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Guant\u00e1namo.- For years now, the Berkeley High School Jazz program\u2019s juniors and seniors have been traveling all the way to Cuba to visit the students at Cuba\u2019s Escuela Nacional de los Artes. The trip has provided a unique opportunity for students to travel to Cuba and immerse themselves in the vibrant music scene Cuba has to offer.<\/p>\n
For a while, there has been a plan in the works to have the Cuban students travel here to visit Berkeley and finally be able to experience what it\u2019s like on the other side of this cultural exchange.<\/p>\n
However, despite the months of planning and excitement, the Cuban students were denied visas for their visit. The news came as a shock to the BHS jazz community and left many confused and questioning what happened. BHS senior and bassist Nicolas Hernandez stated his feelings towards the matter saying, \u201cIt\u2019s just upsetting to me because, they\u2019re probably not gonna be able to come here for a very, very long time, because of the political conflicts and we can come there biannually. I feel the situation has sort of made me realize we have a lot more privilege when it comes to travel, especially since we are American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuba and the United States have had tensions for decades, primarily due to political differences. In March of 2019, President Trump and his administration shortened the validity of B-2 visitor visas for Cuban citizens from five years down to only three months. Since then, Cuban visas have become inspected more closely, showing the complicated relationship between the two countries.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump ended the CHNV parole program, which allowed millions of people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to legally enter the U.S. for two years for work purposes. Since terminating this program, millions of immigrants have been left facing uncertainty of their legal status and possible deportation.<\/p>\n
However, on Saturday, March 15, 2025, Trump officially released an updated travel ban with 43 countries characterized into three groups: potential visa restrictions, partial restrictions, and full restrictions. Currently, Cuba sits on the list of fully restricted countries where all travel is banned.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those of us who really care about the Cuban people and want our countries to have a good relationship, Trump has rolled all of that back. He just put Cuba on the list of red warning countries he\u2019s considering not allowing anyone from Cuba to come to the United States ever, for any reason,\u201d said BHS Jazz Director Sarah Cline.<\/p>\n
Tanvi Kumar, a BHS senior in the jazz program, commented on the Cuba situation and how it\u2019s impacted her. \u201cI would say musically, it\u2019s really sad to see that this kind of stuff happens around the world. And I would say, in our<\/p>\n
country, we\u2019re super privileged to have all the resources we do. Look at our facilities in this building. It\u2019s amazing. In Cuba, they were struggling to find a good bow for a violin, or extra strings, or for the guitar or whatever. Mentally, it\u2019s impacted me because I feel like I have kind of opened my eyes to the realities of how there are different situations in different countries,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n
Cuba is a nation filled with rich history and culture and is known for its vibrant and thriving arts scene, from Afro-Cuban jazz to Cuba\u2019s legacy of bands such as Orquesta Arag\u00f3n, Benny Mor\u00e9 and his Banda Gigante, and Perez Prado and his orchestra. Cline commented on the music scene, \u201cCuba has an amazing music education program that is nationwide, and their students are incredibly advanced.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re really, really, really good. And our students listen to them, and it\u2019s like new possibilities. Our travels to Cuba have made us love Cuban music and love Latin dance music, and have meant that we\u2019ve played a ton of this kind of music and \u2026 had amazing role models and teachers for how to do that in an authentic way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the visa denial leaves the BHS jazz community members disheartened, BHS students remain committed to fostering the friendships and musical bonds between the U.S. and Cuba. \u201cWe learn so much from each other when we get to be together,\u201d Cline said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guant\u00e1namo.- For years now, the Berkeley High School Jazz program\u2019s juniors and seniors have been traveling all the way to Cuba to visit the students at Cuba\u2019s Escuela Nacional de los Artes. The trip has provided a unique opportunity for students to travel to Cuba and immerse themselves in the vibrant music scene Cuba has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba","category-internacionales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12819"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12827,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12819\/revisions\/12827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}