Terms of Engagement

The recent rapprochement between Cuba and the United States has many Americans talking about investment and travel opportunities. Opportunities do exist, but myriad challenges lie ahead if the two countries are truly to become neighborly.

On December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced that the United States and Cuba would restore diplomatic relations after a break of more than half a century. It was a historic moment—the reversal of a long-standing isolationist approach that Obama said had failed to advance U.S. interests. Embassies would reopen in Washington and Havana, respectively, and policies restricting the travel of Americans to Cuba would be relaxed. Implicit in the news was the notion that the administration would press Congress to end the economic embargo initiated against Cuba in 1961.

“Through these changes,” Obama said, “we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people.”

Astonishment soon gave way to a slew of difficult questions. Had the president overstepped his authority by using executive action to circumvent the embargo? Congress stewed. Would American businesses be compensated for the assets they lost in the 1960s when Fidel Castro nationalized all U.S. property on the island? Corporations wanted to know. And was Obama going to turn a blind eye to Cuba’s dismal record on free speech? Human-rights advocates wrung their hands—even as they celebrated the release of Alan Gross, an American sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in a Cuban prison for bringing satellite equipment into the country.

It seems unlikely that the complicated history of U.S.–Cuban relations will untangle itself anytime soon. Still, Carleton alumni, professors, and others who have followed the situation closely say one thing is certain: Cuba is changing quickly, and its future—economic, political, environmental, and cultural—will depend heavily on the direction the United States takes in rebuilding its relationship with the island nation.

Breaking News

Cuba wasn’t in the news much when Michael Weissenstein ’96 arrived to head the Associated Press bureau in Havana in the summer of 2014. That changed within a few months, when the United States and Cuba announced that they would restore diplomatic relations with the eventual aim of ending American restrictions on trade and travel.

“Cuba didn’t used to have a lot of breaking news,” Weissenstein says. “Now it’s a much bigger story. It’s become a busier and more interesting place.”

Journalists covering the region had an inkling that change was afoot. But the scope took everyone by surprise, Weissenstein says: “I think very few people expected there to be a total change in the United States’ relationship with Cuba.”

The announcement spurred several developments. Last spring, the Obama administration removed Cuba from the list of nation-states that sponsor terrorists. Embassies have reopened in the capital cities, and travel restrictions have been loosened for Americans who want to travel to Cuba. Congress, too, is under increasing pressure from U.S. companies that want to do business in Cuba to lift the economic embargo initiated more than half a century ago.

In Cuba, the signs of change are clearly noticeable, Weissenstein says. There’s been a surge of migration out of Cuba to the United States and elsewhere. Cubans who hope to emigrate are worried that U.S. policies that have favored Cuban refugees over other immigrants will be abolished. (Cubans who enter the United States—even without a proper visa—are allowed to stay under a provision that applies only to Cubans.) Since Obama and Raúl Castro announced the restoration of diplomatic relations, U.S. Coast Guard interceptions of Cuban migrants have risen by 117 percent, according to the National Interest.

Tourism also has seen a boom. More Americans are traveling to Cuba (though the trip still must be linked to a specific purpose, such as education or journalism), and European tourism on the island is rising fast. “Everyone’s attitude is ‘We have to get to Cuba now before the Americans get there and ruin everything,’ ” says Weissenstein. “Lack of development means Cuba has an ecosystem that’s in better shape than elsewhere in the Caribbean,” Weissenstein says. The island offers amazing diving, hiking, and pristine beaches. Rivers are free flowing and many forests remain intact.

The restoration of diplomatic relations has coincided (coincidentally) with improvements in Internet access initiated by the Cuban government. Until recently, Cubans could get online only at pricey hotels that cater to tourists or at government offices with limited hours, high fees, and long lines. Now wireless access has become more widespread—allowing Cubans to use their own mobile devices to connect with friends and family outside the country. “Many Cubans have a lot of family members living abroad,” Weissenstein says, “so, in some cases, they’re talking with people they haven’t spoken to in decades.”

Still, life remains hard for most Cuban citizens. They are poor. Access to technology is limited. Opportunity is restricted. For decades, the Communists blamed U.S. policies for the nation’s woes, Weissenstein says. But as those policies evolve, scapegoating the United States becomes less credible. “The answer always has been that the problem was the U.S. embargo,” Weissenstein says. “But that excuse is getting weaker by the day. So the Cuban government is under a lot of pressure to improve people’s lives.”

Unpopular Opinions

When Pope Francis visited Cuba last fall, people thronged to see him. But certain faces were not in the crowd. Many potential rabble-rousers had been incarcerated before the pontiff’s visit and were released after he left. “It’s called short-term detention—arresting people in advance of an event and then letting them go later,” explains Jessica Rich ’00, a political science professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Short-term detentions were already commonplace in Cuba in 2009, when Rich visited with a friend. And government reforms introduced by Raúl Castro in 2010—known as realignment—haven’t done much to reduce their number. “By certain measures there’s been a recent uptick in the arrests of artists who are perceived to be causing trouble,” Rich says.

Rich visited numerous artists and musicians, many of whom walk a fine line with authorities. An expert in social change movements in Latin America, Rich found their stories to be fascinating. “These artists are trying to provoke social change within a repressive environment,” she says. “But often, they also have figured out ways to connect with people in government who are sympathetic to their cause, who can help them avoid arrest or get things done.”

Still, dissident voices are often quickly suppressed. And even Cuban citizens are guarded in their conversations. “One thing that was striking to me, as an American, was the degree of silence—the number of subjects about which people did not talk,” Rich says. “You would never want to mention the word politics or talk about something political unless you were saying something explicitly in favor of the regime. There are lots of things that you just don’t discuss in Cuba.”

Man Without a Country

The photograph contained both nudity and the national flag. Cuban officials never explained to its creator, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, how they had gotten hold of the image, but they did make it
clear during his 2009 interrogation that producing art like this was risky business. The writer-photographer-activist would serve time in prison if he was again caught desecrating a national symbol.

Government harassment—even violence—is commonplace in Cuba, says Pardo Lazo, who visited Carleton last spring to discuss free speech and the plight of dissident artists, writers, and musicians in his homeland. Pardo Lazo says publication of his fifth book was blocked by authorities, and he has been officially banned from participating in writing contests or writing for literary magazines in Cuba. In response, he started a blog—Lunes de Post-Revolution—that is critical of the Cuban government. But while Americans and others can freely view the opinions and photographs he posts, his countrymen generally cannot because of limited Internet access. Until recently, the Cuban government strictly limited citizens’ access to the Internet. Pardo Lazo was able to publish online only by visiting hotels and a handful of embassies that permitted Cuban citizens to use their Internet connections.

Forbidden to study, write, or publish, Pardo Lazo found it increasingly difficult to make a living. In March 2013 he took advantage of an invitation to attend a conference at New York University, traveling to the United States on a tourist visa. He dreaded returning to Havana and feared being imprisoned. Finally, in 2015, he was issued a green card that granted him permanent residence in the United States for at least a decade.

“Even as I was filling out the forms, I felt that I was betraying my country,” says Pardo Lazo. “My computer, my camera, and my cats remain in Cuba. My books are in Cuba. My mother is in Cuba. I’m only beginning to realize that it may be a long time before I return.”

Pardo Lazo isn’t optimistic that the changes in U.S.–Cuban relations will lead to less censorship and more tolerance of writers and artists. Initially, he was angered and saddened by the news that the Obama administration was engaging with Raúl Castro. “I don’t believe the conditions of engagement being established now will bring a bit of freedom for my country,” he says.

Diplomatic engagement may ultimately benefit Cuba’s economy, Pardo Lazo says, but he doubts it will change the landscape for dissident writers and artists. “Maybe Obama has taken the right first step,” he says, “but I know that the Cubans who have been lobbying for this shift are not well intentioned. They just want the best share when the pie is cut. And the Americans? I don’t think they are interested in dissidents or in supporting free speech. They say that they want a better life for the Cuban people, but in the end, they simply want to be the first to invest in the Cuban economy.”

Out of Exile

In 1961 Oscar and Carmen Hernández sent their son to live with a relative in Miami. Like many Cubans, the couple feared indoctrination by Fidel Castro and his government. In fact, between 1960 and 1962, more than 14,000 children were sent to the United States alone, in what became known as Operation Pedro Pan. Then nine years old, Oscar Hernández Jr.—who would become the father of Carleton biology professor Dan Hernández—packed his bags and said good-bye to the nanny who had raised him almost since birth.

One year later, the Hernández family was reunited on American soil. But they had lost their wealth. They had lost their status. And they had to learn English. The Hernándezes eventually joined a community of Cuban immigrants in Emporia, Kansas, where Oscar Sr., who had been a lawyer in Cuba, taught college-level Spanish. Eventually, Oscar Jr. married an American woman. “Many Cubans came to the United States thinking they would go back to Cuba eventually,” says Dan Hernández. “I think, for some people, it took decades before they realized this is where their life was going to be.”

The Hernándezes were “always appreciative of the people who helped them feel comfortable in this new place,” recalls Dan. But they loved Cuba and its people almost as fiercely as they hated Fidel Castro. “Cuba was always their home, even though, ultimately, they spent 30 years in Cuba and more than 50 years in Kansas,” says Dan.

In 2011 Dan and his father decided to travel to Cuba, along with some family members. Oscar Jr. wanted to connect with the places and people of his childhood. Dan wanted to see the country he’d heard so much about. But Dan’s grandparents refused to join them. “They said, ‘We’re never going back. We can’t.’ It was too painful for them,” recalls Dan. “They couldn’t go back and see all the things that they had lost.”

Dan and Oscar Jr. found the houses the Hernándezes had once occupied. They visited the beach where the family had spent summers. And they located the nanny who had raised Oscar. “She was as much a mother to my father as his own mother was,” Dan says of their emotional reunion. “He hadn’t seen or spoken to her in 50 years.”

The experience moved everyone involved. “My father is not an emotional guy, so he can be a little hard to read,” Dan says. “But I think it was important to share that place with his wife and kids. He said over and over again, ‘I’m so glad you got to see this’—this place we’d heard so many stories about.”

A Thousand Words

When the Minnesota Orchestra announced last spring that it was going to visit Cuba on a cultural exchange, Nate Ryan ’10 knew immediately that he wanted to join the tour. Ryan’s employer, Minnesota Public Radio, had a long-standing relationship with the orchestra, and Ryan pressed hard to be among the handful of staffers chosen to cover the trip. A photographer, he felt he could bring a unique perspective. “Plus, I’d heard that Cuba was a visual paradise,” he says.

Ryan had studied and traveled abroad, but he didn’t know much about Cuba and its history. The opportunity to learn more—by talking to people as he traveled with the orchestra—was part of the allure.

Income from tourism (mostly European) has helped keep the Cuban economy afloat for decades. Still, Ryan was shocked by the lack of infrastructure for tourism—which is generally seen as key to Cuba’s economic development when and if Congress removes sanctions. For example, restaurants are generally state run and “you can go half a mile down a road and never see any retail, because private enterprise is so limited,” says Ryan.

People on the street were friendly but clearly poor. In fact, the orchestra’s violinists and cellists made a point of bringing along extra strings, which they gave to members of a youth orchestra in need of supplies. When Ryan struck out on his own—in either Havana or a small town—he was frequently approached by people who asked not for money but for soap. (Beauty and hygiene products are chronically underproduced by Cuba’s state-run industries.) “Either the price is too high or it’s difficult to come by—which was surprising to me,” Ryan says. “Had I thought about it, I would’ve taken bars from the hotel and carried them with me.”

As he’d heard, the beauty of the place is breathtaking, Ryan says. Even the most dilapidated palazzos in central Havana retain a regal air. The beaches are beautiful, and it is charming to see American cars from the 1940s and 1950s chasing each other down the roads.

Ryan was amazed by the welcome he and the orchestra members received. “When we interacted with people, they would ask—in English—where we were from, probably assuming we were European,” he recalls. “And when we said we were from the United States, there was surprise and delight. People were happy to hear that. They said that they hoped more Americans would come to Cuba. Perhaps they hope that, with tourism, a better life will come for them.”

The Next Chapter

Perhaps the surest sign that Cuba is changing is the increased availability of pizza. Carleton political science professor Al Montero, during the most recent of his three trips to Cuba, noticed that home-based private commercial enterprises—cobblers, bike-repair shops, and restaurants, including pizza joints—have begun to sprout up in many neighborhoods in the wake of Raúl Castro’s 2010 decision to allow citizens to run small businesses out of their homes. “Pizzas are easy to create, you can make a lot of them, and they’re quick to eat,” Montero observes. “So that has become a popular enterprise.”

The businesses are heavily taxed, however. What’s more, they are unlikely to grow significantly, given restrictions imposed by Havana and the lack of investment capital. If Raúl Castro hopes to kickstart the Cuban economy, his government will need more than President Obama’s cooperation and goodwill.

“Many doors have been opened by the decision to reestablish diplomatic relations, but we still must overcome 50-plus years of hostility and distrust and create mutually respectful relationships between comparable but different educational, cultural, economic, and governmental institutions,” says John McAuliff ’64, executive director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, a nonprofit that works to build connections between U.S. residents and the country’s former adversaries. “A primary problem is that too many Americans assume we have the right—even the responsibility—to remake Cuban society to be more compatible with our values and socioeconomic system,” says McAuliff, who calls the embargo “a form of economic warfare” and points out that it stands in dramatic contrast to our policies toward China and Vietnam of “critical engagement but nonintervention.”

The U.S. embargo against Cuba—an evolving mix of laws and executive actions that has grown ever more punitive over the decades—was strengthened considerably by the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, and undoing it would require an act of Congress. “This is one foreign policy issue that is not in the president’s control,” Montero says. And many on Capitol Hill disagree strongly with the administration’s choice to engage with Cuba’s Communist leaders. For instance, Florida senator Marco Rubio—a Cuban American and potential Republican nominee for president—has threatened to block any action to appoint an ambassador to Cuba.

Even if Congress does lift the embargo, it’s unlikely that American businesses will rush into Cuba. For starters, there’s the issue of property rights: all land in Cuba is owned by the state. Would American businesses risk building on land controlled by the Cuban government? There’s also the question of how U.S. companies whose assets were nationalized after the Cuban revolution should or would be compensated for lost property. It’s “an incredible quagmire,” Montero says. And European and Canadian companies currently doing business in Cuba have complained bitterly about limited access to skilled labor—something that may give U.S. companies pause, as well. “You can’t just hire whomever you want to hire,” Montero says. Foreign companies may only interview and hire candidates that come from a list supplied by Cuba’s Ministry of Labor.

Nonetheless, the changes Obama has initiated are significant. “Establishing an embassy is part of the nuts and bolts of diplomacy,” says Montero. In addition, easing restrictions on American travel to Cuba may have only a modest effect on tourism, but a salient impact on relations between the two nations.

That said, the permanence of the current changes and any future loosening of restrictions on travel and trade depends on the outcome of the 2016 election. A Democratic president surely would continue Obama’s efforts to work with Raúl Castro and, after he steps down in 2018, with his handpicked successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who is likely to maintain Castro’s course. If the next U.S. president is a Republican, however, there’s a good chance that the recent thaw will end and relations will return to their icy and distant state. Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have criticized the Obama White House’s position on Cuba and have promised to reverse the president’s course if they are elected.

“The Obama administration wants to push the process of normalization as far as possible to prevent the president’s successor from reversing it,” says McAuliff. “I think Cubans welcome his changes, but are cautious about how much to let down their guard until it’s clear whether the next U.S. president will build on or try to undo what has been accomplished.”

Further, any real change in the relationship between the United States and Cuba will require dropping the embargo, and that’s not likely to happen. Nearly all Republicans in Congress (as well as some Democrats) bridle at the idea of engaging Cuba’s Communist government. The only scenario under which the embargo might be lifted at this point, says Montero, is if Democrats were to gain full control of the White House and Congress—an almost unimaginable outcome, given current polls.

The change in U.S.–Cuban relations is significant and surprising. But for now, the headlines might be bigger than the actual impact. Obama’s action will go down in the history books, but no one knows whether it will warrant a full chapter or merely be a footnote.

Photos by Nate Ryan/Minnesota Public Radio. © 2015 Minnesota Public Radio. Used with permission. All rights reserved.