A thaw? Los Van Van's return to Miami may signal a cultural shift

When famed Cuban dance band Los Van Van performed in Miami on Oct. 9, 1999, thousands of rock- and bottle-throwing demonstrators outside the now-demolished Miami Arena outnumbered the concertgoers inside. The incident capped months of controversy over the band's appearance and reverberated in the national media, branding Miami -- almost as deeply as would the Elián González incident -- as a place where exile passions could turn violent.

What a difference a decade makes. Now a billboard advertising Los Van Van's Jan. 31 concert at the James L. Knight Center looms over the Palmetto Expressway. Ticket sales are going well at the Knight Center, where Van Van was slated to play in 1999 until the group was ousted by Miami politicians, including then-Mayor Joe Carollo. Today Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado who, as a city commissioner in 1999, was an outspoken leader of the opposition to Van Van, is mostly concerned with keeping traffic moving.

``My focus'' Regalado says, ``is to protect the people who wish to go, protect the people who wish to protest and protect the people who wish to use I-395 and I-95 and Brickell.''

Regalado says that two exile groups have pulled permits to protest the Van Van concert. (The musicians will also perform in Key West on Thursday.) But he believes opposition is less intense than in the past. ``So many groups have come and gone,'' he says. ``I still think that Van Van would create more controversy than any other group here. But we are a big city, and we will survive the Van Vans, and we'll move on.''

Members of Los Van Van did not comment for this story.

September's Concert for Peace in Havana led by Colombian rock star Juanes engendered a more open attitude toward musical exchange with Cuba. Now, as the Obama administration has eased its predecessor's blackout on visas for Cuban artists, renewed Miami visits by musicians from the island have been marked mostly by a lack of controversy.

There were no protests when folkloric group Septeto Nacional, the first Cuban act to perform in Miami in years, played the Little Havana club Hoy Como Ayer on Nov. 21. Famed Cuban bolero singer Omara Portuondo is slated to perform at the Fillmore Miami Beach on March 2. In December and January the Cuban dance group Charanga Habanera played seven shows in Miami, including three sold-out nights at the South Beach club Dolce (capacity 1,400) and an overflowing concert for 3,000 at Hialeah's outdoor venue Rancho Gaspar -- with only a few small protests. The band, along with Buena Fe, another popular Cuban group, also appeared in interviews and ads on local Spanish-language TV and radio.

Certainly, many in the community still oppose visits by Cuban groups. Callers to hardline exile radio talk shows have complained about Van Van billboards and ads.

MUSIC REQUESTS But Al Fuentes, program director for music station El Zol 95 (WXDJ 95.7FM), part of the Cuban-American-owned, Miami-based SBS radio chain, says the calls he's been getting about the Van Van songs he's played for several months only ask for more.

 

``People who have come in the last 15, 20 years tell me there's this group Los Van Van, and they're great,'' Fuentes says. ``Great music is great music.''

Why is it, he asks, ``that we can have the Olympics in China, and we can't have a great Cuban band come here?''

Music promoter and entrepreneur Hugo Cancio, who presented Charanga and Buena Fe, says he couldn't even buy TV and radio spots when he pioneered shows with Cuban acts in Miami in the 1990s.

But now, ``it's a new Miami.''

Cancio says a new generation of exiles who've arrived in the last decade not only have a more open attitude toward their homeland but also have reached a critical mass in Miami.

``The demographic has changed, and that includes the audience and who has the buying power,'' Cancio says. ``This new generation of Cubans goes back and forth, and they want to be in touch with their music and culture. But above all that, the thing that's changed is money.''

Maria Elvira Salazar, who hosted Charanga bandleader David Calzado on her popular talk show on Spanish-language station WSBS-SBS 22 (Mega TV), says many of her viewers are hungry for news and music from the island.

``They grew up with Charanga,'' Salazar says. ``I see it on the street and in the numbers when I present stories about Cuba, about what's happening now. My demographics go up. The audience is a young audience that has just arrived.

A NEW GROUP ``You have a new group of Cubans, . . . and they view the situation differently. They agree that Fidel Castro is a dictator, and we need democracy. . . . But they don't have any problems with Charanga coming to play.''

 

Cancio and others who presented Cuban artists also believed that things had changed when a 1998 appearance by singer-songwriter Carlos Varela launched an unprecedented wave of Miami shows by top Cuban acts, including Vocal Sampling, Issac Delgado, Manolin ``El Medico de la Salsa,'' Charanga Habanera and NG La Banda. Their presence -- made possible by Clinton-era policies that encouraged cultural exchange -- was intensely debated and protested, but there was little violence.

Many observers of the Miami Cuban community thought that a new generation, recently arrived exiles and younger Cuban Americans raised in the United States, had created a more open attitude about interaction with Cuba.

Los Van Van's appearance seemed to mark another shift. One of the most popular and important bands in Cuba since the 1970s, the group touched a nerve for many older exiles who closely associated it with the Cuban government. The intensity of the controversy made many who'd been enthusiastic about the arrival of Cuban music nervous, and the subsequent uproar over the seizure and return to Cuba of Elián González in June 2000 heightened tensions. Then the Bush administration stopped issuing visas to Cuban artists as it tightened exchanges with the island, and questions about artists' appearances became moot.

The Obama administration has reopened the doors to cultural exchange, starting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support of the Juanes concert, which drew 1.2 million people. In late December, Carlos Varela played Washington, D.C., during his first U.S. visit in 11 years, and he met with legislators and a senior White House official. Kool and the Gang played Havana on Dec. 20 -- and the Orange Bowl halftime show on Jan. 5. Omara Portuondo performed in California and appeared on Univision's telecast of the Latin Grammys in November.

POLICY CHANGE Those pushing to change U.S. Cuba policy say the Obama government sees cultural exchange as a relatively non-controversial step, while it grapples with more difficult issues such as the embargo.

 

``I think the Obama administration is committed to changing Cuba policy cautiously and carefully, and I think they are still in the process of figuring out what [that] means,'' says Cindy Buhl, legislative director for Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who supports ending the embargo.

``Cultural exchange is one of the tools on the table, and they went to that early.''