Cuban-Americans deeply divided over opening to Cuba

Cuban-Americans deeply divided over opening to Cuba
Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 8:50 a.m. EST December 20, 2014

MIAMI — Christmas Eve dinner just got a little more interesting in this
South Florida city.

As Cuban-Americans soak in the news that the United States is
re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in
more than 50 years, it's rekindled a deep divide in the community — even
within families — over the best way to deal with the Castro brothers and
their Communist regime.

Dagoberto Garces was a teenager in 1959 when Fidel Castro's revolution
overthrew the Cuban government. He watched as his father's medical
clinic was seized by the new government, claiming it was needed by the
revolution. He saw the family's home ransacked, their savings taken.
Things got so bad that in 1962 his parents put Garces and his two
younger siblings on a plane for the United States, part of a wave of
children who came over in a program called Operation Peter Pan.

That's why it's hard for Garces to hear younger Cubans support President
Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba, establish an embassy
in Havana, allow more Americans to travel to the island and encourage
more commerce to flow into it.

"They didn't suffer what we suffered, so they can't feel what we feel,"
said Garces, 71, a surgeon in Miami.

Raúl Moas was born and raised in Miami after his parents fled Cuba in
the 1960s. He was ecstatic when Obama made his surprise announcement
because he has long felt that the strategy of isolating Cuba has done
nothing to overthrow the Castro regime.

Moas knows that older relatives in his family are having trouble
accepting the president's decision, and Moas' support of it, but he also
understands why they think that way.

"I don't have the scars of exile," said Moas, 26, president of Roots of
Hope, a group that helps young professionals in Cuba. "I'm able to
empathize with that. I'm able to slip on their shoes at times and,
through their stories and pictures, live that for a moment. But I'm also
able to remove myself from that and see it from a different perspective."

The divide between Garces' and Moas' generations is striking. Earlier
this year, 88% of Cuban-Americans under the age of 30 said they support
re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, according to a poll
conducted by Florida International University's Cuban Research
Institute. For Cuban-Americans over 65, that support drops to 41%.

Those numbers are easy to verify on the streets of Miami.

Jose Menendez, 76, who left Cuba by himself when he was 24 and later
helped the rest of his family escape, said he was shocked to see that
the Cuban government was not required to make any structural changes to
its system of tight government control as part of the deal Obama made
with Fidel Castro's younger brother, Raúl, who has ruled the island
after his ailing sibling stepped aside.

"What did they give? Nothing. What did we give? Everything," complained
Menendez, a retired ExxonMobil administrator.

What about Raúl Castro agreeing to release 53 political prisoners as
part of the deal?

"That night they probably arrested 53 more," said Julio Velasco, 77,
whose family left Cuba in 1956.

Garces called the deal "a crime."

"But coming from this president, I'm not surprised," he said.

Despite that deeply held animosity, many Cuban-Americans say there has
been one change in South Florida. In years past, merely mentioning the
end of the economic embargo on Cuba or pushing for more diplomatic ties
with the island would get you shouted down in Miami. Now, Natalia
Martinez says, that rage has given way to more nuanced, and quieter,
conversations.

"I've seen a lot more of that rather than just yelling and being crazy,"
said Martinez, 28, who was born in Cuba before coming to the U.S., where
she graduated from Harvard University and then received a master's
degree in organizational psychology from Columbia University. "I very
much commend them for being able to have that conversation."

Ricardo Suarez knows very well how older Cubans feel right now. He was
just embarking on his career in Cuba when Castro's revolution triumphed.
He admits he was sympathetic to Castro's cause at first, but quickly
changed his mind once he saw how it was rolling out.

And as soon as he started speaking out against the new regime, he was
fired from his office. So he took his new wife and left the country,
never to return.

Now, he hears all the talk from younger Cubans who are thrilled over
Obama's decision to re-open discussions with the very regime that forced
him into exile at such a young age. And while he disagrees with them,
saying the changes by the U.S. won't change a thing in Cuba, he's
willing to hear them out.

"We have different histories, so I understand," said Suarez, 74, a
retired banker. "But we all want the same result in the end. So in the
end, I sympathize with any Cuban who wants to end that government."

Source: Cuban-Americans deeply divided over opening to Cuba -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/20/cuban-american-divide-obama-immigration/20659321/