The Little Havana Mambo

Spent some time with the Miami Cuban-American community the past few days. Although much ink has been spilled describing the growing pragmatism of the younger generation and newer arrivals from Cuba, the question is still whether their vote will be 90% for Bush or way down to 75%.

I had a few encounters with both the new pragmatism, which is more concerned about domestic issues than overthrowing Fidel and wants to be free to visit and send money to relatives in Cuba, and with the old hard-liners who are still refighting Playa Giron.

Wrote about both sides for Inter Press Service:

Some Cuban Americans Shift to Kerry
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=26081

The Bush Appeal
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=26094

All of the IPS stories on the Food Fight in Florida and other election coverage are on:
U.S. Elections 2004
Superpower at the Polls
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/us_elections/index.asp

Following are a couple of fragments from the cutting-room floor.

My conversation with one woman At the Kerry rally didn't make it into the final edit:

An animated fiftyish woman with curly hair, wearing an assortment of Kerry buttons, approached this reporter and struck up a conversation.

Maggie identified herself as Jewish-Cuban-American, and said her husband is from a French-Jewish family that originally came from Egypt. There used to be a Jewish community in Cuba, she said, but nearly all of its members left after Castro came to power.

Fidel Castro is getting old: what will happen when he's gone? “I think that when Castro dies things are going to change from within in Cuba.”

How would this happen? “From within the party,” she replied. “There are people inside who would like to change things, but while Fidel is alive they’re afraid. When he’s gone they’ll begin to make changes.”

Surprised me that someone here would suggest that change could come from within the Cuban Communist Party. This made some sort of reconcialiation seem a bit more imaginable.

After the Bush rally, I overheard an interesting conversation, which is mentioned in the piece in abbreviated form. Here's the unexpurgated version:

After the rally, at a Cuban sidewalk café in downtown Coconut Grove, this reporter happened to sit next to a large party that appeared to be a Cuban-American family. While they were eating, a thirtyish woman with long blond hair, wearing a white T-shirt with the slogan “Sailing 2 Victory” and a Bush button, came over and struck up a conversation with them in English.

After chatting with them about the rally, she offered: “Did you know that Michael Moore (director of the film "Fahrenheit 9/11" and a prominent Bush critic) is a pederast? He’s a terrible man. Quite a few boys came forward to talk about it, but then they decided not to press charges, maybe because they were doing drugs or alcohol and didn’t want to deal with the law.”

Of the Democrats, she said that they are “the kind of people who want to put our children in preschool when they’re three, when they should be home with their mothers. They’ve always got their hands out. I pray to God Kerry isn’t elected.”

“Jesse Jackson is a pimp for welfare. I pray they won’t kill him, though, because then they’ll make him like Martin Luther King, and you know he cheated on his wife.”

Despite the ambient venom, I did actually see a Dem and a Bushie engage in a rational conversation and then shake hands after the rally. But most of the interactions were more testosterone-driven.

With feelings at this pitch, if the voting doesn't go smoothly tomorrow things could get ugly. Normally I would count on the transformative power of indifference, but this time a lot of people seem to actually care.