Miami's Cuban Connection

Cubans And Others Just Can't Get Along

Jessica Lavariega Monforti, a political science professor at University of Texas, Panamerican, has just completed a poll on Miami’s Cuban exile community. The 30-year-old researcher is working on a book about Miami. Monforti, a Cuban American, grew up outside Miami, and hopes that will give her a different perspective on Miami’s Cuban exile community. In terms of ethnic relations, Monforti says Miami Cubans who were polled said they feel they have good or excellent relations with other ethnic groups. The problem is, Monforti says, some of the other groups don’t reciprocate the enthusiasm. She wants to figure out why. “Cubans are saying we still feel a connection with immigrants and Hispanic groups. Hispanics and other groups say they've been discriminated against by Cubans.”

Conference to Free Cuban Spies

A group of people sympathetic to the Cuban government and who are seeking freedom for five convicted Cuban spies are holding a “conference on the Cuban Five” Sunday at the Embassy Suites Hotel near the Miami airport. The meeting, to be held at 2:45 p.m., is titled: “update of the present appeals process; perspectives of obtaining justice.” Among the speakers: Gloria La Riva, national coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Five, Max Lesnick, Director of Radio Miami, and Andres Gomez, editor of Areito Digital Magazine.

Mel: Bring All Cuban Migrants To Land

   As the Bush administration begins a process to review the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said the best solution would be to bring all Cuban migrants to land and then determine if they can migrate to the U.S. or go back to the island. "You bring them to land...everybody's dry-foot and then you deal with them in a fair and open way," Martinez said at a news conference at the Biltmore Hotel Friday. "I think that the human rights violations that are seen in Cuba make it immoral for us to be repatriating Cubans the way we are doing now."

Anti-Castro Protesters Rile Cuban Officials in Ball Game

A minor protest in the late innings of Cuba's 11-2 win Thursday night against the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic led to the ejection of a high-ranking member of the Cuban delegation and had Cuba briefly threatening to pull out of the event, the Herald's Kevin Baxter reports.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14063182.htm

Cuban Babies Healthy

Cuba is hosting a ninth annual primary care convention. The island’s claim to fame on this front: it says it has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, including the United States and Canada. Cuba’s Juventud Rebelde newspaper credits the country’s vaccination program.

http://www.jrebelde.cubaweb.cu/2006/enero-marzo/mar-6/cuba.html

Meet "Frank" and "Fruitful"

In a day that underscored tension between some Cuban exiles in Miami and the Bush administration, Cuban American leaders met with federal officials in Washington to ask for a new U.S. Cuba migration policy, while others called the meeting partisan. The Cuban-American group wants the administration to change the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy in which Cubans caught at sea are generally returned to the island while those who reach US soil are allowed to stay. At the White House meeting, Republican US Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart and several spiritual leaders from Miami's Cuban exile community asked federal officials from the departments of state and homeland security to make the policy more humanitarian for Cubans. The response from Washington: we'll see. Lincoln Diaz-Balart called the meeting "frank and fruitfull."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/14052860.htm

New Poll Says Miami Cubans More Worried About Iraq than Cuba

   South Florida's Cuban-American community is not as preoccupied with Fidel Castro and communist Cuba as it previously was, according to a new poll being released today. Asked what's the most important political issue, 33 percent of respondents said the war in Iraq and terrorism. Twenty-seven percent put Cuba and Castro at the top, while 11 percent said the economy is most important. The poll, conducted in February of 600 Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade, shows the broadening of opinion in the community as younger generations and new arrivals focus on other issues beyond communist Cuba, the pollsters noted. The survey was conducted by two researchers outside of Florida -- Jessica Lavariega Monforti, a political science professor at the University of Texas-Panamerican, and Lisa García Bedolla of the University of California at Irvine. They presented the results this morning at an event organized by Florida International University. 

-Herald Staff

Belen Nexus

Alex Burgos, 26, visited Miami Monday as part of U.S. Rep. Tom Reynolds' visit to promote Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Burgos, a Miami native and graduate of Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, is deputy press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. His close pals are Carlos Curbelo and Danny Lopez (see previous entry in Generation X-ile category). As is a tradition among Belen grads, they may or may not be plotting a world takeover. Included among the schools alums is Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Burgos is also a founding member of the national youth group, Raices de Esperanza, which works to increase awareness of human rights abuses in Cuba.

He's Fired!

Jose "Pepe" Diaz, a Miami lawyer, sat opposite the Trump man himself -- and didn't make the cut. He was one of the lucky ones to make it onto NBC's The Apprentice out of a pool of a million applicants. But he was the third of 18 contestants fired. He was legally allowed to break his silence Tuesday, after the show aired his firing. The 26-year-old graduate of Miami's St. Brendan's High School said the two-month plus stay at Trump Towers in Manhattan was tension-filled but fun. He became known as the Cuban American guy who made Cuban coffee in his suite for his fellow contestants using an old-school cafetera. Read more about it in the Herald the next few days.

Democrat: Bush Brushes Cuba Aside

New Democrat Network consultant Joe Garcia’s take on the meeting between Cuban American leaders and Bush administration officials in Washington today:

“What’s sad is that Ramon Saul Sanchez had to go on a hunger strike to get a meeting with policy makers about immigration in a community whose representatives are overwhelmingly Republican, who votes overwhelmingly Republican, and who has heavily supported this Republican presidency.”