Activist Defends Fla. School Board's Removal of Pro-Cuba Library Books
by Jim Brown
June 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit challenging a decision by a Florida school board to remove a series of children's books from its elementary school libraries. One of the banned books is about Cuba and depicts children wearing Communist uniforms and smiling. The Miami-Dade School Board voted recently to remove the Spanish and English versions of the books, Vamos a Cuba and its English version, A Visit to Cuba, describing them as inappropriate for young readers. Board members said the books were inaccurate and that they left out aspects of life in that Communist-controlled nation. A page in the controversial books reads, "People in Cuba eat, work, and go to school like you do."
Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, agrees with the school board's decision to remove Vamos a Cuba. He says he takes issue with "a book that presents life in Castro's Cuba as something similar to life in the United States." When instructors are dealing with young children, perhaps as young as six years old, he adds, "I don't think that makes a lot of sense."
The controversy over the library materials began with a complaint from a parent who said he had been a political prisoner in Cuba. That parent and others felt the books portrayed the Communist nation in a positive light while omitting or obscuring much information about life there.
Meanwhile, the ACLU has filed suit against the board, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, Calzon insists that this is not so.
The Center for a Free Cuba spokesman feels the Miami-Dade school officials were right to ban the pro-Cuba library books, particularly if they were, as he suspects, propagandistic. He believes very young children are simply not sophisticated enough to distinguish between factual information presented to inform and false information presented to manipulate their beliefs, so books that present youngsters with that kind of propaganda have no place in an elementary school library.
"I think it's preposterous for the American Civil Liberties Union or for anybody else to say that regardless of the content, a five- or six- or seven-year-old should be shown something, then expect the kid to make a determination that it's something else," Calzon says.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
