Calle Ocho
Calle Ocho [Eighth Street] is the center of the hard-line anti-Castro segment of the Cuban American community in Miami. It is aging out, and the generations born in the US are not as committed to this view of the world as their fathers and grandfathers. Many of the recent immigrants from Cuba are economic immigrants, not political.
The fifty years of the US Cuban policy has been a total failure at its primary goal – the removal of Fidel. The man still wields great power and influence on the island, now under the control of his brother. He retired for medical reasons, not pressure from the US.
Calle Ocho and Fidel torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s move to normalize relations with Cuba, but Fidel has moderated and Calle Ocho’s influence has been fading. Looking at what happened to Marco Rubio when he attempted to get a compromise immigration bill through Congress shows that the Republican Party is more concerned with the views of the Tea Party, because Calle Ocho can no longer guarantee the votes it did a decade ago.
There is too much money to be made by opening relations with Cuba for there to be serious opposition in Congress. Too many Cubans want to be able to move freely between the US and the island for the old-timers to guarantee support for the politicians who attempt to block this change in policy.
December 18, 2014 6 Comments
