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As relations warm, islanders see opportunity in longtime enemy’s tongue
ENLARGE
A growing rapprochement between Cuba and the U.S. has spurred Cubans—who previously mostly studied Russian—to learn English.PHOTO: ENRIQUE DE LA OSA/REUTERS
By
KEJAL VYAS
Updated Nov. 22, 2015 6:52 p.m. ET
48 COMMENTS
HAVANA—Cuba’s Museum of the Revolution defiantly jabs at former U.S. President Ronald Reagan with a mural of a cartoon cowboy and sign saying: “Thanks you cretin for h lped us TO STRENGTHEN THE REVOLUTION.”
Missing letters and botched grammar are no surprise in a country that for decades flouted U.S. culture, including the English language. Cuba prioritized Russian as a second language in schools until the Soviet Union’s demise.
But now that Havana and Washington are in a slow dance toward normalizing relations, Cubans are scrambling to learn the language of their longtime enemy.
Steve Metzger
Parents flocked to Steve Metzger, a massage therapist from Sacramento, Calif., for private lessons during his volunteer trip last summer to teach English to children here.
“There’s a lot of interest, and it’s mostly economic,” he says. During a class trip to the zoo in July, Mr. Metzger wrote on a board the name of each animal they saw and asked them to follow along as he slowly pronounced “monkey,” “ostrich,” “zebra,” “antelope” and “chimpanzee.”
The Communist Party recently announced a new English proficiency requirement for Cuban college students that will go into effect gradually over the next couple of years. No English, no diploma.
“We have to resolve the problem that the Cuban professional isn’t able to express himself in the universal language of our times,” Higher Education Minister Rodolfo Alarcón said in comments published by state newspaper Granma in September.
About a week earlier, top Communist Party official José Ramón Machado told college students that English will be “indispensable” for future generations.
The sudden rise of English shows how Cuba’s totalitarian regime is preparing for the trade and sun-seeking tourists that the detente with the U.S. could bring. “It’s taken them a long time to make the switch, but it’s recognition…that English is the language of global commerce,” says William M. LeoGrande, a government professor and Cuba expert at American University.
For decades after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, Russian had favored status as Cuba solidified ideological ties with its ally 6,000 miles away and sought to forge a cultural bond. Cuban radio aired Russian-language programs. American classics like Betty Boop were replaced by Soviet cartoon characters such as Cheburashka, a big-eared tropical creature that winds up in Russia. He helped introduce Cubans to the Cyrillic alphabet and snow.
Thousands of Cubans went to study in the old Soviet bloc. But the Soviet collapse in 1991left Cuba in economic tatters. Russian was dropped from the official academic curriculum, and many Cuban citizens were left knowing a foreign language they had little or no use for.
“I studied Russian for three years, and I remember none of it,” says dissident activistAntonio Rodiles, who recalls his mandatory Russian classes as a college physics student in the late 1980s.
When he got his master’s degree and taught mathematics at Florida State University several years ago, Mr. Rodiles learned English and got access to academic journals he had never seen. “You know that these things exist, but when you have it in your hands it’s a true discovery,” he says.
Even Mr. Castro lamented the government’s decision to teach Russian. “The Chinese studied English. The Russians studied English. Everybody studied English minus us. We studied Russian,” he said in 2012.
Cuba’s history as a Cold War battleground can still be seen in the eccentric names that some islanders go by. Yusnavy and Yusleidy, Cuban-Spanish renditions of “U.S. Navy” and “U.S. lady,” are about as common as the Russian first names Yuri and Katiuska.
Tourists down vodka between Soviet-era kitsch and Communist worker propaganda posters at the bar Na Zdrovie!, which is Russian for “Cheers!”
“There’s a joke that the only place where the Soviet Union still exists is in Cuba,” saysJacqueline Loss, a Spanish professor at the University of Connecticut who has written extensively on Russian influence in Cuban arts.
Now, though, there is a new port in Mariel, just outside the capital city, where supporters are eager for the U.S. Congress to fully lift the Cuban trade embargo. That isn’t likely to happen before President Barack Obama leaves office. The resort town of Varadero has an 18-hole golf course and marina with docking space for hundreds of yachts that are more likely to go to or from St. Petersburg, Fla., than St. Petersburg, Russia.
ENLARGE
The ‘Corner of the Cretins’ display at Cuba’s Museum of the Revolution in Havana. PHOTO: ENRIQUE DE LA OSA/REUTERS
Many Cubans see English as an advantage in getting service-related jobs that looser restrictions with the U.S. could bring. More access to tourists could mean more hard currency for Cubans, who earn an average of $24 a month.
Analysts say the shift to English is also an attempt to retool Cuba’s education system. The number of graduates from the state-run education system is down 30% since 2008, according to government data, largely because driving a cab for tourists is much more lucrative than being a doctor or engineer.
“Increasingly, young Cubans see studies as a waste of time because you don’t see your efforts leading to any wealth,” says Paul Webster Hare, a former British ambassador in Havana who teaches international relations at Boston University.
He remembers young Cubans who learned English from bootleg copies of television shows such as “24” and Michael Moore movies that were passed around on memory drives.
Mr. Alarcón, Cuba’s higher education minister, said in September that classes and educational materials will be offered to meet the growing demand for English. Many students may have to learn on their own time, he said. Private classes cost anywhere from $20 a month to more than $100.
The U.S. Embassy in Havana, which reopened in August, is offering training programs to English teachers on the island, according to the embassy’s public affairs office.
Eliécer Ávila, a 30-year-old information technology engineer, can’t start soon enough, he says. He still remembers attending a conference abroad where people from all over the world spoke English, except for him.
“I was the only one who didn’t understand what’s going on because I’m Cuban,” Mr. Avila says. “If you put up a school, I’ll be your first graduate.”
Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com
Source: Cubans Say ‘Nyet’ to Russian, Hoping to Learn English - WSJ
A growing rapprochement between Cuba and the U.S. has spurred Cubans—who previously mostly studied Russian—to learn English.PHOTO: ENRIQUE DE LA OSA/REUTERS
By
KEJAL VYAS
Updated Nov. 22, 2015 6:52 p.m. ET
48 COMMENTS
HAVANA—Cuba’s Museum of the Revolution defiantly jabs at former U.S. President Ronald Reagan with a mural of a cartoon cowboy and sign saying: “Thanks you cretin for h lped us TO STRENGTHEN THE REVOLUTION.”
Missing letters and botched grammar are no surprise in a country that for decades flouted U.S. culture, including the English language. Cuba prioritized Russian as a second language in schools until the Soviet Union’s demise.
But now that Havana and Washington are in a slow dance toward normalizing relations, Cubans are scrambling to learn the language of their longtime enemy.
Steve Metzger
Parents flocked to Steve Metzger, a massage therapist from Sacramento, Calif., for private lessons during his volunteer trip last summer to teach English to children here.
“There’s a lot of interest, and it’s mostly economic,” he says. During a class trip to the zoo in July, Mr. Metzger wrote on a board the name of each animal they saw and asked them to follow along as he slowly pronounced “monkey,” “ostrich,” “zebra,” “antelope” and “chimpanzee.”
The Communist Party recently announced a new English proficiency requirement for Cuban college students that will go into effect gradually over the next couple of years. No English, no diploma.
“We have to resolve the problem that the Cuban professional isn’t able to express himself in the universal language of our times,” Higher Education Minister Rodolfo Alarcón said in comments published by state newspaper Granma in September.
About a week earlier, top Communist Party official José Ramón Machado told college students that English will be “indispensable” for future generations.
The sudden rise of English shows how Cuba’s totalitarian regime is preparing for the trade and sun-seeking tourists that the detente with the U.S. could bring. “It’s taken them a long time to make the switch, but it’s recognition…that English is the language of global commerce,” says William M. LeoGrande, a government professor and Cuba expert at American University.
For decades after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, Russian had favored status as Cuba solidified ideological ties with its ally 6,000 miles away and sought to forge a cultural bond. Cuban radio aired Russian-language programs. American classics like Betty Boop were replaced by Soviet cartoon characters such as Cheburashka, a big-eared tropical creature that winds up in Russia. He helped introduce Cubans to the Cyrillic alphabet and snow.
Thousands of Cubans went to study in the old Soviet bloc. But the Soviet collapse in 1991left Cuba in economic tatters. Russian was dropped from the official academic curriculum, and many Cuban citizens were left knowing a foreign language they had little or no use for.
“I studied Russian for three years, and I remember none of it,” says dissident activistAntonio Rodiles, who recalls his mandatory Russian classes as a college physics student in the late 1980s.
When he got his master’s degree and taught mathematics at Florida State University several years ago, Mr. Rodiles learned English and got access to academic journals he had never seen. “You know that these things exist, but when you have it in your hands it’s a true discovery,” he says.
Even Mr. Castro lamented the government’s decision to teach Russian. “The Chinese studied English. The Russians studied English. Everybody studied English minus us. We studied Russian,” he said in 2012.
Cuba’s history as a Cold War battleground can still be seen in the eccentric names that some islanders go by. Yusnavy and Yusleidy, Cuban-Spanish renditions of “U.S. Navy” and “U.S. lady,” are about as common as the Russian first names Yuri and Katiuska.
Tourists down vodka between Soviet-era kitsch and Communist worker propaganda posters at the bar Na Zdrovie!, which is Russian for “Cheers!”
“There’s a joke that the only place where the Soviet Union still exists is in Cuba,” saysJacqueline Loss, a Spanish professor at the University of Connecticut who has written extensively on Russian influence in Cuban arts.
Now, though, there is a new port in Mariel, just outside the capital city, where supporters are eager for the U.S. Congress to fully lift the Cuban trade embargo. That isn’t likely to happen before President Barack Obama leaves office. The resort town of Varadero has an 18-hole golf course and marina with docking space for hundreds of yachts that are more likely to go to or from St. Petersburg, Fla., than St. Petersburg, Russia.
The ‘Corner of the Cretins’ display at Cuba’s Museum of the Revolution in Havana. PHOTO: ENRIQUE DE LA OSA/REUTERS
Many Cubans see English as an advantage in getting service-related jobs that looser restrictions with the U.S. could bring. More access to tourists could mean more hard currency for Cubans, who earn an average of $24 a month.
Analysts say the shift to English is also an attempt to retool Cuba’s education system. The number of graduates from the state-run education system is down 30% since 2008, according to government data, largely because driving a cab for tourists is much more lucrative than being a doctor or engineer.
“Increasingly, young Cubans see studies as a waste of time because you don’t see your efforts leading to any wealth,” says Paul Webster Hare, a former British ambassador in Havana who teaches international relations at Boston University.
He remembers young Cubans who learned English from bootleg copies of television shows such as “24” and Michael Moore movies that were passed around on memory drives.
Mr. Alarcón, Cuba’s higher education minister, said in September that classes and educational materials will be offered to meet the growing demand for English. Many students may have to learn on their own time, he said. Private classes cost anywhere from $20 a month to more than $100.
The U.S. Embassy in Havana, which reopened in August, is offering training programs to English teachers on the island, according to the embassy’s public affairs office.
Eliécer Ávila, a 30-year-old information technology engineer, can’t start soon enough, he says. He still remembers attending a conference abroad where people from all over the world spoke English, except for him.
“I was the only one who didn’t understand what’s going on because I’m Cuban,” Mr. Avila says. “If you put up a school, I’ll be your first graduate.”
Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com
Source: Cubans Say ‘Nyet’ to Russian, Hoping to Learn English - WSJ
