Many want change, but skepticism abounds
Gustavo Garcia thinks it’s a good idea that the U.S. and Cuban governments reopened embassies Monday in each other’s capitals for the fifirst time since 1961.
Garcia, the owner of Copacabana restaurant in Jupiter, is no fan of the Castro government.
“It’s a dictatorship,” Garcia said by way of explanation.
But after more than 50 years of economic sanctions, nasty rhetoric and Cold War politics between the two countries produced no turnover in Havana, Garcia said it’s time for a new approach.
“We all want to see a change,” said Garcia, who came to the United States 22 years ago at age 29. “People who think President Barack) Obama is doing a good job with the Cuba situation aren’t communists. But 50 years of embargo hasn’t worked. Sometimes you need a fresh idea to get a difffffffffffferent result.”
The embassy openings are the latest move toward normal relations that began when Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in December an end to fifive decades of diplomatic stalemate.
Cuban Americans in Florida are split on the Obama administration’s new policy toward the island nation. According to results from a Bendixen & Amandi International poll that was released in April, 49 percent of Cuban Americans living in Florida disagreed with the effffffffffffort to normalize relations while 41 percent approved.
Jorge Avellana, executive director for the Hispanic Human Resources Council in West Palm Beach, said history will judge the reopening of the embassies.
It’s not a day of joy,” said Avellana, 63, who was born in Marianao and left Cuba when he was 14.
All these years later, Cuba is still Avellana’s passion. He says the country remains in the grasp of
the biggest and the strongest dictator that Latin America has ever seen,” a regime that hasn’t changed an iota from the one his family flfled.
Avellano predicted the Castros would do whatever they needed to stay in power, including pulling progress back as soon as they get enough foreign currency into Cuba to renew their grip.
Palm Beach County is one of the nation’s hotspots for Cubans. In the 2010 census, 43,038 peo- ple in Palm Beach County indicated they were of Cuban origin. That put Palm Beach County ahead of all but three counties in the nation: Miami- Dade, Broward and Hillsborough counties.
In 2010, Cubans made up about 1 in 31 residents of Palm Beach County, a rate that is ninth highest in the nation.
Carlos Sosa, munching on a Cuban sandwich outside Havana restaurant in West Palm Beach, said he’s skeptical life in his native country will change much any time soon. Sosa, 41, moved to the U.S. when he was 10 years old.
“I just brought my mother here from Cuba,” Sosa said. “She’s 68 years old and has been waiting most of her life for things to get better there. We’re still waiting.”