Mars 12, 2007

In America now

Peter Goodspeed in Miami

CUBAN EXILES CALL MIAMI HOME: Men play dominoes at the Maximo Gomez Park in Miami's Little Havana.
Cuban exiles say few would consider leaving their comfortable lives to return to the island.
Foto: Roberto Schmidt, Agence France-Presse

Convinced that the death of Fidel Castro cannot be far off, Cuban exiles in the United States are preparing for the most momentous event to take place in their homeland since the revolution they fled 48 years ago. In the second of a three-part series, National Post reporter Peter Goodspeed examines how they have transformed Miami.

In Cuba, they are disparagingly known as gusanos -- worms -- who crawled away from their homeland. Fidel Castro has repeatedly tried to depict the nearly 20% of Cubans who have fled since he came to power as despicable scum whose departure has only improved the quality of Cuban life.

He repeatedly warns those who remain that they could lose everything to Miami's exiles if Cuban communism ever founders.
Now, with speculation mounting over the fate of the 80-year-old dictator seven months after his emergency intestinal surgery, the 800,000 Cuban exiles in Miami are monitoring developments on the island intensely -- and Cubans are eyeing the exiles with extreme caution.

The first anti-Castro refugees began to arrive in south Florida on the morning of Jan. 1, 1959, just hours after the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista collapsed and the former general fled, with US$300-million, to the Dominican Republic.

Those Cubans regarded themselves as exiles, not migrants. They were rich, white professionals and businesspeople who had worked for Gen. Batista or had owned or managed businesses that were immediately nationalized by Mr. Castro -- and they intended to return home as soon as the interloper was deposed.

The initial flood of the wealthy and privileged -- who included sugar barons, rum distillers and tobacco kings -- was followed by hundreds of thousands of the desperate and penniless who escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs.

By 1961, two-thirds of the faculty of the University of Havana were living in Dade County, most of them struggling to feed their families with menial jobs.

"There is so much human drama involved," says Camila Ruiz-Gallardo, director of government relations at the influential Cuban American National Foundation. "It's extremely emotional. Everyone is affected here one way or another. Everybody has a story.

"My grandfather was a university professor in Cuba but he had to clean floors when he came here. I had cousins who came here from Cuba a few years ago. One of them had been a dissident who collected signatures for a petition. He was beaten and arrested and then left.

"Every little ripple runs right through the community in Miami," she adds. "You have to remember the emotion involved, but you also have to remember Cuba is so close. It's just 90 miles. It's closer than from here to Orlando."

The exiles here have long dreamed of making that short return trip.

But time has tricked them. It has twisted their dreams, transformed their homeland and reshaped the country that took them in.

In 1959, Miami was simply an extension of the Deep South, and its economy was centred on winter tourism. When Mr. Castro came to power, the event didn't even make it on to the front page of the Miami Herald.

Almost half a century later, the presence of Cuban exiles permeates the area.

Miami's exiles make up the most successful Hispanic community in the United States, and their economic power is evident everywhere. Their city serves both as the "Capital of the Caribbean" and a gateway to Latin America.

Spanish is heard as commonly as English; some small stores boast signs stating, "English spoken here."

The exiles have done their best to recreate an idealized version of the Havana they fled. Residents have dedicated parks and streets to the heroes who fought Mr. Castro. The heart of Little Havana, the 30 blocks of Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street), is filled with Cuban botanicas -- stores selling natural and spiritual remedies -- along with cigar factories, restaurants and art galleries.

Many Miami institutions duplicate the names of old restaurants or schools back in Cuba, and local entrepreneurs still produce familiar Cuban brand name products that disappeared from island shelves decades ago.

There are never-ending anti- Castro diatribes on nearly a dozen Spanish-language talk radio and television stations and reams of Cuban political analysis in dozens of Spanish-language newspapers and periodicals.

But while loss and longing are central to an exile's life, in Miami the nostalgia has a bitter edge.

At the Sentir Cubano food market and gift shop on Calle Ocho, shoppers can rummage through old Cuban magazines, music and books. They can also buy bottles of cider carefully labelled "Alvir Solo Cuando Muera Fidel" (Open Only When Fidel Dies).

Among other souvenirs in the store are rolls of toilet paper with a picture of Mr. Castro's face and the words "Make your wish come true."

Before the dictator is even dead, the Cuban government is said to have begun to mythologize his leadership by throwing up billboards around Havana that read, "Fidel es un Pais" (Fidel is a country). Miami's Cubans followed a similar tactic a few years ago when they mass-produced a bumper sticker that read, "No Fidel. No Problem."

Another Miami bumper sticker discourages any diplomatic contact with Cuba by insisting, "The Only Dialogue We Want With Castro -- Do You Want a Blindfold or Not?"

The city's Cubans have become a dominant force in Florida politics. Ever since the debacle of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion -- which many believe failed because president John F. Kennedy refused at the last minute to provide the invaders with air support -- they have overwhelmingly voted Republican and sided with the anti-communist right.

In the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, 250,000 Cuban-American voters in southern Florida supported George W. Bush, guaranteeing him the presidency in a crucial swing state he won by only 537 votes.

Miami's exiles now proudly boast of having two Cuban- American senators, four congressmen and a secretary of commerce.

Interestingly, two of the congressmen are related to Mr. Castro -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart is his nephew and Mario Diaz-Balart is a cousin. Mr. Castro's sister Juanita and two of his daughters also live here.

The influence of the Cuban-American community has been felt in other ways. Three of the five burglars in the 1972 Watergate scandal were Cuban exiles, and Cuban exile leaders co-ordinated the illegal arming of Nicaraguan Contra rebels during the 1980s' Iran-Contra scandal.

Over time, the exiles have developed a dual identity as both Cuban nationalists and Cuban- Americans. While the emigres have remained preoccupied with their homeland, they have also developed strong emotional ties to the country that gave them refuge.

"The intensity and emotion are not there with the younger people," says Dario Moreno, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

"When Castro dies, you will see a lot of people out there celebrating but they are celebrating because it is a party -- 'It is a good thing this horrible man died' -- and it's part of being Cuban.

"In the end, though, very few people here are going to go back."

Opinion polls show fewer than 20% of the city's exiles expect to go home when Mr. Castro dies.

"They'll probably go back to visit," says Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen. "They might even buy a vacation home in Cuba. But the overwhelming majority -- at least 80% -- will remain in the United States. It's just been too long."

The Cuba they left behind no longer exists. More than 80% of the island's residents have never known another leader, while in Miami the comfort of democracy and financial stability has eroded the longing of nostalgia.

"The Cuba of today is nothing like the Cuba people here remember," Ms. Ruiz-Gallardo says. "As a result, very few people here will try to go back. They have been here for two or three generations. They have their homes, their families and their jobs here. They have become contributing active members of society here. It's difficult to leave all that and go back to something filled with uncertainty."

Cuban exiles whose property was confiscated by Mr. Castro have filed more than 6,000 claims for compensation with the U.S. government. But now, as they wait for him to die 48 years later, many agree there is little likelihood they will ever return home and reclaim the property that was taken in the name of the revolution.

"Exiles can't appear like barbarians at the gate waiting to attack," says Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of Miami's Premier American Bank. "We have forgotten that there are two other sides of change: a message of reconciliation and increasing the rewards of change."

Mr. Saladrigas arrived in Miami as an unaccompanied 12- year-old with only $3 in his pocket during the 1960-61 Peter Pan airlift, in which 14,048 Cuban minors were sent to the United States by their parents to escape communism. He eventually earned an MBA from Harvard University and became a multimillionaire "founding father" of the professional employer services industry.

Now he is co-chairman of the Cuba Study Group, which brings leading Cuban-American businesspeople together to discuss ways of hastening Cuba's transformation into a free and sovereign democratic state.

Their most recent project calls for the creation of a US$10- million micro-loan program through which the Miami exiles would support and advise small businesses in Cuba.

"Democracies are not phoenix birds -- they don't just rise out of the ashes of collapsing societies," Mr. Saladrigas says. "As a matter of strategy, Cuban-American interests will be better served if we enter into a process where we can put options on the table. Our strategy is to make change as easy as possible, because we are convinced that by making change easy, you accelerate change."

Having transformed Miami and south Florida, successful young Cuban-American exiles are now eager to share their skills to nudge Cuba forward. They no longer regard the island as a long-lost homeland, but see it more as a personal challenge and a business opportunity.

TOMORROW
PART III
Talking to the regime.
Part Two