July 21, 2008

Mr. Thomas Shannon

Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere

United States Department of State

Washington, DC

 
Dear Mr. Shannon:

The Cuban American Commission for Family Rights was created in 2004 to protect the rights of American families of Cuban descent so they could visit their families in Cuba. The decree issued by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba not only limits these visits, redefines family, does not address the needs for emergency travel  but more than anything it violates our community’s sense of family values and thus it is overwhelmingly repudiated by Cuban Americans.  This fact is supported by numerous polls that show that close to 80% of Americans of Cuban descent support unlimited travel to the island to visit relatives.

Our organization represents thousands of persons affected by these regulations.  We are writing today to respectfully urge this administration to issue a humanitarian visa to Adriana Perez so she can visit her husband, Gerardo Hernandez currently serving prison in the United States. He has been in prison for more than a decade without seeing his wife.  By granting her the visa to visit her loved one the United States would be enacting a gesture of humanitarianism that will send a profound message to the rest of the world.  By acting upon one of our most fundamental of principles, the rights of families to visit and nurture each other, we will demonstrate that the issue of family values is not just a catch phrase used during political campaigns, but rather one worthy of action and thus transcending the trappings of political ideology.

Americans are known worldwide for their concern for family and country.  Shouldn’t our government reflect this concern by allowing families to gather, to share a laugh, a tear, a moment; to have the right to hug, and confirm their love for each other?

We sincerely hope that this visa is granted, and thank you in advance for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Alvaro Fernandez                                                       Silvia Wilhelm

President                                                                     Executive Director

 
Cc: Senators Dodd, Enzi, Baucus, Dorgan; Reps Rangel, Delahunt, Flake, Serrano

By David Rieff

From the Sunday, July 13, New York Times magazine   

On the surface, political life in Cuban Miami seems unchanged. Little Havana is still partly a Disney version of a displaced Cuba and partly a genuine community hub, where families who have long since left for suburbia still come for nostalgic weekend lunches. At the Versailles Restaurant, the community newspapers preaching no compromise with Castro are all that are on offer. For almost four decades, the Versailles has been an obligatory stop for Washington politicians courting the Cuban-American community, visits that, as photographs in the restaurant attest, have often involved putting on a white guayabera, the four-pocket dress shirt that often replaces a coat and tie in the Caribbean. This familiar theater of intransigence — a staple of South Florida life at least since the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, when C.I.A.-backed Cuban exiles tried to overthrow the new Communist regime — is ubiquitous. Some Cuban-Americans point hopefully to a softening in the Spanish-language, Cuba-focused radio outlets that now dominate the South Florida market. But for an outsider, what is striking is the degree to which the hard-line stance endures, since it might have been supposed that 50 years of failure to influence events on the island might have led to the conclusion that the hard-line position needed to be reconsidered. Most officeholders in Florida and, for that matter, most national politicians continue to at least pay lip service to the dream of a post-Communist Cuba, even though, early this year, Fidel Castro succeeded in seamlessly handing over power to his brother Raúl — testimony, if any was needed, to the stability of the regime.

Yet if Cuban Miami does indeed continue to dream, it is also beginning, quietly, tentatively and painfully, to adjust. Backstage, something very new is happening. Call it the Miami Spring, or Cuban-American glasnost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13CUBANS-t.html?ref=magazine