library in the city.
TedTAce From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 5 hours ago) and read 958 times:
Let's see.. what is the majority population in Miami?.It's not 2nd+ generation American whites, most of them left like rats off of a sinking ship. It's not Blacks as they haven't been able to escalate their population growth over the last 25 years. It's not Hatians as their growth rate has been limited by a strict immigration policy. It's not Latins other then Cubans because, once again of strict Immigration policy. It's certainly not Irish, French, and (as much as I dislike them driving in S. Florida) it's not the French Canadians. So the only ethinc distinction we know is partial to Miami, that has a VERY clear majority is the Cubans.
Now you may sit here and scream 1st ammendment all you want until you turn blue, but guess what. The first Ammendment means nothing to a constituent stuck on the eastbound Dolphin Expressway for 5+ hours trying to get to work, but can't because it's being blocked off by a bunch of Cuban protesters. trust me' it's a lot easier for the school board to look like the facists they rail against while running for re-election on 8th street, then to risk looking like chumps and have a massive county stopping protest.
Yeap, yet another reason I left the bannanna republic called South Florida..
Nancy From United States of America, joined May 2004, 467 posts, RR: 6 Reply 6, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 925 times:
When I first started teaching one of students was doing a report on South Africa. Now the encyclopedia in the library still listed apartheid as the law - this was pre-everyone-has-internet days - so we were leafing through it and to my amazement there was this glowing description of how everyone was happy under the separate but equal rule. I went out and got some books from the public library.
Miamiair From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 908 times:
The book is not factually correct. I could care less if it was about Cuba, Switzerland, Canada, or wherever... I don't think it is best for children to be reading something that is not factually correct.
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