SANTA ANA : Student Leader Joins Group Touring Cuba

In the first such exchange in more than 30 years, Heather Herbert, Rancho Santiago Community College’s student body president, today is joining a delegation of student leaders who will spend the next 10 days on a tour of Cuba.

The tour, sponsored in this country by the United States Student Assn. and in Cuba by the Cuban Federation of Students, will include a meeting with Cuba’s minister of education. The trip will feature visits to Cuban universities, factories, hospitals and agricultural camps. The group will also be there for the anniversary of the Cuban revolution Dec. 30.

Although Herbert said she was excited about the trip, she added: “I’m a little apprehensive about staying with 10 people in a foreign country that we know nothing about over Christmas. My mother was teasing me that ‘Christmas with (Cuban President Fidel) Castro’ sounds like a horror movie.”

Herbert, 20, of Villa Park, who is majoring in political science, is one of 10 students chosen nationally to participate in the exchange, the first of its kind since 1959. She is also the only student from California, as well as the only student from a two-year college, participating.

The students paid for the cost of getting to Cuba, and the Cuban government is paying for the rest of the expenses, including food, transportation and lodging. As part of the program, a group of 10 Cuban students will visit California in April.

The island nation 90 miles from Florida has long been dependent on the former Soviet Union and other Eastern-bloc countries. But trade with those countries has dropped sharply, and the United States has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, keeping gasoline and other staples in short supply.

That fact prompted USSA to urge Herbert and the other delegates to prepare for the unexpected. One letter to the delegates stated: “Keep in mind that although we have planned many events ahead of time, due to conditions beyond our control (and for the most part beyond the control of our hosts) the schedule is likely to change at the last minute.”

Already Herbert has been told by USSA officials, “There’s not enough gas. So we’re going to be doing a lot of walking.”

Herbert said that the program will offer an important exchange of information about the two country’s cultures.

“People have asked me, ‘Why would you want to (go there)?’ ” she said. “They don’t see the opportunity. They think that we’re better than them anyway, that we’ve got the system figured out, so why bother? (But) I’m going to get new understanding. I’m going to get new information. I’m interested in public policy, so I’m going to see how a different public policy works.”

She added, “It’s also important for them, the Cubans, to see what a democracy is and to see what they could have.”