Here’s an answer to most asked question - ‘Have you been to Cuba?’

Fabiola Santiago: Here's an answer to most asked question: 'Have you
been to Cuba?'

Despite friendlier ties, travel and trade remain perks
Some Cuban-Americans, journalists need not apply
A selective "funnel" system in place rewards a few
BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO
fsantiago@miamiherald.com

It's the year's most asked question: "Have you been to Cuba?"

Implicit in the query is a dash of well-meaning all-American naïveté —
the belief that, if Americans are now free to travel to Cuba, it should
be even easier for me as a Cuban-American to pack my bags and join the
giddy rush to visit the island where I was born.

Far from assured, it's less likely that under President Barack Obama's
rapprochement policy and expanded travel and trade rules I'll ever set
foot in Cuba. The Cuban government has no desire, need or motivation to
open up to Cuban-Americans like me when they're hosting more American
tourists and journalists than they can accommodate — as well as scores
of returning Cuban immigrants and Cuban-Americans with less political
baggage and more money to spend and invest on the island.

It's one of those perhaps unintended, but real results of the new U.S
policy. Some Cuban-Americans need not apply.

From Cuba's side, the opening is not through an all-embracing circle,
but through a sliver. Or, as Miami lawyer Rafael Peñalver puts it, "un
embudo, a funnel," a system set up for trade, travel and investment
"through which only a select few from abroad are allowed to partner with
a select few from the Castro cúpula to exploit Cuba's natural resources
and labor force. The main objective of the 'embudo' is to keep the
Castros in power."

It's the same limited system the Cuban government has operated during
the past 30 years to keep the economy afloat by catering to travelers
and investors from Canada, Spain and Brazil. Those who participate must
toe the line. Cuba is not a state that respects individual rights or
that ensures its citizens — or its visitors — due process.

A journalist who points out those shortcomings, and who gives voice to
the repressed opposition, is not welcome. In Cuba's eyes, I'm the devil
incarnate: An informed Cuban-American with intimate knowledge of
contemporary history and of the institutions and characters that shape
the island. A tour guide or media handler would find it difficult to
feed me the propaganda they routinely peddle to others.

Worse yet, I'm not someone they can easily dismiss as a right-winger.

In the early 2000s, when I covered Cuban art and culture, a Communist
cousin sent me a message that I would be welcomed in Cuba.

"Why not?" he told a relative. "She's a well respected intellectual of
the left."

I didn't even attempt to apply for a visa — and had a good laugh at the
way the extreme right of exile and the extreme left that rules Cuba
often coincide in their assessments of the political spectrum.

I appreciated more the clever pragmatism with which another cousin
encouraged me to visit in the aftermath of the 1990s Special Period's
shortages: "Here, one member of the [exile] community is worth 20 from
the [Communist] party."

Truth is, I ran out of enough desire, although never out of curiosity.

In the age of Obama, a visa is not any more likely to materialize than
at any other time. Change Cuban-Americans like me can count on is not in
the cards. And I hope that answers the year's question.

Fabiola Santiago: fsantiago@miamiherald.com, @fabiolasantiago

Source: Fabiola Santiago: Here's an answer to most asked question: 'Have
you been to Cuba?' | Miami Herald -
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