Ithaca Artist Bound for Cuba

by Elizabeth Lawyer
The Ithaca Journal
June 23, 2006

A local artist is planning on traveling to Cuba in defiance of the U.S. trade sanction and travel ban with the country.

Dan Burgevin, a painter who has created several murals in the Ithaca area, will be traveling with Pastors for Peace in a caravan full of art supplies and other donations to take to Cuba. The caravan will travel to Texas and cram into buses with their supplies and cross the border into Mexico. From there they will fly to Cuba.

This will be the 17th Pastors for Peace Caravan since 1992. Over 500 people have traveled to Cuba with the program. The caravan, run by Lisa Valanti, head of the US/Cuba Sister City Association, will be stopping in Ithaca today. The Cuba Friendship Group of Greater Ithaca will host a dinner at the Unitarian Church in honor of the caravan. Friday has also been officially declared “Cuba Friendship Day” in Ithaca by Mayor Carolyn Peterson.

“If you want to change a policy, you must do the work, gather support and spread the word about it,” Valanti said. “That's what this is — doing the work.”

Valanti, who has been to Cuba with every caravan since the first one, said her ultimate goal is to bring transparency to the hypocrisy of the situation. U.S. policy does not reflect the sentiments of the American people, she said as she rolled into town on Thursday. Valanti said the caravan often goes through Ithaca and has always found it to be a supportive community.

Bergevin said he's been fascinated by the island nation ever since he heard Fidel Castro speak at the U.N. when he was a child. He decided to go with Pastors for Peace because it shares his goal to end the 40-year economic sanctions against Cuba.

This is his first trip to Cuba, and he plans on meeting with Cuban artists to “share ideas, taste the food and meet the people.”

He will also give a lecture to a class at an art school. He said he wants to “de-mystify” the country that has held his imagination most of his life.

“It's an interesting, fine place. What's the big deal? Why shouldn't we go there?” he said.

Bergevin has painted murals at several places in Ithaca, including Collegetown Bagels on Aurora Street, the Museum of the Earth, P&C supermarket on Hancock Street and a new one at Pancho Villa Taqueria.

One of his dreams is to travel through South America with South American artists, painting murals. He said though other people his age are thinking about retiring and resting on their laurels, he feels the urge to keep going.

“I want to die on my way to the next mural,” he said jokingly. “Thunk! In the mud. ‘Oh, he's dead. Grab his pack.'”

He said his art focuses on things that are common to all humanity — what brings people together and what pulls them apart.

“As a muralist, you have to make political statements,” said Burgevin, whose credentials include time on a Greenpeace boat.

The travel ban prohibits Cuban Americans from visiting their families more than once every three years. Currently, only a few American cities have permission to have flight connections to Cuba, and only people with permission from the U.S. government can take those flights, including journalists, academic researchers and Cuban Americans. Those who violate the ban and enter Cuba through another country, as the caravans do, run the risk of being fined. However, Burgevin says these threats are all smoke and no fire.

“We want to bring to light the issue of the unfair sanctions,” Bergevin said. “We should treat our neighbor like we would people in our neighborhood. Would you refuse to sell food to your neighbor?”

Roy Josef, a Cuban living in Ithaca, said he hopes the caravans will attract attention to the cause. His mother still lives in Havana.

Burgevin said he expects trouble at the U.S.-Mexico border, but the customs officials always let the caravan through with their goods. On one of the first caravans, U.S. officials seized a small school bus and refused to let it pass. Valanti and others in the caravan went on a hunger strike lasting 23 days, eventually garnering international attention and even receiving mail addressed to “the Little Yellow School Bus.”

Copyright ©2006 The Ithaca Journal