It’s not exactly a shuttle situation: The passengers have to show up at the airport as much as four hours before their departures. They move glacially toward the check-in counter, pushing carts laden with shrink-wrapped gifts, flat-screen TVs, and other consumer goods that are scarce on the island. You can get to Cuba if you have patience, the right passport or a U.S. government-sanctioned reason for going.
In the long line Thursday at Concourse G there was no one complaining about the diplomatic thaw between the United States and Cuba that was announced a day earlier by President Obama.
“It’s good. It’s good for the two countries. And the people, too,” said Julio Arjona, 47, a telephone repairman traveling to see his family in Cuba.
Politically this city has been, since the early 1960s, a powder keg of anti-Castro sentiment, and there has been much verbal fury unleashed on Obama since his announcement. But so far, masses of protesters haven’t materialized. The biggest change in U.S. policy toward Cuba in half a century has not yet incited organized outrage at the level in which people start pouring onto Calle Ocho.Something has changed here over the years — and one of those changes is visible at the airport. There are thousands of people in Miami now who came to the United States only in recent years, and who maintain close ties with Cuba. They are often younger and less ideological than the exile generation. They are more likely to want to see the embargo lifted, to help boost the standard of living among the people they visit regularly.
“It’s really bad over there. You know how here, we have supermarkets, we have aisles and aisles of food. Over there, they have one little rack of food. Technology is virtually nonexistent,” said Rodrigo Martinez, 28, who teaches second grade in Miami and who was in line for the Sun Country flight to Holguin, on his way to visit his father.
Five years ago, Obama loosened restrictions on travel to Cuba for people with Cuban passports. Previously, they could go only once every three years. Now they could go every day if they wished.
People can also go on humanitarian missions, and for journalism, and to serve religious causes. All told there are 12 categories of people allowed to fly to the island, said David Nesslein, the chief executive of Havana Air.
He said the diplomatic thaw will probably push that number higher, though he is unclear on what immediate changes there might be on travel restrictions.
“As soon as the president spoke, my e-mail just got bombed. Everybody asking me, ‘When can I go?’ I just don’t have a specific answer,” Nesslein said.
Cuban American political leaders have denounced Obama’s moves, calling him a betrayer and the appeaser in chief. The Senate is shifting to Republican control and is expected to vigorously oppose the lifting of the 54-year-old embargo. Here in Miami, the anti-Castro community remains politically strong.
