She’s only partly right. As Castro celebrates his 40th anniversary in power this month, the stalemate between Havana and Washington shows no sign of easing. The communist leader, now 72, has defied all predictions of his demise, and the embargo is locked in place by a dogged U.S. Congress. The new measures were not designed simply to ““help the Cuban people without strengthening the Cuban government,’’ as Clinton said. They were also meant to quell the growing chorus of senators, statesmen and academics calling for a review (read: removal) of the embargo. Yes, a few Miami exiles protested the changes, chanting slogans on Friday night in front of a banner reading: ““CASTRO + CLINTON = $$.’’ But most hard-liners greeted the news with relief. Even the Spanish-language daily, El Nuevo Herald, ignored the changes and said simply: ““The White House will not review the embargo.''
But look beyond the political deadlock and you’ll see that Miami is undergoing a quiet but irreversible cultural evolution–and Barrios’s generation is the main catalyst. After decades of stewing in pain, isolation and nostalgia, Miami Cubans are starting to open up, culturally if not politically, to the island they left behind. The clearest turning point for this new ““apertura,’’ or opening, was the death of hard-line exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa in November 1997, just two months before Pope John Paul II’s historic trip to Cuba. The older generation of Cuban exiles is dying out–sad and bitter, their dreams unfulfilled–and a less traumatized younger generation is coming to the fore. This so-called Generation N, formed both by the Miami-born children of Cuban exiles and a vast wave of younger Cuban immigrants like Barrios, still shows support for the embargo. But there is a clear generational shift away from the kind of confrontation advocated by the old men of Alpha 66, some of whom still spend their weekends in the Everglades training for Castro’s eventual overthrow.
When the first Cuban exiles arrived in Miami in 1959, they were sure they would be returning in a matter of years, if not months. As time marched on, they raised families, built businesses, doted on grandkids–and suffered every shift in the winds in Cuba. The exiles are so tantalizingly close to their homeland–just 38 minutes by air–they have never felt truly American, no matter how much they embody the American dream. Wealthier and better-educated than any other Latino group in the United States, the 600,000 Cuban exiles in Miami (of 1.5 million worldwide) dominate everything from local politics and the law to business, education and the media. But no matter how comfortable they are in their virtual homeland, it is not, and will never be, Havana. ““As an immigrant group, we have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,’’ says Max Castro, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s North-South Center. ““But we’ve failed in the only thing that really mattered to us: getting rid of Fidel.''
The loss and separation, the misty-eyed nostalgia for a vanished Cuba, the frustration at Castro’s survival: these shared experiences have united the exile community. But they have also fostered an intolerance that is almost a mirror image of the lack of freedom they criticize in Cuba. The old taboos have never been seriously challenged: no elected Cuban-American official has ever strayed from the intransigent pro-embargo stance advocated by the Cuban American National Foundation, the influential lobbying group once headed by Mas Canosa. The real battlefield has been in the realm of culture. Over the past few years, conservative Cuban-American groups–helped by local officials–have used threats, boycotts, even bombs, to prevent artists friendly to the Cuban regime from appearing in Miami. Three years ago, a concert by jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was canceled when protesters spat, cursed and hurled tomatoes at audience members. Rubalcaba’s sin: though he lives in Florida, he had not publicly repudiated Castro.
The cultural thaw did not come when the cold war ended. The exiles were too busy awaiting the imminent fall of Castro, who could never survive the loss of his $6 billion a year in Soviet support, they were certain. It wasn’t until 1995, when Washington authorized direct phone service and travel to the island, that some exiles began to reconnect with Cuba. Another watershed came in August 1997, when a woman was expelled from the Miami film board simply for suggesting that the board consider letting Cuban artists join the annual MIDEM music conference in Miami Beach. Pop star Gloria Estefan couldn’t stand it. ““I cannot imagine how we could explain to the people of Cuba,’’ she wrote in a letter to The Miami Herald, ““that the very freedoms that they so desperately desire and deserve are being annihilated in their name.’’ For that burst of honesty, Miami’s most beloved icon couldn’t even go to her favorite restaurants without getting nasty looks and cold shoulders.
BUT THE ICE WAS already broken. A 1997 poll done by Florida International University showed that 51.6 percent of Cuban-Americans favor dialogue with the Cuban government. For younger exiles who have arrived over the past decade, the number rose to 75 percent. Mas Canosa’s death in late 1997 signaled a further shift to a younger, less confrontational generation. His son, 33-year-old Jorge Mas Santos, has taken over the family’s thriving business empire, while two younger pit-bull politicians–U.S. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen–are protecting his political legacy. But Generation N is being replenished by a flood of more than 20,000 immigrants a year. As children of the revolution, these new arrivals–often young, poor and dark-skinned–are less categorical in their condemnation of Castro and more concerned with keeping in touch with the island. Barrios, who grew up listening to salsa bands long banned in Miami, takes an annual trip home to visit her parents. ““It’s nothing political,’’ she says. ““I just miss my family and customs.''
The signs of change are dramatic. Five years ago, Miami’s Cubans had three morning radio shows, all hard-line and heavily political. Only one remains, Radio Mambi, and it has been forced to focus more on local political corruption. (To add irony to injury: a former Cuban TV anchor who used to fawn over Fidel has opened up a nightclub, called El Radical, across the street from the station.) ““The hard-line discourse still exists here, but it is tired out,’’ says Alejandro Rios, 46, a film critic who left Cuba seven years ago. ““What’s left is the residue of the cold war. And we need to warm that up.’’ Rios does his share by showing a cycle of Cuban films at Metro-Dade Community College. At first, only a handful of people came to the screenings. Now, crowds line up hours in advance–and sometimes end up sitting in the aisles for a glimpse of life in their homeland.
This new hunger for connection is evident all over Miami. At Cafe Nostalgia, a nightclub opened three years ago by former Havana film festival director Jose (Pepe) Horta, old-timers in guayaberas and hip, young dialogueros come together to watch old black-and-white film clips and listen to the modern Cuban sounds of the house band. Young Cuban-American women like 20-year-old Flory Mendez, who has never visited Cuba, are gravitating to Afro-Cuban dance classes because, as Mendez says: ““I guess it’s in my blood.’’ There is also a boom in exile literature. ““When I first arrived in Miami [in 1991], book openings were lucky to draw three stray cats; now they are packed,’’ says award-winning writer DaIna Chaviano, whose latest novel centers on the descent of a young mother into prostitution. ““Our role is to serve as a bridge between Miami and Havana.''
That cultural bridge still has only a few lanes–and it often moves in only one direction. Most of the recent exile novels, with their unblinking portraits of Cuban reality, are banned in Havana. But many films, photographs and musical groups are moving back and forth. ““The taboo has been broken,’’ says Jose Tonito Rodriguez, a photographer who exhibits his work both in Havana and Miami. Last year, he formed an organization called the ““Bridge of Cuban Artists,’’ and it already has more than 500 members. ““I am more connected to Cuba every day,’’ says Rodriguez, 37, who came to Miami in 1980 and went back to photograph children as a way of explaining his childhood to his two sons. In Miami, where Rodriguez drives a ‘68 Mustang convertible, he used to turn down the volume when he listened to Havana-based artists like Silvio Rodriguez or Los Van Van. ““I didn’t want to offend anyone,’’ he says. ““But now I just crank it up–and nobody cares.’'
MUSIC IS CUBAN culture’s main currency, and these days it’s flowing from Havana to Miami so fast the old-guard protesters can’t keep up. The deluge began in earnest when salsa singer Isaac Delgado gave an impromptu concert last April in Miami Beach, filling the club simply on word of mouth. There have been more than a dozen concerts by other bands since then, including three shows in December by crowd favorite Paulito F.G. When Paulito got down on the stage and started grinding his hips during one call-and-response section, security guards had to fight to keep the women off the stage. Not everybody is thrilled about the concerts. Miguel Saavedra, an air-conditioning repairman who organizes protests at most of the shows, calls them ““a blatant tactic to earn money for the Cuban government.’’ He admits, however, that the enemy ““offensive’’ has gotten too strong for his aging troops, which include his 76-year-old father. ““Our people are getting a bit older,’’ he says. ““They can’t go out and protest every night.’’ Well, they better rest up: music promoter Hugo Cancio Jr. says he has 32 concerts already planned for 1999, including a Jan. 21 premiere for La Charanga Habanera.
What is driving this invasion? Cuba’s musicians have always dreamed of Miami as a kind of mystical venue that could reunite them with their people and with the most natural market for their albums. The musicians make no money on American tours, aside from the modest per diems, because U.S. law only allows them to come as part of a ““cultural exchange.’’ The pope’s visit and Mas Canosa’s death may have made the visits possible. But demand arises from recently arrived immigrants like Madelin Barrios, Cubans with fresh memories (and tapes) from the island, rather than nostalgia for a bygone land. Without them the Cuban salseros would have no core audience in Miami. But as it is, the concerts are delirious family reunions: the crowds know every lyric, every joke, every hip that goes with every hop. The musical quality, though usually quite good, is almost irrelevant. The shows are more about longing and belonging.
Nobody believes that Miami’s apertura will resolve the political impasse. But it may be the only thing that will ever help Cubans get past the trauma of the last 40 years. For Cubans, culture is not only infectious; it seems imprinted on their genetic memory. A lot of the people now showing up at these events are not recent immigrants, but the Miami-born sons and daughters of exiles, in quest of their roots. ““Young Cubans do not want to keep living with this hatred anymore,’’ says Cancio, the music promoter. ““They want to know what they’ve missed for the past 20 or 30 years.’’ Perhaps nothing will change politically so long as Castro is still in power. But by embracing their common culture and beginning the conversation, the young Cubans of Miami’s Generation n are making a worthy start.
