Seldom has an immigrant group been so successful in achieving the
"American dream" in such a short time, as the Cuban American community has.
Cuban's successes were deeply rooted in their previous traumatic experiences
with totalitarianism. Those awful experiences acted as a great stimulant for
the ability of that group of expatriates to readily accept the "American way"
with hard work and dedication.
Forced to abandon their native soil while fleeing persecution from
political terror, the first waves of refugees from Cuba arrived in Southern
Florida in the early sixties. At the time, their only material possessions
were little else but the humble garments they wore. Forty years later or so,
Cubans are the most important element -perhaps the dominant force- behind the
economic and political life of that area, and they exert vast influence in
other parts of the country such as New Jersey and Southern California. No
walk of life in contemporary U.S. is lacking Cubans or their descendents in
positions of leadership. Cuban American average household income is the
highest among Hispanic groups and fast approaching the national average of
the Anglo-Saxon community.
Cuban American contribution to U.S. society covers the total spectrum of
American endeavors, from banking, manufacturing and retail, to sciences,
arts, show business, sports and politics. Cuban positive impact in this
society compared with that of other immigrant groups, berates their number.
For that reason Cuban Americans have been dubbed "the Jews of Latin America",
a label which Cuban American National Foundation leader and founder, the late
Jorge Mas Canosa, once rightly called flattering.
One would think that that superb human contribution should endear free
Cubans to the so-called "main stream" American media. Hardly.
Ever since their arrival, that ambitious, entrepreneurial and liberty
seeking people were openly shun by that media. Ranging from aloofness to
down right hostility, the American big press has been openly antagonistic to
Cuban Americans in general, and specially hostile to their active opposition
to Castro's regime. It made no difference whether those actions were
legitimate under American laws, like congressional lobbying for stronger
measures against the anti American regime in Havana, or if they were of the
more belligerent kind. The arrogant message from that press to the new
comers followed this general line: Accept American hospitality at the price
of forgetting and forsaking Cuba. Castro, even though a dictator, is also a
permanent fixture (as if the tyrant and his regime were eternal), and you
better get used to it.
As an example of that attitude, let's consider the editorial line of the
biggest newspaper of Southern California, Los Angeles Times. L.A. Times
support of a thaw with Castro by the U. S. government, and its visceral
attacks against the Cuban American community are a matter of public record.
That is the case even when that paper purportedly editorialized against
Castro. One Times editorial on Feb. 1999 claimed: "â?¦Defenders of Castro say
he was pushed into this corner by the actions of small group of fanatics in
Miami's Cuban exiled community, that is in fact responsible for botched
assassination plots and small terrorists acts in Havana. But though noisy,
these provocateurs are few in number and clumsy in their tasks. They are a
poor reason for such drastic repression."
The Times editorial was deploring the enforcement of a new "Cuban law",
punishing with sentences up to 30 years in prison whoever tries to contact
the foreign press. Castro never required "laws" in the past to throw any
opponents of his regime in his dungeons or to murder them, and that hard fact
is well known by L.A. Times. The execution of his former henchmen Ochoa,
De La Guardia and two others in 1989, proved that point beyond the shadow of
a doubt: Not one of the charges those four were "convicted" of, prescribed
capital punishment in Castro's military penal code. Castro, through his
rubber stamp "State Council", ordered them shot anyway. In 1959 Castro
ordered a new trial for the pilots of the old Cuban Air Force after they were
acquitted of all charges by a previous "revolutionary" tribunal. The pilots
were all convicted of "war crimes" at the second trial and sentenced to long
prison terms, while one of the members of the first tribunal committed
suicide in shame. Castro's dictate can overrule his so-called "laws" at any
given time, and L.A. Times cannot claim ignorance of this fact. L.A. Times
knows only too well that in Cuba, Castro's whim is the law. The crocodile
tears shed by the Times on the new "Cuban law" were just an example of
impudence in journalism.
Who were those mysterious "defenders of Castro" L.A. Times wrote about?
"Devil's advocate" is a technique often used to disguise our opinions by
ascribing them to others.
When that paper mused about "blotched assassination plots" conveniently
omitted the known fact that Castro has always been the only intended target.
Terrorism is, by definition, what happens when violent actions claim innocent
victims. The execution of a mass murderer with tens of thousands of deaths
to his credit, and having the power and the will to increase that number, far
from an assassination is an act of self-defense and elemental justice. The
worst thing that editorial said about Castro was that he was "his own worst
enemy", lamenting that his crack down on dissidence could give his foes in
Florida and the U.S. Congress new arguments to worsen his plight.
Later the same year, L.A. Times demanded "a certain punishment" for
Castro. On 3/19/99 in another editorial entitled "Make Castro Pay for
Abuses", that daily paper was critical of the governments who "openly
complained" about Castro's all out suppression of dissent, while doing
nothing to alleviate that Cuban calamity. The admirable perception of the
Times was that Castro's ability to abuse the people was directly related to
the impunity with which he always acted.
Aha! Los Angeles Times is capable to see the light as well as anybody
else after all. Ironically this new -and welcomed- acceptance of reality,
came only in the wake of the highly publicized monkey trial of four mellow
Cuban government critics, one of which back in the late seventies piloted a
Mig fighter plane for the Cuban Air Force in northwestern Cuba. The main
mission of Castro's Air Force at that place and time was the interception and
capture (or destruction) of anybody trying to leave the Island "illegally" by
sea. Curiously, that "dissident", the son of a late known Party hack, is
the only one of that group remaining in prison, while the other three were
released before the end of their sentences.
Too bad more than six hundred thousand political prisoners during forty
years and over one and a half million expatriates, thousands of murderers and
total suppression of minimal conditions for civilized living during the same
period, did not move L.A. Times to that very conclusion long ago. That
editorial by the Times did not specify what kind of punishment Castro should
suffer. No surprise here. After opposing the economic embargo, and having
consistently blasted every initiative by the free Cuban opposition to Castro,
it would be extremely difficult for that paper to suggest anything.
The pro-Castro L. A. Times bias mostly takes subtle routs. Undeserving
relevance is given to insignificant news items that could be perceived as
positive to the Cuban regime, while important negative ones are often lost in
middle pages, and at times, downright suppressed. The single party tyrant
ruling Cuba by totalitarian means for over forty years is consistently refer
to in L.A. Times as "President Fidel Castro", while his peers like Pinochet
and Franco are always -rightly-called dictators.
It would be unfair to single out L.A. Times with a pro-Castro and
anti-Cuban bias. That paper just follows the pattern established long ago by
all major "liberal" papers and broadcasting businesses, including ABC, NBC
and CBS and its affiliates, daily publications like The New York Times,
Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, weekly magazines such as Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, and to a lesser and
more subtle degree, even the Florida based Miami Herald. The media is of course not following a
systematic and universal premeditated Castroite conspiracy. Yet, under
certain conditions their anti-Cuban feelings can take grotesque proportions,
like their virulent and one-sided coverage of the Elián González affaire.
The question that needs to be addressed is what is behind this softness
toward that brutal dictator and the obvious animosity against his opponents
by the media for so long?
One answer: MISGUIDED LOVE. Like and old flame that refuses to die,
Castro and his "revolution" still remains, after more than forty years, the
darlings of many ideologues in the American "liberal" press. In papers,
radio and television, some "liberals", to their credit finally admitted their
mistake. Many others still stick to their old Castro fable, while
frantically searching in vain for something positive among the bloody ruins
of the so-called "Cuban" revolution. To that unconditional love, Castro has
always responded with rude, if deserving disdain. That is why L.A. Times
called Castro "his own worst enemy." It takes both intellectual honesty and
intestinal fortitude to admit to a life long error. Those virtues may be
lacking in some quarters and among them may be L.A. Times Editorial Staff.
There may be another more subtle reason. Free Cubans do not easily fit
into that broad entity "liberals" called "Latinos" or "Hispanics", with
barely hidden contempt. Exiles from Cuba, by virtue of their burning
experiences, tend to be too individualistic and logical to the "liberal"
taste, not conforming to their stereotype of a minority group. Cuban
traditional work ethic and the exiles refusal to endorse populist agendas or
to get registered in droves in the Democratic Party, exacerbates the left
wing media establishment. It is not easy for some in that media to
understand how any obscure refugee entrepreneur from the Caribbean Basin,
"handicapped" by Spanish accent, can become a top executive of a conglomerate
in just a few years. Closet bigotry? Perhaps not, but the fact is that
Cuban American successes make the media uncomfortable, and the Cuban
community's stubborn independence is hard to bear for the "liberal"
establishment.
Yet, soon enough those ideologues will have to face reality, correcting
the terms of their equation: Castro's regime could be coming to an end in a
not so distant future, a victim of its own paranoia and senility. While
paradoxically, Cuban American influence in the U.S. political debate, like it
or not, is here to stay.
Fin
Hugo Byrne
hugoByrne@msn.com
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