Karen Lee Wald is a teacher, writer, journalist and activist who became aware of the vast gap between what she had been taught and what the world was really like during the turbulent 60s. She has been helping spread that consciousness to others through writing, teaching, demonstrating and organizing ever since. While looking for a positive alternative when people would say "you're always knocking things here, but where's there anything better?" she discovered Cuba. Not the romantic Cuba she had known until then -- Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, men with beards and guns in the hills -- but a Cuba that was men and women building, growing, creating a new life, from childcare centers, schools, hospitals and polyclinics to organic farming, solar energy, and community empowerment.

She returned to Cuba many times between 1968 and 1981, writing about her experiences in articles, journals and the book CHILDREN OF CHE (Ramparts Press, 1978). Finally, in 1982, she took her two California-born children and spent the next 20 years raising them in Cuba, and writing to break the information blockade. Her favorite title while in Cuba was "guerrillera electronica", a reference to her pioneering efforts to get accurate information about Cuba out to the world via email and internet.

Since 2001, Karen has been dividing her time between teaching in San Jose, California and returning periodically to Cuba to continue research and writing.

Cuba Inside Out is a production of Casa Cuba Resource Center Berkely California
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