Abstract
In this article, we address the so-called internationalist schools created in Isla de la Juventud, in Cuba, in the 1970s, aimed especially at foreign students from countries with which the Cuban government had relations of international solidarity and interests in military and political cooperation. Based on the analysis of reports from the Cuban newsreel Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano produced during the 1970s and 80s, published testimonies of former students and dialogues with existing historiography on the subject, we seek to understand the conditions in which these students, many of them Africans, lived and studied in Cuba, experiencing what the Cuban government propagated as a revolutionary formation. We place this experience in the context of the educational policy implemented after the 1959 revolution, through which education and work were treated as complementary activities, both seeking to establish the principles that would lead to the formation of the “new man”. We found that this cooperation program was an important part of Cuban international diplomacy strategies, especially with regard to relations with Africa. We also analyze some implications arising from this foreign presence in Cuba, in a context of gradual economic crisis resulting from the disintegration of the USSR.
Keywords:
revolutionary formation in Cuba; Isla de la Juventud; Africans in Cuba