Cuban expats split over embassies

Cuban expats split over embassies
Offices to open in D.C., Havana
Thursday, July 2, 2015
By: O'Ryan Johnson, Andrew Schneider

The effort to thaw relations between the U.S. and Cuba by opening
embassies in each other's capital cities was welcomed by one local
expatriate, though nationally many were split.

Noble Garcia, who owns the El Oriental De Cuba restaurant on Centre
Street in Jamaica Plain, said he was happy about the move.

"It is a wonderful thing. Cuba has been behind the wall for 50 years,"
he said.

He plans to return there and see where he was born. He left Cuba in the
1950s with his family and started a new life in Boston.

However, Republican presidential contender U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the
son of a Cuban immigrant, said President Obama was making concessions to
an "odious regime."

The historic thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations is seen by the White House as a
central part of the president's foreign policy legacy.

Obama has long argued that the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba, a country
just 90 miles south of Florida, has been ineffective in forcing the kind
of change opponents demand.

"We don't have to be imprisoned by the past," Obama said.

The U.S. cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 after Fidel
Castro's revolution. The U.S. spent decades trying to either overthrow
the Cuban government or isolate the island, including toughening the
embargo first imposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But after months of secret talks aided by the Vatican, the U.S. and Cuba
announced in December that they were moving to end Cold War hostilities.
Since then, officials have been locked in negotiations over terms for
opening em­bassies. The U.S. said it expects to open an embassy July 20.

Heralding the embassy agreement, Obama declared yesterday: "This is what
change looks like."

Cuban television broadcast Obama's statement live. In a letter to Obama,
Cuban President Raul Castro praised the embassy announcement as a way to
"develop respectful relations and cooperation between our peoples and
governments."

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

Source: Cuban expats split over embassies | Boston Herald -
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