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administrators have helped them. They came here without learning or
discipline, but they've really changed." He shook his head as he'
walked away, "They've changed a lot."
The administrator continued,
The teachers tell me that the parents said the
schools had little discipline in Cuba. When the
parents sent their children to school, it was
with the idea of causing disruptions. They
didn't like what was happening to the children,
what they were learning. They also didn't like
it that the children were sent away to live
together, boys and girls together, in boarding
schools away from their families. They didn't
like this sexual freedom. The teachers say this
disruptive attitude has carried over to the
schools here. I don't know if this is so. I'm
wondering how much of the Russian system has been
adapted in Cuba.
When they first came here, I felt sorry for
the students. They had suffered so much. I didn't
want to punish them when they misbehaved, but the
bilingual teachers insisted on it. They were right.
The students expected to have someone make them toe
the line. I guess the bilingual teachers know these
students better than I do.
It was interesting to see how sensitive the administrator was to
the social integration of the new Cubans.
Another thing that kind of surprised me was the way
the Cubans who were born in the U.S. acted toward
the new Cubans. They didn't like them. You'd
expect them to help since they were from the same
country and spoke the same language. Now they seem
to be getting along better, but for awhile they
didn't mix much and they called each other names.
The Cuban-Americans mostly called the new Cubans
names. The new Cubans still keep to themselves a
lot.
Differences in sexual roles
In spite of the efforts of the Revolution to equalize sexual roles,
it was obvious to the casual observer that males and females behaved