For the past year, I have been entrenched in thesis research on US-Cuba Policy, analyzing the embargo’s evolution from the perspective of the US presidency. (Before the haters slam that because of the US presidency angle, please note I was bound by fellowship guidelines to study the policy as it relates to the American presidency). As personally relevant as my work has been, it has also revealed incredibly unique insight into how American presidents could have handled the embargo, why certain events happened the way they did, and ultimately why a hard-line stance towards Cuba will not change any time soon. My hope was to author policy recommendations on how to end the embargo, which actually was easy enough. Instead, the difficulty came in writing something that rises above the Cuba fatigue on the Hill where we see no incentive to change, and a quagmire of hopelessness and despair for pro-normalization advocates like myself.

My path to finding the groundbreaking argument on normalization began with my research highlighting an incredible lack of attention paid to the Cuban perspective of the embargo. Please note, when I say Cuban perspective I mean academics and officials actually on the island, not Cuban-American politicians or the Calle Ocho scuttlebutt. Often in academia a balanced perspective on issues is difficult to find because of the inherent bias of any research we perform. When it comes to US-Cuba relations, this bias represents the limited and almost non-existent exchange of ideas that takes into account what Cubans on the island think. Such irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone, as an “exchange of ideas” is what the US government always harps on when slamming Cuba for their limited Internet access and state-run media. Although Harvard University does have a professorial exchange program with Cuba, finding actual Cuban research on the embargo is a road to nowhere. Instead, you’ll be left with newspaper and magazine articles from journalists who travel there, or field work from American PhD candidates.

The next idea was for me to find a way to mitigate the severe lack of forward thinking from my Cuban-American brothers and sisters on how we move forward. Historically, any discussion of constructive engagement of the Castro brothers is met with scorn, yet after over fifty years we see the same definition of insanity being read over and over again. I argue that if we want change to happen, we have got to stop demanding all the compromise in the world from everyone else and start respecting Cuba’s sovereignty. We rightfully slam Cuba for its lack of free elections, state controlled media, and deplorable human rights abuses. But any time Cuba has slammed the US for its race relations, inequitable education system, and flawed healthcare policy, we ignore them. This of course harks back to the Miami company line of zero tolerance when it comes to Castro, the extent of which most people probably aren’t aware of (the blacklisting of jobs and attacks on pro-normalization advocates are blogs for another day).

Indeed, it wasn’t easy as a progressive Cuban-American to dive into a subject I haven’t been able to escape since kindergarten and challenge the company line. But as always, a simple subscription to logic allowed me break the US-Cuba debate to its core, revealing one victim (Cubans on the island), a perennial policy failure (the embargo), and a competition between Washington and Havana to show who has the bigger ego. Bottom line, this isn’t working, and surprisingly the anti-Castro lobby isn’t the big hurdle in the argument. The hurdle is Congress, which holds the power to end the embargo through a law that states we either wait for a democratically elected government sans the Castro brothers. The alternative is for Congress to repeal its own law, not exactly a promising notion as long as the Cuban Three are in office.

Lastly, the final food for thought on this issue comes from the one interview I conducted, which was an unplanned, last minute dinner meeting with a former head of the US Interests Section in Havana (what can I say, the perks of guest speakers coming to Cornell). To sum up what was an outrageously informative and hilarious dinner conversation, Cuba hasn’t been a priority since the Reagan administration, when the US shot down Cuba’s attempts at dialogue, setting the Cuba debate back to the Kennedy era and pushing my interviewee to resign. During the Reagan years the anti-Castro lobby mobilized and became one of the most historically influential lobbies in Washington, and Miami’s political scene became Pre-Castro Cuba II. Since then, the most progressive policy changes we’ve seen towards Cuba have come from President Obama, extending a Cold War relic long beyond what should have been its expiration date. Unsurprisingly, the lack of incentive to change prevails.

The moral of the story is one I hope people understand: foreign policy change towards Cuba is not an American priority. Simply, there is no groundbreaking realization on how to create change. People know exactly what to do but refuse to step on the gas. So the Miami elite can kvetch all they want about how the Castro brothers refuse to die and about expanded US travel to the island, the reality is the Obama administration won’t take away their precious embargo. We need look no further than the baby steps the Obama administration has taken towards dialogue with Cuba, which unequivocally are on pace for “consideration of relations” after the 2012 election at best. And even then, if the embargo has taught us anything, it’s that hopeful promise with Cuba probably shouldn’t exist.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

The events in Egypt and Libya recently are enough to warm the hearts of activists and revolutionaries everywhere. They have sent news pundits and diplomats into a frenzy trying to predict how expansive the domino effect will be, with most eyes probably fixed on Iran in hopes for similar change. From a US-Cuba perspective, particularly the anti-Castro lobby, the dream scenario is undoubtedly for recent events to inspire grassroots organizing that results in a transition away from the Castro government. While this has been the hope for over fifty years, it is no more likely to happen now than at any time in the history of the Castro regime. Even with increased protests from Cuban journalists and activists in recent years, Fidel’s “revolution” is not in danger of ending.

The reasons for this are the same reasons we haven’t seen uprisings of any kind since Fidel Castro took over. It starts with how the Cuban government provides just enough goods and services to keep people content, with little incentive to challenge a system that makes it possible for someone to survive without working hard. Then there’s the Cuban-American community, promoting an anti-Castro agenda while sending family remittances and traveling to the island, all of which do nothing but pump money into the Cuban economy. Both are aided by a state-controlled media that never approaches a critical analysis of Cuba’s shortcomings, with dissenting voices being silenced. Throw in limited Internet access, with few Cubans having a computer and the ones that do being subjected to severely restricted Internet, and you get the recipe for groupthink.

But the most important reason a revolution won’t happen is because it’s just too easy for people to leave than stay and fight for change. Make no mistake: it’s entirely possible to leave Cuba. With America’s favorable refugee policy, most Cubans only need the ambition to acquire the funds to pay for their way off the island. Like most things in life, it boils down to who you know and how you can manipulate the situation in your favor. Therefore, when an exit door sits in front of an entire populace, combined with state provision of a minimum standard of care, dependence on the government for everything becomes the norm, with any incentive to fight at best manifesting itself in a desire to leave. Simply, Cubans stay, or Cubans go. There is no middle ground.

Thus, if Cubans want a change, all they have to do is leave, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for decades. This in no small way has contributed to what is now a relatively small population in Cuba that is more than accustomed to the Castro way of life. The only problem is when government provision of everything becomes unsustainable, which we’re now starting to see in Cuba, as evidenced by recent policy changes towards a competitive (albeit minimally) marketplace to try and cover costs. The changes are a necessary step to keep Cuban workers content, with many favorably benefiting from the ability to tap into the tourism industry and improve their quality of life. Which is another example of what might be the ultimate legacy of the Castro government: knowing exactly what to do and when to do it to keep the populace at bay. The recent changes in Cuba’s domestic policy highlight a governmental paradigm shift, charting a course towards a free-market system that includes increased competition and individual business opportunity, not exactly the basic tenets of socialism. These amendments will surely help sway the doubters, with the remaining dissenting voices being silenced in the process. Bottom line, there just isn’t room for a revolution to end the revolution. Yet anti-Castro advocates everywhere will cling to the hope a page is taken from the book of the Middle East, which will again leave them dreaming.

Ultimately, we’ll see change in Cuba when the Castro brothers pass away. It’s as simple as that. Inherent in all of this is the undeniable brilliance of Fidel Castro, who managed to stay in power in a region when Latin American political leadership was a revolving door. Regardless of the legality and ethics of his tactics that perpetuated his regime (single-party elections and the lack of free press sure do make it hard to vote for change), he managed to do the unthinkable. While I certainly hope all of my thoughts regarding this are wrong, it just doesn’t seem likely, especially with Cuba no longer being an American priority. The Castro brothers know how to adjust policy to keep their citizenry in check, with enough changes in recent years to calm the masses despite the continued rollback of state aid. Combined with Cuba’s recent release of political prisoners (the majority of whom were the core of the island’s anti-Castro voice) who have since been granted exit visas to seek asylum abroad, the Castro government continues to do just enough to stay alive.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

As the new Congress gets to work, they’re faced with a daunting task that to date has defined the Obama Administration: repairing the economy. The 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath constituted a perfect storm, highlighting everything that is financially flawed with this country: consumer debt, materialistic tendencies, lax government accountability, corporate greed, and wasteful spending in Washington. The latter is my favorite, mostly because bills are often passed with fiscal notes that no one reads, yet we always hear politicians claim they’re going to take office and remove wasteful spending. Since the solution of slicing a defense budget (which is more than the combined defense budget expenditures of the next twenty-seven countries with the highest defense budgets after America) is not politically sexy, I propose the following: abolish Radio & TV Martí.

I imagine the majority of my readers are now pausing and asking, “what the hell is that?” This is a legitimate question, because Radio and TV Martí are not well known outside of Miami, peripheral members of the Cuban-American community, and US-Cuba embargo academics, which means: US-Cuba history lesson time! Briefly, Radio and TV Martí were designed to counter the “Cuban” media perspective by providing alternative broadcasts to Cuban TV and radio. Their studios are based out of Miami, and they largely employ Cuban-Americans. Initially, different mediums such as news broadcasts and talk shows were employed by the radio version, with the TV version transitioning to soap operas and entertainment programming as well. Unfortunately, the significance of these programs rests in their continued existence despite the Cuban government blocking their signals, rendering them ineffective.

To put this into perspective financially, consider the following: In 1990, TV Martí was launched with a $16 million appropriation from Congress. By 2007, American taxpayers contributed over $500 million in taxes to Radio and TV Martí’s broadcasts, which barely anyone can hear or see. Thus, these two taxpayer-funded initiatives are a) not meeting their mission statements b) wasting American dollars and c) shiny tools in the Castro “blame el bloqueo for all of our ills” toolbox.  So, we’re asking people to retire later, social security will probably not be around by the time my generation is eligible for it, and unemployment is still high, but we must fund the anti-Castro movement! Even though it doesn’t reach Cuban soil. Ladies and gentlemen, that is American democracy at its finest.

For those wondering how this happened in the first place, the simple answer is Ronald Reagan. After his election, he tapped into the anti-communist element of the Cuban-American community in Miami by tightening restrictions against Cuba and establishing a financial and political partnership with the Cuban-American elite. This laid the groundwork for the Cuban-American electorate to rise to prominence, with Radio Martí being one of their first projects. Eventually, the electorate lobbied for and got its television counterpart, with both existing to this day via federal dollars. While the value of Radio and TV Martí was arguable during the Cold War, its existence holds no merit today.  Simply stated, we’re funding a program to reach the island and counter the Cuban media that does not even reach the island to counter the Cuban media. Such waste has come to define our perception of Washington, Wall Street, and everything financial in this country. If Radio and TV Martí are any indication of Washington’s true fiscal landscape, we’re in more trouble than we thought.

Now, abolishing these programs will result in a backlash from the Cuban-American electorate, especially if only one party pushes for it. But removing wasteful spending given these circumstances (a federal program that truly is ineffective) should be able to garner bi-partisan support and should be popular among Americans. Further, abolishing the programs would represent a step in the right direction in terms of normalizing relations with Cuba. Nevertheless, the utter ridiculousness and stupidity of these programs represents more fiscal mismanagement that probably should not surprise anyone, meaning we need to start demanding the accountability that we clearly lack. In closing, if it makes anyone feel better, the Castro government continues to refuse to cash our  $4,085 rent checks for Guantanamo (the lease rate during 1959 on the property) solely because they hate us. This gives the US a whopping $2,451,000 in savings over the lifetime of the Cuban revolution (not counting 1959 when Cuba “accidentally” cashed one of our rent checks). I guess we’re not the only ones flushing money down the toilet.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

To the Cuban Three:

As members of the United States Congress, you are the three most powerful Cuban-Americans in the country. As such, I write to make a humble request of an elected official from my state (Senator Menendez) and two other officials who have the power to be change agents. To Senator-elect Marco Rubio, felicidades on your recent election victory. Please have the courage to end the US-Cuba embargo. To Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, felicidades on your pending rise to Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Please have the courage to end the US-Cuba embargo. And to Senator Robert Menendez, felicidades on not having been recalled from office by the Tea Party. Please have the courage to end the US-Cuba embargo.

As the last remnant of the Cold War, el bloqueo has prevented family reunification for decades, including my own. Its quest to remove Fidel Castro from power and bring democracy to Cuba has not only failed, but it has served as a rallying cry for a government that refuses to look itself in the mirror. One need look no further than the propaganda that lines every street corner and fills every billboard on the island to know we’re painted as scapegoats. Keeping the embargo allows the Cuban government to blame its ills on the United States, never reflecting on its own policy failures. And it is this inability to reflect inwardly that inspires this letter, as our own community is guilty of the same failure.

We reside in the most powerful country in the world, playing chicken with a dictator who won’t blink. He has proven this time and again, and yet we continue to support an ineffective policy that does more harm than good. We have formed one of the most powerful ethnic lobbies in this country, and use our clout to support a policy that in fifty years has done nothing more than fuel the fire of a narcissist. In so doing, our community’s leaders have chastised those who refuse to toe the company line, labeling anyone who challenges the status quo a traitor while suppressing their views. This does not exactly scream democracy or freedom of speech, the very pillars that our country rests upon that we criticize Castro for destroying. As politicians, you know the recent polls show the shifts in favor of normalizing relations with the island among Cubans of my generation. We choose to be progressive while risking discord with our own families, and even you. Regardless of whether our views are accepted or not, we have the courage to look inward. Thus, as we approach the fifty-first anniversary of economic sanctions against the island, I implore you three to look inward!

For years, we have blamed the Castro government for not addressing its own shortcomings. During that time, the well-funded and well-organized Cuban-American lobby has lined the coffers of politicians with money to continue the embargo until Castro dies. While there are fewer years ahead than there are behind in the Castro regime, this strategy has failed. We have failed. At the heart of this failure is our inability to move beyond the fact that we could not remove Castro from office. It is our community’s black eye, and one that won’t be removed for generations. But as the three most powerful Cuban-Americans in the country, you have the ability to push forward legislation that would end the embargo and end our failure. All I ask is that you have the courage to do so.

In closing, I would be remiss not to mention that I supported the embargo as a young child, because that was all I knew. As I have grown older, seen a lack of progress and traveled to the island myself, I have witnessed firsthand where the Castro government comes up short and how they escape total accountability. For that reason, I ask that you have the courage to move beyond Cold War politics and consider a progressive policy change. Only then can the people of Cuba truly see how their government wrongs them, and only then can we take steps to improve the quality of life for our struggling families trapped on the island. Each of you is on record as rejecting my view, but I hope you have the courage to change.

Sincerely,

Matthew Stieglitz

Photo Credit: Matthew Stieglitz, photo of the US Interests Section in Havana, Cuba

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communications from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

Once exiles begin to take up residence in the new country they invariably manifest symptoms of Machiavelli’s sixteenth century observation on exiles. While speaking to the Prince, Machiavelli often cited the passage below:

From Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 31:

“It ought to be considered, therefore, how vain are the faith and promises of those who find themselves deprived of their country. For, as to their faith, it has to be borne in mind that anytime they can return to their country by other means than yours, they will leave you and look to the other, notwithstanding whatever promises they had made you. As to their vain hopes and promises, such is the extreme desire in them to return home, that they naturally believe many things that are false and add many others by art, so that between those they believe and those they say they believe, they fill you with hope, so that relying on them you will incur expenses in vain, or you undertake an enterprise in which you ruin yourself….. A Prince, therefore, ought to go slowly in undertaking an enterprise upon the representations of an exile, for most of the times he will be left either with shame or very grave injury.”

Examples of exiles intervening in our foreign policy include the Cuban exiles who started arriving in the early 1960s and began to take measures to have their host, the USA, take action to help recover their homeland. Prior to the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Mexican exiles sought to influence US public opinion and policy during the long Porfirio Diaz reign (1876-1911) and in the chaotic revolutionary period (1910-1920). They eagerly worked to organize and gain approval to topple the Porfiriato or the succeeding revolutionary regimes. A small Nicaraguan exile group appeared in the US during the 1980s, with limited but highly effective influence decrying the Soviet support of the Sandinista takeover of their homeland.

The Cuban exile community, which came in sizable numbers fleeing ‘communist’ Cuba, became a virtually permanent fixture in the American body politic. They incessantly sought countless ways to influence US policy to generate a ‘regime change’ in Cuba. The fact is in time the Cuban exiles became successful not in toppling Fidel Castro but in influencing US Presidential elections. The luck of these exiles settling primarily in Florida a ‘swing state’ in Presidential electoral politics resulted in an out-of-proportion influence. Since 1980, Florida has gone with every Presidential winner. This fact has allowed the Cuban exile community to cleverly claim credit for winning. Hence, US foreign policy toward Cuba has virtually become a ‘domestic’ or South Florida policy.

The new right-wing exile group beginning to be felt in our country’s politics is the wealthy and educated Venezuelan community fleeing the Chavista regime. Most appear to be settling in South Florida alongside many Cuban exiles. It seems only natural, that recently this new exile group borrowed a page from the Cuban exile playbook. The prominent Venezuelan exile leadership began to subtly suggest and insinuate itself into the sympathetic Republican Congressional staff.

When the new US Ambassador nominee to Venezuela, Larry Palmer, recently appeared before the US Senate for confirmation hearings it was widely and correctly expected that a discussion of the anti-American Hugo Chavez regime would come under fire. The Venezuelan exiles cleverly manipulated the whole process with the goal of inflaming US-Venezuelan relations to the ends of not sending a US ambassadorial envoy to Chavez. They were able to persuade, convince or enlist a key Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staffer working for the Minority Ranking Member. Apparently, after the hearing but just before the Senate’s Committee Business Meeting was to vote out Palmer onto the floor for final vote for confirmation of his nomination as US Ambassador to Venezuela, he adroitly submitted several additional questions. At that point, the State Department’s Venezuela Desk crafted bluntly honest and unusually provocative responses to the rather pointed questions on the Chavez regime’s misconduct. The answers were appropriately cleared and unwittingly approved by State Department’s bureaucratic mattress mice. Palmer also casually approved, most likely thinking the answers would help getting him from under the Republicans’ stare.  However, one wonders if he considered that upon receiving the written answers, the staffer would go on to eagerly post them on the Senator’s (Lugar) website for the world to see. Subsequently, the staffer reportedly had Palmer’s name removed from the previously approved business meeting agenda where the final vote on his nomination was scheduled to take place. Hence, he ensured a delay of his confirmation. But the final step, in the hoped-for sequence, occurred when Chavez harrumphed and subsequently declared Palmer non-acceptable (withdrawing or countermanding his prior agrèment or approval by the Venezuelan government). As a result of the exiles skillful manipulation of the process, the Palmer nomination to Venezuela has been effectively scuttled. And even better, Chavez takes the hit for torpedoing Palmer’s nomination and US-Venezuelan relations are facing a nadir. One wonders if Friday’s editorial in the premier daily, the Washington Post calling on the US not to send an Ambassador to Caracas isn’t also part of the exiles campaign.

Unfortunately, The Obama Administration foreign policy-makers simply demonstrate scant diplomatic or political savvy to counter or even detect such Machiavellian capers. Latin exiles have once again masterfully proven their skillful reading and manipulation of US policy. The Obama/Clinton entourage should read carefully what the master political cynic of the 16th century wisely appreciated. “A Prince, therefore, ought to go slowly in undertaking an enterprise upon the representations of an exile, for most of the times he will be left either with shame or very grave injury.” If the GOP takes over Congress this fall, the encouraged and devious exiles will be difficult to contain.

Since 1992 and the fall of the Soviet Union, US policy toward Latin America has been generally ‘insufficient’ or one of ‘benign neglect’.  In fact, many observers have concluded that both the Clinton and W. Bush administrations basically handed the lead on Latin policy to the Cuban American lobby in order to secure Florida, a swing state in the Presidential elections. The Summitry Process began by Clinton which some critics considered an every four year photo op and not much more. It did have two substantive themes: a hemispheric free trade area and strongly endorsing democracy by pointing out that Cuba was the only non-democratic country in the region.

After 9/11, Latin America was readily served up and all but forgotten so it seemed. At first, the Bush Administration catered to the fiercely anti-Castro sector which had strongly voted for him. In W’s second term, the policy was pretty much given to the bureaucracy to manage and handle. This disappointed many hardliners. The objective evolved to keep the region’s problems from distracting Secretary Rice from more serious and important areas of concern. The designated hitter for Latin Policy became a fourth level bureaucrat, an Assistant Secretary was left to fend for himself without much visible top cover. Obama reached the White House and Hillary Clinton was ensconced as Secretary of State after having successfully blocked Bill Richardson from the job. Admittedly, Gov. Richardson was in the midst of a brewing scandal in New Mexico. Several political and media wags noted that all the key Latin foreign policy slots have been given to Latinos. These included Dan Restrepo at the NSC, Arturo Valenzuela at State, Frank Mora at Defense and Carmen Lomellin as Ambassador to OAS. This has been applauded notably by the Latino constituency groups. The issue has become now one of policy. Does the Obama administration care about the Latin American region? Where does it stack up? The fact is that the region once again finds itself vis-a-vis the US on the back-burner. It is not on the cutting edge of foreign policy. Yet early on Obama found himself in a tussle on two issues: Cuba and Chavez.

When Obama attended the Summit of the Americas meeting in the spring in Trinidad Tobago, he ran into unexpected or unscripted situations: is the US now ready to re-admit Cuba to the OAS? The vast majority of the Hemisphere’s countries were angling to get Cuba back into the OAS. The Obama team seemed surprised and almost unprepared for this challenge. The other one was how to deal with Chavez. Obama showed class and engaged Chavez briefly but certainly in awkward photo ops. The Cuba question dogged Hillary in the June OAS ministerial in Honduras. At the eleventh hour the Obama team was able to scramble and cobble a mutually acceptable communiqué that did not re-admit Cuba but addressed the irregularity of Cuba being absent from the OAS family. Some labeled the new Administration’s performance “Bush Light.” At the same time the US Mexico relationship was steadily moving forward. Obama revealed his support of Plan Merida to enable Mexico to better take on the drug cartels which have created enormous instability. But the funding for Merida was largely held up because of bureaucratic lack of clarity and other requirements. The other US Mexico challenge is undocumented immigration. No political bravery has emanated from the White House to wrangle with this most sensitive political public policy issue. In fact, no one is able now to predict if immigration reform will be an agenda item in the first two years of the Administration. So far it seems like the Democrats have concluded that the immigration reform bill is a lose-lose situation. The post 9/11 anti-terrorist sentiment coupled with the global economic downturn has inflicted pain on the US body politic. The US public has become more reluctant if not hostile to new immigration flows. This has plainly put a crimp into Obama team’s outlook. The continuation of building the border wall and draconian Homeland Security illegal-immigrant raids on job sites have not been seen sympathetically in Latin America and among Latino audiences in this country.

The more defining moment for the Obama Administration has been the on-going Honduras ‘golpe’ or coup crisis. The Obama team initially sided with the ousted President Zelaya and declared that the sacred principles of democracy had to be adhered and respected. Hence, Zelaya’s restoration to power became the battle cry for US interests in the initial months. Five months later the Obama administration is backtracking on the defense of democratic principles. The Administration appears to have tired of the Honduran crisis. The de facto regime in Honduras dug in and used PR and propaganda cleverly. More interesting seemed to be the Administration’s inability to persuade the defacto regime to cede power. Honduras is small with no political influence, no economic power nor military might — only diplomacy is in its arsenal. The US having all these options thinks in exhausting the first three before employing diplomacy. Hence, the Hondurans readily resorted to the old small country approach to concerns: use diplomacy but follow the rules of not speaking first, do not get angry and finally if unable to resolve favorably the problem then tangle it more. In using these tactics, Honduras wore out the US. The Obama administration slowly began to show  impatience and wariness. They saw Honduras as a small pesky country becoming increasingly more annoying and troublesome on the international stage.

Finally, the US after having declared itself initially pro-restoration of Zelaya and passing the problem to the OAS and Nobel Laureate President Arias of Costa Rica to resolve saw itself being drawn back into the fray. The contentious process dragged out in the discussion of whether the ouster of the Honduran President was legal or not. It attracted Republican die-hearts who defended the coup (because of the Chavista factor against Zelaya) while the Administration and the whole international community condemned the coup as anti-democratic. Obama’s team began to see themselves politically caught between a rock and a hard place: do we support and restore a Chavista (enemy of the US ) while defending democracy? After five months, Secretary of State Clinton and her Assistant Secretary for Latin America (who was being denied confirmation as Ambassador to Brazil by the Republicans) sought to cut a deal and injected themselves finally into the process to basically extricate themselves from this tar-baby. This required an about face or a betrayal of the previous US position. This has now become most troubling in Latin America to see the young dynamic US Administration as less than gracious in this process. In fact, many pundits in and outside the US are remarking or noting that the Administration not only demonstrated confusion or ineptitude or at best a maladroit approach, but callously left most of the OAS membership holding the bag.

To shore up support and bring someone high-level from the US Administration, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was chosen to be the senior US participant in a so-called Verification Commission to secure the recent signed accords now being hailed as the final solution. Solis, practically unwitting or unfamiliar with the situation, was carefully choreographed by the State Department to ensure that she would stick to the diplomatic script and not become a freelancer. Hilda had been initially hailed as the most liberal member of the Obama cabinet but by the time she left Tegucigalpa she was seen as apologist for the defacto ‘golpista’ government. She now takes the hit, not Hillary. Rather clever and cynical maneuvering it was indeed. As soon as Tom Shannon, the State Department’s overseer of this whole show announced that the Hondurans no longer had to restore Zelaya to get international recognition of the upcoming elections, the defacto government felt it was off the hook and home free.  The Brazilians, who are housing Zelaya in their Embassy and waiting for his restoration, feel the US has behaved at best negligently and indifferent. The problem could have been avoided or minimize by having initially forceful high-level US leadership on the issue. The OAS  had its Secretary General and all the countries in the region had their Presidents or Prime Minister through their Foreign Ministers decry this US perfidy. The US has had a fourth-rung bureaucrat (the Assistant Secretary) in the lead.  Obama’s team failed to recognized from the beginning the limitations of the State Department if not given top White House cover. Moreover, in handing over the volatile issue in this case to the bureaucracy, it plainly did not understand that ‘diplomats seek the path of least resistance, they believe in nothing and everything to everyone’ and as bureaucrats they adhere to: never get between a bureaucrat and his/her ambitions. They mow you down….the additional factor is that while the US behaved like a world power during the Cold War: it basically ordered everyone except the Soviets to do its bidding. In Spanish it was referred to as the ‘dedazo’…now in the post Cold War-era even the tiny insignificant powers have begun to lose their fear of the US. Yet this muddle and lack of focus produce the image of a Gulliver with Lilliputians throwing ropes over his back to bring him down. The US Latino community regardless of partisan bias will feel that if this is all the Obama Administration can provide in terms of moral leadership and support for democratic ideals and most of all the lack of consistency in policy toward Latin America then a closer  look at the expectations must be undertaken. Disappointment is the only word to describe the first real test of fortitude, skill and determination in dealing with Latin America. Arturo Valenzuela the new Assistant Secretary will now have to rectify, re-define as well as need to provide the real Obama vision of the region.

Different Mexican Administrations since President Echeverria in the 1970s have openly sought to court the ‘Mexicans Abroad’ and the longer established US residents and citizens of Mexican heritage in the US. Plainly, the driving motive has been to create a pro-Mexico constituency in the US.

This idea is certainly not alien to the US political landscape. Ethnic lobbies have abounded in the US since before the Civil War. Besides the English and the Scott–Irish, the Germans in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania were the only other European population living in the original colonies that made up the US, along with thousands of slaves and Native American tribes. So, it was in the 1840s that the great European migration to the US began with the Irish and several of other nationalities. Many came from Middle Europe including Poles, Austrians, Czech, Slovaks and Hungarians. Scandinavians and southern Europeans also began to arrive. Southern Europeans, such as Italians and Greeks, continued to migrate to the US throughout the rest of the 1800s and into the 1900s. Several of these groups formed ethnic societies and organizations reflecting their country of origin; most were initially formed around their churches and religious affiliation. Some developed into political organizations representing the ethnic group’s domestic political agenda within the US political process. These groups often sided with their country of origin’s squabbles or conflicts in Europe. Financial aid and political support were usually forthcoming from the expatriate populations living in the US. Ireland, which did not achieve independence from Britain until 1921, had scores of Irish American groups openly supporting the independence struggle against the English occupation and repression. Financial assistance to the insurgent groups back home was one example of the expatriate’s support. As soon as the Irish Americans were politically enfranchised to vote in the US they began to ‘lobby’ the US government and public for support for Ireland’s cause. This political effort lasted late into the 1900s with the support for the IRA in Northern Ireland. In the late 1800s, the Italian-Americans clamored for political support of Italian unification and recognition of Italy. Later the Italian American groups became more domestic focused and ceased to seek political support for the political process or government of Italy. With time, these movements became mostly cultural affinity groups centered on the Catholic Churches in the old Italian urban areas of the US. 

By the latter half of the 1900s, the most significant ethnic lobbies included:  the Jewish groups helping Holocaust survivors and other humanitarian needs. The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) emerged during this period as part of the pro-Israel Lobby to galvanize support in the US for the survival of the State of Israel. The motivation here is that Israel has continuously been under ‘siege’ by its Middle East neighbors. AIPAC is generally agreed to be the best financed and most influential ethnic lobbying effort in the US. The China Lobby existed prominently in the 1950s composed by a mix of prominent Chinese exiles from Communist China and influential Americans seeking to restore the old guard of Chang Kai Chek who had been displaced in 1949 by the Communist victory led by Mao Tse Tung. The fall of China to Communism was a rallying call for this lobby. These lobbying efforts also engendered an odious internal political witch hunt in the US known as McCarthyism. However, when Nixon went to China in 1972, the remnants of this lobby had ceased to exist. The Armenian-Americans’ lobbying group appears to advocate primarily support against anything that benefits Turkey. The Turks’ slaughter of millions of Armenians in the early 1900s is the driving force behind this lobby. The Greek lobby, one of the best funded groups, seeks also to deny Turkey any positive political benefit from the US. On the Cyprus division between Turks and Greeks, this lobby readily obtains effective support for the Greek Cypriots. The remarkable aspect of this lobby is the rather small number of Greek Americans (less than one million). Still another lobby, the Tibet, is primarily focused on the restoration of the Dalai Lama to his religious supremacy in Tibet, as well as liberating Tibet from Communist China. This lobby is made up of a few Tibetans but many American followers of the Dalai Lama.

The only Latin American group to have established an effective lobby in the US has been the Cuban Americans. Yet, their numbers are quite small in comparison to Mexican Americans. There are about 1.3 million Cubans in the US as opposed to 28 million Mexican Americans (out of 45 million Latinos). The reasons for the Cuban Americans’ success in organizing are varied. They fled a Communist take over of Cuba during the height of the Cold War. Hence, they were readily embraced by the US, especially among the politically conservative movement. The Cuban Americans have behaved politically like an ‘exile’ or ‘irredentist’ group, not as a traditional immigrant group. The driving force for the Cuban émigrés has been liberating Cuba from the Communist Castro regime. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) became the most effective vehicle for keeping the heat on Castro’s Cuba. The late Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Foundation was readily recognized by many pundits, political groups, senior government employees, and members of Congress as the most effective and successful Latino power broker in the 80’s and 90’s. No other Latino group has produced such a leader. When he visited Washington the white establishment of both parties eagerly sought him out. It was humorously described in Miami that CANF was the inverse of the AIPAC: it bought Republicans and rented Democrats. Mas Canosa reportedly noted that he wanted his Foundation to be as effective as the Israeli lobby. He reportedly admitted that he had hired two lawyers who helped the AIPAC to set up the CANF. Though their numbers were small overall, The Foundation delivered bloc votes in a key Presidential swing state, Florida, and raised significant amounts of money for politicians of both parties. The hard-fought 2000 election contest between Gore and W. Bush was the most critical. The Cuban Americans laid claim to the victory. The Cuban Americans have traditionally voted in-block for the GOP, but enough voted for Clinton and Obama to help swing a Florida victory for each of them. Hence, the strength of the Cuban American lobby has been to deliver a vital swing state in hotly contested Presidential elections. When both Clinton and Obama won the Presidency, the Cuban American Foundation in an almost bi-partisan way appears to have tilted to the winner. In 1992, it tacked to Clinton’s side and even more egregious in 1994 from a GOP point of view it backed the Democratic incumbent Governor of Florida Lawton Chiles’ successful re-election campaign against Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush’s brother. By 1998 when Governor Jeb Bush came to power, Mas Canosa had disappeared as leader because of an untimely death in 1997. The Foundation fractured and weakened with Jeb’s and GOP Congressman Cuban American Lincoln Diaz Balart’s influence. Since then, the political strength of the Cuban Americans in both domestic and foreign policy is beginning to wane.

Mexico’s attempts to help foster a Mexican American interest group or lobby in the US have met with disappointment by and large. First, any attempt to emulate the Cuban or Israeli lobby is not doable because Mexico is neither under ‘siege’ like Israel nor a ‘captive’ nation like Cuba. Yet Mexico’s current plight with organized crime and its enormous threat to the stability and well-being of the country is perhaps a good reason to explore the possibility of engaging the Mexican Americans. However, to galvanize Mexican Americans around a Mexico cause would be a monumental task.

The variety of US citizens and residents of Mexican descent makes this goal particularly onerous. The oldest established Mexican Americans are divided into those whose ancestors were here before the gringo conquest of 1848 (Tejanos, Californios and Hispanos from New Mexico and Colorado) along with those whose grand or great-grandparents came during the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). A second group came primarily in the 1940s during WWII up through the 1960s. The third group began arriving in massive numbers from the 1970s to the present. The members of the first group have largely assimilated into US society and speak English primarily. Those that belong to the second group are considered to be in transition but fairly assimilated. Whereas the more recent arrivals are less integrated and do not fully participate in the US political process. Clearly, the bounds keeping the Mexican American population’s identity together are tangled in history, language, ethnicity, religion, folklore, cuisine, music and the arts as well as being able to trace national origin to Mexico.

The descendants of many in the first group and some from the second spawned the social-civil–political activism of the 1960s and 70s called the “Chicano” movement. These Chicanos, self-identified as such, after concluding that they neither belonged to the dominant gringo culture nor to the prevailing culture of Mexico. They felt alienated by the Anglo-American ethno-centric society and the inability to relate to the country of origin of their ancestors. However, recently arrived Mexicans do not regard themselves as Chicanos but refer to the older established ones as Chicanos. Increasingly, these newer arrivals are becoming the majority.

The first two groups are the ones that are overwhelmingly US citizens and have potential political power at the ballot box. Recent studies suggest that well over twenty million Hispanics are eligible to vote, but only about 12 to 13 million are registered and well under ten million vote. These figures include all Latinos not just Mexicans. Latinos of Mexican descent comprise about 28 million of the 45 million Latinos in the US. Mexico’s political leadership in recent years has sought to reach out to the ‘brothers’ living in the north. Echeverria’s presidency openly courted the Chicano or La Raza Unida insurgent types of the 1970s. Up to this time only established Mexican American politicians like Henry B Gonzalez, Ed Roybal and Kika de La Garza had been recognized and invited to Mexico to be honored. Later, Raul Yzaguirre of the National Council of La Raza was honored as was Henry Cisneros and numerous other ‘prominent sons of Mexico’ living in the US.

Organizing a lobby-force Mexican American group that can influence the US public and the US Congress and other movers and shakers to favor or be sympathetic to Mexico’s agenda has been illusive. This would yield a more sympathetic Congressional Hispanic Caucus and more of Mexico’s agenda in the Latino advocacy groups’ efforts The recent contentious issue of immigration along with the vast numbers of undocumented Mexican citizens residing in the US has revived Mexico’s interest in helping foster pro-Mexico groups or entities in the US. Nonetheless, Mexico must be extra careful not to antagonize the American public at large by seeming to recruit Mexican Americans in a disloyal way. This will avoid a US backlash and minimize the sentiment against the lawlessness of illegal entry into the US from becoming an anti-Latino or anti Mexican expression. Moreover, the lack of passion among the targeted groups of Mexican descent derives from the fact that the Mexican political and judicial systems are largely held in contempt or disdain by these recent Mexican immigrants, as well as among the older established groups.  Mexico is largely viewed as ‘corrupt’ or ‘inept’ or ‘insensitive to its poor masses’. Moreover, many of the US Mexican descent groups feel ‘dismissed’ or ‘disdained’ by an elitist attitude detected among many in Mexico. The use of the pejorative ‘Pocho’ describes a Mexican who has abandoned the patria (the Homeland) for el Norte and no longer holds any loyalty to Mexico. This is an example of the divisiveness that exists between those who remain in Mexico and those of Mexican descent who now reside in the US. Furthermore, Mexican Americans feel that Mexico’s elite manifests gratuitous contempt in class and racial terms. In Mexico, the derogatory word “Naco” is used to describe a fellow Mexican (usually with apparent mixed white and Indian ancestry) as socially inferior. The connotation is that he or she is attempting to behave more ‘cultured’ (white) but invariably betrays his origins. Too often this word is used to describe Mexican Americans. This further undermines the less than successful attempts by Mexico to garner support in the US among its émigré population.

Yet, in many parts of the US, especially in the Chicago area, Mexico has enjoyed success in promoting links between the Mexicans abroad and their former local municipalities or states in Mexico by having people-to-people exchanges, promoting investment in the Mexican municipalities or states’ development opportunities. Many Mexican Americans were exceptionally proud to see Mexico respond with direct assistance to the Americans affected by Hurricane Katrina. Sports exchanges and Spanish language television have also helped preserve cultural links with Mexico. Mariachi music, norteño music contests, salsa replacing ketchup, art exhibits, Mexican cuisine and Corona beer have all helped improve the cultural cohesiveness in the Mexican descent community abroad.

Mexico‘s efforts to reach out to the ‘Mexicans abroad’ and those of Mexican ancestry must be approached primarily through cultural endeavors like art, music, literature, folklore studies, language, historical writings, tourism  and perhaps best of all through Mexican cuisine. Any attempt to promote political interest or support of the Mexican government will be Sisyphean. The Italian American experience should be studied as an effective example. The influential National Italian American Foundation promotes and extols the history, music, cuisine, language and general culture of Italy. It annually celebrates Cristofo Colombo day in October with a large gala event honoring all successful Italian Americans in film, music, sports, business, journalism, academia, medicine, law, politics, government and the military. The US President, his Cabinet members and scores of Congressional members, usually attend. The Italian government is always present and additionally helps to promote Italian culture and language through its Casa Dante cultural centers found in large metropolitan areas.

Mexico, as the most populous Spanish speaking country in the world, comprises the largest portion of the Hispanic population in the US. Moreover, its close proximity to the US and its NAFTA partnership nurtures an ever-growing relationship with the US. Yet, Mexico must carefully formulate a plan or strategy to reach the Mexican Americans in a more effective manner. The treatment of the immigration conundrum in the US and the building of ‘the fence’ along the border will become key issues that could engender as note above, either friction or closeness between the two countries. Mexico has ample opportunity to appeal to the Mexican Americans by approaching them as an equals and convincing these ‘Mexicans Abroad’ to help ameliorate the potential conflicts that arise between the two countries. But it must be a truly Mexican effort without the unrealistic expectation to become either an Israeli American lobby or even a Cuban American Foundation. Mexico stands to gain influence in the US political discourse, but it must first attract the cooperation and understanding of the large Mexican American community. Some of the more positive outcomes will be a more internationally aware Congressional Hispanic Caucus and more educated Latino advocacy groups.

Hillary Clinton supports the embargo and the status quo policy with Cuba, while John McCain is not in favor with diplomatic engagement with Raul Castro, the current president. The Clinton and McCain position is more similar, while Obama wants to keep the embargo, but favors lifting it if political prisoners are released. Obama also wants to ease travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans, allowing them to return to the island to visit family members. I think that Obama’s position of wanting to negotiate with the Cuban government is a more reasonable approach instead of taking a stand off-ish position of not even trying to ask for some of the things we would like to see. Let’s let both countries come to the table. In recent years, Cuba has offered to assist to Hurricane Katrina victims and most recently has helped out with earthquake victims in China. Cuba has had more normal relations with the rest of Latin America, why should we continue an old tired policy that isn’t even helpful to our Cuban-American brothers and sisters here in the US?

Despite an economic embargo and widespread oppression, Castro has managed to create a highly literate Cuban populace and a universal health care system utilizing the natural resources on the island such as herbs and plants.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in Cuba over the next few months.