at 4:0:00 eastern.

all next week america tonight investigates the campus rape crisis. >> serial rape is the norm on college campuses. >> i know that when i did report, i was blamed. >> then on friday, november 1st at nine eastern, we open up the conversation in a live town-hall event. sex crimes on campus, a special week of coverage and live town-hall on america tonight nine eastern. only on al jazeera america. [ speaking spanish ]

>> so that's an excerpt of luke's documentary, the cuban dream. luke, you traveled to cuba to produce it, and legally, that's tricky because of the embargo and the sanctions, whatever you want to call it, and how did you do it in >> well, it helps being a cuban-american. in 2009, president obama allowed cubans to visit family. and i still have family in cube, and that was my entryway into the country. so in regards to the project itself, i believe in the power of good and the power of common loves, and with baseball being my national pastime as an american, and being the pastime in my blood of my father's country, i thought it will be an incredible opportunity to do something that no one has done before. to play in cuba's major leagues, and be the first foreigner and think outside of the box. >>

and expectations? >> the rollercoaster in 2012 and this year, there were ups and downs, but i would have to say my experience in cuba, and the people that i met and the barriers, and to the and we were able to represent the power of connection and how it goes beyond the scope of politics. >> well, luke, it seems that we have tension between the united states and cuba with the embargo. president kennedy announced it in 1962:

very heated. and geb, president obama criticizes cuba and cuba criticizes the united states, and has it really accomplished anything with intended goals? what's your response in >> the so-called embargo has been a spectacular success. for instance, it has kept the american taxpayer among the very few in the world that has not been stiffed by the castro region. as i mentioned, we're among cuba's top food suppliers and have been for close to a decade, but the only stipulation is that castro pays us cash up front. what? because every single person on earth that has extended credit to cuba has been stiffed. and by the way, the viewers have

to realize what we're talking about. with the dominican republic, folks, cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism. the regime that runs cuba today jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than did stalin's regime during the great terror, and they murdered more political prisoners in the first three years in power, in '61, than hitler's regime murdered in its first six. now, when it came to sanctions against south africa, i'm betting most of the people would say, yeah, that's a terrible apartheid regime and here's a regime that did ten to 12 times the rate. oh, let's cuddle up to them and let's be good to them. so just so the viewers realize

what we're talking about. >> arturo, is this cud ling up misplaced? >> i think that he's giving the version of promoting a policy that has been immoral and illegal. the united nations since 1992 embargo. in terms of america, robert ken, the brother of the president who declared the embargo, in 1963, wrote a memo to the secretary of state in which he said that the prohibition to travel to cuba was against american libertarian values. and as i said, democracy is at its highest when it practices what it preaches. ironically, today it's easier for a cuban to travel to the

united states than for an american to travel to cuba, and i think this is nonsense. >> luke, listen, obviously the politics here are incredibly polarizing, but can baseball play a roll here in some form of diplomacy? >> i'm not a politician, i'll let humberto and arturo go head-to-head, and i'm a filmmaker. i can personally attest. there's a desire and a need for change, and all i did was use baseball's bridge, as a common meeting point between my cuban friends and families who didn't get along with us. because we're seen as the imperialist capitalist pigs who left it in the dust. at the end of the day, politics has differed for moreover 50 years, and we can agree on that. but at the end of the day, it's

about people coming together and realizing, so focusing on building the new, and that to me is important, regardless of what's taking place today. we want the future generations of cuba to discover their own voice, and that's what my film is, and we all have dreams. my friends in cuba don't have the ability to step out of their doors in the morning and say, i want to be a major league baseball player today or i want to be an restaurant. tha astronaut. >>

astronaut. >> well i want to interject quick. the focus is on people. and when it's government sanctions, it's complicated, but when we focus on people coming together and celebrating life, and at least coming to the dinner table and breaking bread. anything is possible. when you have possibility, that's when things get interesting, and i think that cuba needs that, and at the end of the day, my dad sums it up, he hit the nail on the head. when you look around cuba, and you see the brand-new audies and the mercedes and you see the mansions that the elite that the power at be in cuba has, and you stop and look at the ordinary joe, the true heart and soul of cuba, they're not the ones -- they're the ones that are being penalized. it's not the powers at be. they get the best food and they get to have the life with the private jets. >> so the question is, how does this move forward?

and we're going to discuss this after the break. cuban americans have driven the policy for decades and what do they want to see happen now? tweet us your thoughts.

on august 20th, al jazeera ameri

on inside story, we bring together unexpected voices closest to the story, invite hard-hitting debate and desenting views and always explore issues relevant to you. >> welcome back, we're talking about u.s.-cuba politics through the lens of baseball. and given the increasing divisions among cuba an americans and the embargo, where

do you see the relations going from here >> until there's a change in leadership in cuba. from everything that i hear, he's a nice guy. no one doubts that cubans like americans and americans like cube as, but the problem is, there's a totalitarian and stalinist regime in between them. luke would have never gotten a visa to go to cuba except the regime recognized that it's cash in our pockets. >> that's not true. that. >> humberto, you made some assumptions that aren't true. you haven't done background and research. if you read my blog, my family, my brothers, my filmmakers, i wasn't cleared by cuba.

most of my filming. 85% of my filming in cuba was gorilla shooting. i had to. i was under the radar. because it was baseball first, and they didn't realize it. so to say that i'm complying with the regime is a bit ambitious on your part. but i have family members that share your perspective. >> arturo, give a listen to arturo. >> what we want are relations with cuba, and i say that we lift the embargo. the only thing that it accomplishes is allowing castro a scapegoat. and so i don't see how this policy will lead to improved u.s.-cuban relations. what athletes the after all is the same thing that cubans want, the opportunity to live freely in a democratic society.

and that's something that neither castro has been able to put on the table. >> art tooo >> that's true. the main problem that the embargo has is that it's very, very counter-productive. it makes difficult to show america in the contrast to the totalitarian features that the cuban government has. it also provides the perfect alibi for the emergency measures that they say they have. even the prohibitions that were in place until october of last year, they were in place because the cuban government said that they were under siege.

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