Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

U.S. ELECTION: Some Cuban-Americans Shift to Kerry

Peter Costantini

MIAMI, Oct 30 2004 (IPS) - At the amphitheatre in Bayfront Park on Miami’s waterfront, against a background of pleasure boats and freighters on Biscayne Bay, knots of people began drifting in before 3 pm Friday for Senator John Kerry’s campaign appearance that evening.

Most were local supporters for the presidential candidate and activists in the state of Florida’s Democratic Party, who came to volunteer for the grunt work that would make the rally happen.

The payoff would be a ringside view of the hoopla of a historic presidential race that will end in Tuesday’s vote, a chance to hear Kerry, along with his opening acts musician Bruce Springsteen and actress Bette Midler, up close and personal.

As roadies from the Kerry camp set up the sound system, a pelican flapped past the amphitheatre and hawks soared over nearby skyscrapers against a blue sky dotted by a few cotton-like puffs of clouds.

When campaign organisers gathered their forces into groups to handle security, logistics and other tasks, they asked volunteers not to speak to the media, but several nevertheless consented to talk as long as their full names were not used.

In the long, slow line waiting to pass through the metal detectors, one group sporting Kerry volunteer identification tags was speaking Spanish; they turned out to be Cuban-Americans.

Middle-aged to elderly, they were casually dressed in shorts or jeans and blended into the ethnic diversity of the crowd of South Florida Democrats.

Asked why they had come, a few were eager to articulate their political views, in both Spanish and English.

Cuban-Americans overwhelmingly support President George W Bush, but because they are the largest Hispanic ethnic group in Florida, a small shift towards Kerry could have a big impact on the ferociously contested presidential race here.

The candidates’ positions on Cuba are still important to their community, these Cuban-Americans agreed, but other issues have greater effects on their lives.

One demographic group more likely to support Kerry, the sons and daughters of earlier immigrants, have grown up in the United States and do not remember life in Cuba under the Communist government.

Margarita, a youthful-looking, middle-aged woman with short, dark-blonde hair, says her husband fought against Castro at the Bay of Pigs, but now supports Kerry, as do she and their daughter.

Why? "Because we read, we think, we travel, we follow events, we can see that this president is making problems in the world and that more people are against us."

John F Kennedy, a Democrat, was the first president (1961-1963) to confront Castro, she said, and major exoduses from Cuba have taken place during two other Democratic administrations, the "marielitos" under (Jimmy) Carter (1977-1981) and the "balseros" under (Bill) Clinton (1993-2001).

In general, Margarita believes, the Democrats have been no weaker on foreign policy than the Republicans, despite their reputation of being "soft" on these issues: "Who began the Vietnam War, who began (the war in) Korea?"

Another woman, asked why she was voting for Kerry, replied: "This is a government that lies: they lied to us about Iraq and about the economy."

She came from Cuba long ago, continued the woman, and now she is concerned about other things beyond overthrowing Cuban President Fidel Castro: the war (in Iraq) and the threat of terrorism, the problems of Medicare, and other issues brought her to the rally.

She said she had set up a table for Kerry right on Calle Ocho, the heart of Miami’s main Cuban neighbourhood, and found that a lot of people there also supported the Democrat.

"It’s the old, rigid people who support Bush," added the woman.

Despite many people’s global concerns, others were angry at the Bush administration for recently tightening regulations concerning Cuba.

These changes, they felt, have merely placed more burdens on Cuban-Americans who still have family members in Cuba, without affecting Castro’s government.

Drastically reduced limits on the amount of money and supplies that people in the United States can take to family members in Cuba have hurt the people there, who often depend on these donations.

"Things are very hard now in Cuba," one woman said, "and that money makes a lot of difference to our families down there."

The Bush administration also recently narrowed travel restrictions to allow Cuban-Americans to visit the country once every three years rather than yearly.

Visas are now granted per trip and only to visit immediate family members, whereas travel was previously permitted on a general license to visit more distant relatives.

Many people who have arrived in the United States from Cuba since the 1980s still have close family members there, volunteers said, not just aunts or uncles or cousins, but mothers or fathers or grandparents.

One small group of Kerry supporters at a rally does not make a trend, but ferment in the Cuban-American community here has been widely reported.

How big a shift do these Kerry volunteers see in Cuban-American opinion? "They say about 90 percent of us vote Republican," one woman suggested, "but I think this time it might be down to 75 percent or so."