Word: bans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...long ago, Ricardo Herrero was one of Miami's Cuban-American hard-liners, an ardent supporter of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as well as the ban on U.S. travel to the communist island. But a half-dozen trips to Cuba during this decade have changed his mind about the latter. "There are no better ambassadors of American culture and American democracy than Americans themselves," says Herrero, 31. Many fellow Cuban Americans who've traveled there, he adds, have come to the same conclusion: they "always come back saying it was a completely eye-opening experience" and have "changed...
...majority of Miami Cuban Americans said they favored dumping tight regulations on Cuban-American travel to Cuba - something candidate Barack Obama pledged to do and then did this year as President. And a recent poll found that a remarkable 59% of all Cuban Americans think the 46-year-old ban on all U.S. travel to Cuba should be removed. The survey by Miami-based Bendixen & Associates, the largest Hispanic polling firm, also found that 48% of older and more conservative Cuban exiles known as historicos support lifting the prohibition, up from 32% in 2002. "I think that all exchange...
...importance of this attitude shift can't be underestimated. Whenever Congress has tried in the past to strike down the Cuba travel ban - even when a majority of Americans said they wanted to get rid of it - the biggest obstacle has always been the staunch resistance of politically potent Cuban-American voters. But the newest bill, the freedom to travel to Cuba act, introduced this year in both the House and Senate, suddenly has Cuban-American backing - and as a result a decidedly better chance of passing. In a recent statement, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican and co-sponsor...
...reason is that while Cuban-American voters may still favor the trade embargo - though recent polls indicate support for that is fading fast, too, especially as more young Cuban Americans and recently arrived Cuban immigrants register to vote - they no longer see the travel ban as an inseparable component. In fact, they see lifting the ban as a way to throw a bigger ball into Havana's court, one that might oblige current Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, to release more jailed dissidents or make other reform gestures...
...which means I left because I found the political conditions to be deplorable," says Azel, who today is a senior research associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. "Until those conditions change, I will not return." But while he supports the travel ban, Azel recognizes the views of the old guard are changing. "Exiles themselves have changed," he says. "They have moved from a bellicose military approach and understand that now they must come at it from political processes." (See a photoessay about an artist expressing Cuban life...