U.S. Overtures Find Support Among Cuban-Americans
Published: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 3:51 pm By: Damien Cave- The New York Times
MIAMI — Anger and pain used to drive Rafael Diaz when he spoke about Cuba. A home builder with muscular arms, he denounced all contact with the island he left 48 years ago, seeking to suffocate the government he hated. But at 53, with Fidel and Raúl Castro still in power, Mr. Diaz has reversed course, praising the new White House plan to end restrictions on visits and remittances for Cuban-Americans — and insisting that travel should be open to all Americans. “From Key West, we should have six ferries going out during the day and six coming back,” he said. It is a stunning change of heart now shared by a wide majority of Cuban-Americans. A poll released Monday by Bendixen & Associates has found that 67 percent of the community now supports the removal of all restrictions for travel to Cuba, an 18-point increase from three years ago, when the same question was asked. Even among older, so-called historic exiles like Mr. Diaz, the survey shows that support for a new approach to Cuba has grown. “This is across the board,” said Fernand Amandi, an executive vice president at Bendixen, which has been polling Cuban-Americans for more than 25 years. He added, “We’re at the end of a 50-year stalemate period, calling for a new dawn on U.S.-Cuba relations.” The nationwide telephone survey of 400 adults — the first gauge of Cuban-American opinion since President Obama announced his new policy last week — was conducted April 14-16, and the margin of sampling error is plus or minus five percentage points. It suggests that Mr. Obama has become a catalyst for openness, accelerating a political shift here that first became visible after the furor in 2000 over whether to send a young Cuban rafter, Elián González, back to his father on the island. Indeed, despite this community’s reputation for loyalty to Republicans, the poll found widespread approval for Mr. Obama: 64 percent supported his new policies on travel and money sent to relatives. An even larger majority, 67 percent, said they had a favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Mr. Obama, the highest rating among Cuban-Americans for a president in a Bendixen poll since Ronald Reagan in the mid-’80s. “For the first time since the beginning of Kennedy’s
