Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
I grew up in Miami at the tail end of the Cold War. More specifically, I grew up in Miami’s Cuban exile community at a time the Fidel Castro dictatorship was frustratingly holding power despite a crumbling Soviet regime.
I attended an all-boys high school operated by Spanish Jesuits, exiles of Castro’s 1959 revolution. The Jesuits were seeking to restore in Miami the grandfather-to-father-to-son traditions and legacy their order had begun when it founded that school in Havana in the mid-1800s. It was very much an educational environment built on shared experiences and identities: Nearly every one of my classmates shared the same story — our grandparents and parents fled communism in the early 1960s and found a home in la Yuma (Cuban slang for Miami).
At first, our family members were not welcomed nor were they accepted. That’s an experience not dissimilar from that of just about every immigrant or refugee group who has come here. But that need to resolver, that hunger to figure out any way to thrive in a new country, yielded a closeness and identity for the community that has served it well as it has become an outsized political, cultural and economic force in America.
On the heels of bold military action in Iran and Venezuela, the Trump administration now has Cuba in its crosshairs. There has been continual chatter that the Cuban dictatorship, facing extreme pressure, is willing to come to the table to make meaningful concessions for the first time ever.
The easy inclination for the administration, in all likelihood, is to take the easy win. That is, to accept what will be largely economic concessions from the regime that allow for the American financial investment the people of Cuba so desperately need. But, like the rats they are, leaders in the tyrannical Cuban regime have a nearly 70-year track record of holding on to power even as changing political winds swirl about them. The trade-off for any economic concessions the regime is willing to make will be, without question, staying firmly in control.
For many Americans, admittedly including some in the Cuban American community, this would be considered a significant win, particularly given 65 years of conflict with a Caribbean nation just 90 miles from our shore. An agreement that includes freeing political prisoners, governmental reforms and the ability of American companies to access a new Caribbean market would no doubt represent important changes to Cubans on the island. And, frankly, the one thing that seems to unite Americans across the political spectrum is a lack of interest in flexing American muscle to force democratic regime change.
However, for many Cuban Americans who grew up in Cold War families, torn from their homeland, the situation is a lot more personal and considerably more complicated. During a memorial service as a high school senior, I stood with my classmates behind the photos of Armando Alejandre and his fellow Hermanos Al Rescate martyrs brutally shot down by the Castro regime over international waters during a humanitarian mission. So many risked their lives during the disastrous Bay of Pigs mission, were political prisoners or prisoners of conscience in Cuban prisons, or were exiled from their country basically at the age I am now.
For many of us, a deal that keeps the Castro regime in place would certainly sting and would, in my estimation, do a disservice to the generations of Cubans and Cuban Americans who have spent decades pining for liberty, free elections and basic human rights.
Both perspectives are perfectly reasonable. I don’t have the right answer. I’m not sure there is one.
I do know that Marco Rubio has shown himself to be one of the most adept and impactful secretaries of state in our nation’s history. His unique understanding of the significance of this moment makes me optimistic that the administration knows what a free Cuba represents to the Caribbean and the hemisphere.
Whatever happens over the coming weeks will be fascinating, and I only hope that, wherever we end up, the change is meaningful both for the Cuban people and for our community in exile so hungry to put their long-felt heartache to bed.•
__________
Lopez is a Republican representing Indiana House District 39.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
So … an Indiana politician from Miami wants the U.S. to impose more suffering on Cuba because their government refuses to bend the knee to empire. The Cuban people have resisted for 67 years and will continue resisting – with dignity and without concessions. We all can see who the “rat” is here.