After more than five decades of political isolation, Cuba is building new ties with the United States. We talk with a Michigan State University professor and Cuba expert, as well as one of her students who’s recently returned from the island nation.
January 3, 1961 was a cold day in the history of the Cold War. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency was fast fading into memory. On that day, the United States of America formally broke off all diplomatic ties with Cuba. Just 213 days and one botched military coup attempt later, the man who would one day restore America’s ties with Cuba was born.
Last week, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years. It’s a new day in Cuba.
Current State talks about the changing social climate in Cuba with Donna Rich Kaplowitz, an assistant professor in the Residential College of Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University and an expert on Cuba, and is Tim Giessner, an MSU freshman who travelled to Cuba in January and is writing a paper about his experience.
