A Cuban Immigrant’s Year to Understand
HAVANA TIMES – A year has passed since I arrived in the United States of America. It feels like it was just yesterday.
I recall the afternoon of my arrival, the initial disorientation, and the entire path I’ve traveled over these twelve months in a foreign land.
Especially the last few months, which have been particularly difficult—facing the risk of deportation, like any immigrant.
I recently applied under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966 law passed by a mostly Democratic Congress and signed by a president of the same party.
I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. If I were a citizen, I might not even vote, but if I did, I would never vote for a Republican—and much less for someone as unpresentable as the current occupant of the White House.
Thanks to the Democrats, the Hispanic community—especially Cubans—has been able to thrive in this country. One should not be ungrateful.
Here, I’ve been able to see certain nuances of US policy toward Cuba that I never would have understood from the other shore.
If I suspected it before, I can now confirm it: the United States is not truly interested in the Cuba issue. It all comes down to electoral politics.
Politicians play with the exile community, which is mostly based in Florida, to secure votes, knowing that this state is one of the most crucial in deciding a president.
But above all, during this year, I’ve come to understand that some of those who claim to be part of the exile are just as despicable as those who oppress the Cuban people. They manipulate the cause of Cuban freedom to line their pockets. They play at being the opposition from behind a computer and a YouTube channel, purely for profit. They demand from their compatriots on the island what they themselves never did and would never dare to do.
I respect the exiles who survived assassinations and prison, those who risked everything for the ideal of a free and democratic Cuba, as well as those who stand up to the dictatorship from within the island. But these opportunists—never.