For Cuban-American exiles, the political is usually personal

For Cuban-American exiles, the political is usually personal
BY JOE CARDONA JCCIGAR@AOL.COM
01/02/2015 5:09 PM 01/02/2015 5:09 PM

President Obama's announcement of the policy shift toward Cuba was but a
blip on the American national political spectrum. Yet for many Cuban
Americans in Miami it was life altering — the paradigm of U.S.-Cuba
relations was reset to a place it hadn't been in most of our lifetimes.

I sat in my neighborhood cigar shop to watch the announcement and felt a
flurry of emotions that I hadn't felt about Cuba and the Cuban polemic
for a long time. My sentiments varied from disappointment to excitement
from confusion to pain.

Even though there was the release of Alan Gross and the three Cuban
spies, I could not have imagined that the president's 20-minute
announcement would turn the existing U.S. policy on Cuba on its head and
would thrust me, my fellow smokers huddled around the TV and most of the
Cuban community in Miami on a whirlwind, introspective review of history
— not just Cuban history, but our personal, family histories, as well.

I called my father and was not surprised to hear a sullen tinge in his
voice. He was upset and confused. I understood why. He's from a
generation whose wounds inflicted by the Castros' revolution never fully
healed. His generation believed that their American neighbors wore John
Wayne white hats and would never abandon their struggle for freedom. If
the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs didn't destroy that image, the president's
announcement certainly did.

Being reared and educated as an American, I digested the change in
policy a little differently, though with much of the same hesitancy as
my father.

To me this was nothing more than a dose of realpolitik — a new policy
supplanting an antiquated approach. This is not the first U.S.
administration to attempt a change. Even Ronald Reagan, who is a
messianic figure to many Cuban-American Republicans, attempted to close
the gap with Cuba. In 1993, when I interviewed them for my film Adios
Patria, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and special envoy
Ambassador Vernon Walters both told me they spoke to the Cubans about a
possible détente under Reagan's directive.

This change in policy underscores the fact that much of our foreign
policy is and has been dictated by U.S. economic interests. The United
States went from being the imposing policeman of the world to the
money-grubbing profiteer that justifies its greed by masking it with
political rhetoric. Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse.

I recognize that the nation's previous stance toward Cuba was an
outdated sham that did not benefit Cubans on either side of the Florida
Straits, except maybe for those who used it for political advantage.

Yet for those dancing the normalization mambo, there is much to
question. If there is nothing more to the deal than what's been
publicized, this is the worst negotiation in American history — except
maybe for the Native Americans selling Manhattan to the Dutch for $20.

With this shift in relations, there should also be a repositioning of
Cuban-American demands of the White House. Let's insist that the Castro
government be held accountable for human-rights violations like the ones
they perpetrated this week, detaining dozens of dissidents who were
going to participate in a peaceful demonstration.

Cubans, sadly, know a thing or two about being dealt away and spoken for
by superpowers. This is a great opportunity for the Cuban-American
community to make sure that the struggle for freedom in Cuba is
extricated from U.S. partisan politics. Let's put to rest the
patronizing "Cuba si, Castro no" hollow promises made by stiff, gringo
politicians having café at Versailles and begin to actively and
constructively engage in the new paradigm so that decisions are no
longer made for us.

Source: For Cuban-American exiles, the political is usually personal |
The Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article5349348.html