April 13, 2005

Back to the table of Contents Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

Guest Opinion: Expanded U.S. travel ban to Cuba strikes home in Palo Alto

by Eliot Margolies

We have a neighbor who was forbidden to see the uncle he admires and loves dearly, even as his uncle had lung cancer that metastasized into his brain -- he died in late March.

There was but one person who ordered that the two should be kept apart -- our President George W. Bush.

During the heated election campaign last fall, President Bush created new rules that further restricted visits to Cuba. Though a majority in Congress have voted to end the travel ban to Cuba in each of the past four years, a vocal minority of Cuban-Americans in Florida held more sway with the campaigning president.

Before last July, U.S. citizens could visit Cuba once a year if they had relatives there. Now it is restricted to once every three years and only to visit a parent, a child, or a sibling.

Tomas Moran, a Palo Alto resident, applied to the U.S. State Department for a dispensation to visit his uncle, but was turned down. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo tried to help, but was turned down as well. The State Department was not even swayed by the fact that Tomas was trying to take his 103-year-old grandmother to see her son for the last time.

I first met Tomas when he came to the Media Center in 1997 to produce public-access TV shows with a group of homeless men and women. As an active member of the Unitarian Church's Social Action Committee and a board member of Urban Ministry, Tomas wanted to create a venue for the homeless so that we who have houses would hear their stories and recognize our few degrees of separation.

In his work-life, Tomas is director of quality assurance at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. He is a 50-year-old husband, father of two -- and now the unfortunate victim in a poorly written play on the world's stage.

The revolution in Cuba drove a wedge through Tomas' formerly tight-knit family. His parents left Cuba for Puerto Rico in 1961. His father, an elevator engineer, was outraged when the revolutionary government decided to nationalize the schools and enroll all the previously excluded poor kids.

An aunt and uncle also left the island for Miami, where they are part of the virulently anti-Castro Cuban-American community -- uncle was an architect in Cuba and continues as one in Miami.

The uncle who stayed in Cuba was a former journalist who worked for Cuba's international bank following the revolution, securing loans from other countries. For several years his supervisor was Che Guevara himself.

Tomas' grandmother chose to accompany his family to Puerto Rico. One of her sisters chose to stay, and became the mayor of her town in Cuba.

Even with the political chasm between them, the extended family stayed connected. Birthdays were always occasions for the families in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Miami to gather around their phones, shout greetings and exchange stories. More recently, e-mail enabled everyone to stay in touch. They avoided discussing politics, for the most part. Cousins knew cousins even though they'd never been in the same room.

Thirty years after he left Cuba, Tomas felt it was time to satisfy his own yearning to see the country that still had a claim on his cultural roots if not much of his memory bank. Over the objections of his father, who said he shouldn't spend one "red penny" in Cuba, he went on a trip sponsored by Global Exchange, an organization that leads "reality tours" and cultural exchanges throughout Latin America.

By day he was a tourist. In the evenings he was surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles -- breaking bread and enjoying long, uninterrupted discussions. In 2003, Tomas returned to Cuba with his grandmother, who had already made a number of visits. But now the new Bush rules forbade her to return for three years -- when she would be 105 and her son long buried.

Tomas has a strong relationship with his anti-Castro aunt and did not engender her ire even with his two trips to Cuba. Politics notwithstanding, everybody delights in the photographs that he and his grandmother bring back from their trips.

In one of life's paradoxes, it was his anti-Castro aunt who brought his grandmother to Anna Eshoo to ask for an exception. No luck.

Their options limited, they hoped a senator might influence the State Department to allow the visit. The Midpeninsula Chapter of the ACLU (on whose board I serve) also appealed to the senators.

Tomas could have gone to Cuba via Mexico and risk prosecution and large fines upon his return. His grandmother does not feel up for such a risk and does not want her grandson to do it either. But time ran out.

The entire travel ban would have been history if the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate had their way. In 2003 both bodies voted to end it as part of a treasury appropriations bill, but President Bush threatened to veto the bill. In conference, the legislators agreed to drop the provision.

Cuba is now the only country that American citizens are prohibited from visiting. So much for our vaunted freedom of movement and travel.

The administration claims it must combat Cuba's civil rights abuses, but why do so with abuses of our own? What kind of modeling is that? The fact is that the United States allows both travelers and dollars to flow to many countries with significantly worse track records in civil rights -- including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Guatemala.

Aside from the hypocrisy, these mean-spirited measures do much more harm to ordinary citizens of both countries than to the Cuban government. They mock the ubiquitous administration rhetoric about "family values."

When Palo Altans hear this story happening to one of our own respected fellow residents, President Bush's rules are no longer just a new page in the government registry.

We become witnesses to the injury they cause. Perhaps our voices will help push the next "end the travel ban" bill (expected later this spring) onto President Bush's desk and with other voices of sanity and compassion guide his pen toward real family values, away from the glare of a political campaign.

Eliot Margolies is executive producer at the Media Center in Palo Alto, and is active in several community organizations. He received the Chamber of Commerce's Tall Tree Award for outstanding professional in 2000. He can be e-mailed at elliot@communitymediacenter.net.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.