Just 10 days before President Barack Obama's December 17 announcement that the United States would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, Knox College students visited the island country as part of a class on Ernest Hemingway.

The students studied the famous writer, a longtime resident of Cuba, in a Fall Term course taught by Professor Robin Metz, director of the Program in Creative Writing at Knox. During the trip, they saw Hemingway's former home, Finca Vigia, and other places where he spent time.

While in Cuba from December 3-7, Metz said, members of the Knox group spoke with Cuban people about the long-standing U.S. embargo and about normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries someday. The Knox travelers also discussed Alan Gross, an American who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years until his December 17 release.

"I think what our travels there show is that Knox has always been ahead of the curve of history -- from its founding by abolitionists to its support of the civil rights movement to peaceful protests of the Vietnam War," Metz said.

"To me, it was inevitable" for the United States to improve its diplomatic relationship with Cuba, he said, adding that he was surprised by the timing of the announcement.

A group of nine Knox students, one alumnus, and three faculty members made the winter break trip. "They were seeing the reality of history in the making," Metz said.

(Photo above: Members of the Knox College group at Ernest Hemingway's former home in Cuba, Finca Vigia. Photo provided by student Camille Brown.)