MIAMI, FLORIDA---With the race completed, it is clear that Cuban Americans influenced the balance of the South Florida Presidential election, tipping the scales more in favor of John McCain. But that impact was a reflection of a generational chasm between two groups of people: those who orient their focus toward events of the past, vs. those who face their vision squarely toward the future. While a sizable group of older, more conservative Cuban Americans supported the candidacy of John McCain, a steadily growing group of younger Barack Obama supporters were the children and grandchildren of 1960s emigrants from the island nation. These Cuban American Floridians were either born in the United States or immigrated as young children with their parents. They were educated in the US, in Florida or New York, and they embrace their cultural identity as Cuban Americans, not as Cuban emigres.
Julio gathers more signs to distribute in Little Havana
A few days before the election, Julio, a “Super Volunteer” for the Florida for Change campaign raised in a mixed neighborhood of New York City, summed up the situation this way: “All the Cubans I know, even if they don’t speak English, they all know to vote for Obama. All the Cubans my age and younger are voting for Obama. I drive all over Miami (in an Obama-decorated car) and people just honk their horns at me! It’s amazing! A police officer pulled me over. I was so nervous; I thought, ‘Wow, I hope I didn’t do anything wrong!’ He said, ‘Hey, where did you get your (Obama) flags?’ I couldn’t believe it! I’ve never felt this way since Jack Kennedy. When I saw him speak at the 2004 Convention, I felt this was like someone I had seen before: John F. Kennedy.”
This feeling is shared by many, not just in the immigrant community. But, among older Cuban Americans, instead of having an endearing effect, the comparisons with Kennedy have the opposite effect. They only alienate a distinct population with a historical gripe to settle.
According to Cuban American Obama supporter and media producer Mercedes, who emigrated to this country at the age of 9, “Cuban Americans are very loyal, so that’s one of the reasons why they have remained anti-Democrats and Republicans, because during the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy did not keep his word to support the troops of Cuban volunteers who landed in the Bay, and really, they were left to die, so ever since then, there’s been this animosity against Democrats”.
Furthermore, to many older Miami Hispanic residents, Obama reminds them not of John F. Kennedy, but of their old nemesis Fidel Castro, and his younger, fellow leftist Latin American leader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, both of whom have made the education, health care and well-being of the poor a central part of their popular platforms. According to Mercedes: “both the Cuban Party in Cuba and Chavez said, ‘We wish Obama will win because we can better talk to him.’ But the minute (the) Castro regime said that, some of the ones that were on the fence went berserk.”
This feeling is shared by many, not just in the immigrant community. But, among older Cuban Americans, instead of having an endearing effect, the comparisons with Kennedy have the opposite effect. They only alienate a distinct population with a historical gripe to settle.
According to Cuban American Obama supporter and media producer Mercedes, who emigrated to this country at the age of 9, “Cuban Americans are very loyal, so that’s one of the reasons why they have remained anti-Democrats and Republicans, because during the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy did not keep his word to support the troops of Cuban volunteers who landed in the Bay, and really, they were left to die, so ever since then, there’s been this animosity against Democrats”.
Furthermore, to many older Miami Hispanic residents, Obama reminds them not of John F. Kennedy, but of their old nemesis Fidel Castro, and his younger, fellow leftist Latin American leader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, both of whom have made the education, health care and well-being of the poor a central part of their popular platforms. According to Mercedes: “both the Cuban Party in Cuba and Chavez said, ‘We wish Obama will win because we can better talk to him.’ But the minute (the) Castro regime said that, some of the ones that were on the fence went berserk.”
At polling locations, handmade signs supported this rabid anti-Obama fanaticism. The signs read, “OBAMA & FIDEL Castro Marxist” and “Cuba Got Change in 1959 Be Careful What U Wish 4”. Fears of another Castro-style Communist takeover, this time of the US, were palpable and painful. The equivocation of Castro and Obama was so complete in their minds, that many older people tearfully pleaded with younger family members to reconsider their political stance in light of the experiences of their elders, still rich in recent memory. These are the people who yelled, “Communist!”, “Go back to your country!” and various expletives at Obama volunteers conducting honk-and-wave visibility events, wearing campaign buttons, even catching a meal at Miami’s famous Versailles restaurant, a culinary and political hotspot on Miami’s SW 8th Street, also known as “Calle Ocho”. It was said by campaign workers that cars carrying Obama bumper stickers might be vandalized there, and it is a fact that two young volunteers, the Vazquez sisters, were verbally harassed by fellow patrons at the upscale diner for wearing Obama campaign paraphernalia.
Maria-Teresa and the Vazquez Sisters in Obama Field Office
But on polling lines and in Obama field offices throughout the Miami area, younger people readily offered their disdain for the fear and paranoia of their elders. This generation was eager to wear Obama stickers, campaign buttons, and to actively volunteer to educate their community about this new style of American presidential candidate. They manned Spanish-language phone banks, canvassed the streets of Little Havana, even supported donations of Cuban fast food to nourish the hordes of local and out-of-state staff and volunteers at area field offices.
As several younger people candidly admitted, many lied to their parents and grandparents about their choice of Presidential candidate to keep peace in their families, yet were openly proud to be able to make their own decisions in the privacy of the voting booth---and that choice was overwhelmingly for Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
As several younger people candidly admitted, many lied to their parents and grandparents about their choice of Presidential candidate to keep peace in their families, yet were openly proud to be able to make their own decisions in the privacy of the voting booth---and that choice was overwhelmingly for Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
Mercedes eloquently explained the opposite pull of generational politics among this community. “The new generation is looking beyond old gripes. And we’re more open to solutions vs. old rhetoric. The Cuban Americans that are open-minded see Obama as someone with the vision, someone with substance, and someone who wants to bring people together vs. splitting them apart.”
Ironically, as articulate as Mercedes’ own explanations are, it appears that it is Barack Obama’s tremendous verbal eloquence, and the radiance of his promises, that arouse the most paranoia among Miami’s Cuban American emigrant community.
Ironically, as articulate as Mercedes’ own explanations are, it appears that it is Barack Obama’s tremendous verbal eloquence, and the radiance of his promises, that arouse the most paranoia among Miami’s Cuban American emigrant community.
She explains: “Another thing: Cubans are very suspicious about what a great speaker he is, and they associate that with Castro, because Castro was a very great and engaging speaker. So, for Obama, some of them say, ‘He speaks so beautifully and he speaks so well, that we don’t trust him.’ So there’s this association and old wounds that never healed. Because everybody that came afterwards, nobody has done anything for Cuba. They come down to Miami when it’s voting time, and promise that this time, something will be done for Cuba, but nothing happens. It hasn’t happened in 50 years. The Cuban community has been sensitive for so many years to broken promises from both parties. But the Republicans have done a better talk; they have been smarter to promise what the Cubans want to hear, regardless of their real intentions. We believe that Obama will help all the people, because he has a plan to help, not just the rhetoric to promise help to win an election.”
Finally, I will share with the reader a community secret: there is another sort of resistance to Obama, seen among some older Cuban voters, that was often expressed in a surreptitious gesture, silently made in kitchens and living rooms throughout Florida, to widened eyes and slow nods of the head: that of the index finger of the right hand being rubbed back and forth across the back of the left hand. Some old traditions have not died in the new country. But a new generation’s attitudes have begun to meld with those of their non-immigrant cohort in the wider population. They view Obama’s biracial ethnicity as a promise fulfilled, not a nightmare in the making. A revolution, yes; but one which is welcomed and long awaited, like a warm, tropical rain washing away years of bitterness and regret.
Finally, I will share with the reader a community secret: there is another sort of resistance to Obama, seen among some older Cuban voters, that was often expressed in a surreptitious gesture, silently made in kitchens and living rooms throughout Florida, to widened eyes and slow nods of the head: that of the index finger of the right hand being rubbed back and forth across the back of the left hand. Some old traditions have not died in the new country. But a new generation’s attitudes have begun to meld with those of their non-immigrant cohort in the wider population. They view Obama’s biracial ethnicity as a promise fulfilled, not a nightmare in the making. A revolution, yes; but one which is welcomed and long awaited, like a warm, tropical rain washing away years of bitterness and regret.
"Vote Esperanza, No Miedo"
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I helped register thousands of voters in California, traveled to Texas to campaign and watch the polls in the primaries, traveled to Florida to get out the vote and organize poll watching and voter protection for the general election. Over the past year, I served as a deputy field organizer and precinct captain, I have hosted house parties and local fundraisers, hosted voter registration events at public events and I have traveled a great deal for the campaign.I worked to help voter outreach to the Caribbean American, Haitian American, Mexican American, Guatemalan, Cuban American and African American communities, and with young people and middle class families in several states.
Voting experience:
I voted early.What I did:
I voted, convinced someone, shared info, donated, phone banked, canvassed, helped someone register, drove someone to polls, raised money, worked as a pollworker/monitor, helped election protection efforts. I published several pieces on the Huffington Post.
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