| Controversy over Book Ban Rattles Miami Schools | | | | be members of). Parents of Cuban American children |
| Miami Dade Public schools have been rocked by | | | | in Miami schools say the book gives young children |
| allegations of throwing aside civil liberties in favor of | | | | the impression that the lives of Cuban children is the |
| pleasing parts of the local populace. First came the | | | | same as the lives of American children. They argue |
| unnecessary controversy over an innocuous children's | | | | that young impressionable minds are not able to filter |
| book that portrayed life in Cuba from a child's | | | | party mouthpiece rhetoric from fact and risk being |
| perspective. The book "A Visit to Cuba" was not a | | | | brainwashed by books like these that do not portray |
| prescribed textbook for young children in Miami | | | | the true picture of life under Castro for students in |
| schools, rather it was part of the school library. A | | | | Miami schools. |
| young Cuban American girl bought the book home | | | | The argument seems a little too simplistic. Civil |
| and showed it to her father; a Cuban dissident and | | | | liberties activists and critics of the book ban agree |
| political prisoner who was upset at the soft picture | | | | that it would be hypocritical for a country that claims |
| the book portrayed of life under Castro. He | | | | to uphold democratic ideals the way ours does, to |
| immediately notified the Miami Dade public schools' | | | | allow react with a knee-jerk response to the |
| authorities who proceed to place the book under a | | | | contents of a book. What, they ask, would be the |
| ban. Miami's strong Cuban American population | | | | difference between Castro's Cuba and the land of |
| supported the ban on the book in Miami schools' | | | | the free if the simple decision of whether or not to |
| arguing that reading the book could create the wrong | | | | read a book is taken away from its citizens? While |
| impression in young children's minds about the reality | | | | parents of Cuban American children in Miami Dade |
| of life in Cuba. The American Civil Liberties jumped | | | | Public schools, many of them having arrived at this |
| into the fray and filed a lawsuit against the ban calling | | | | country after extended stays in Cuban prisons, do |
| it unconstitutional. | | | | have a point in being concerned about the impression |
| Book Ban - A Knee-Jerk Reaction by Miami Schools? | | | | that their children and others will receive through |
| A few weeks later another book found itself at the | | | | these books-they don't need to be. In a situation like |
| center of a storm in Miami Dade Public schools. This | | | | this keeping the lines of communication between |
| time it was Cuban Kids, a children's book that | | | | parents and children open can go a long way to help |
| portrayed a couple of Cuban children on the cover | | | | children separate the grain from the chaff and come |
| dressed in what seem to be Scout uniforms- but are | | | | away with a true picture of the ground reality in the |
| reportedly uniforms of the young revolutionaries, ( a | | | | Communist nation. Banning a book, any book is not |
| group that all school children in Cuba are required to | | | | the solution. |