News Tip: Duke Experts Available to Comment on Obama's Plans to Lift Cuba Travel Restrictions
Monday, April 13, 2009
DURHAM, N.C. -- President Obama is expected to announce today (Monday) plans to lift travel restrictions that block Cuban Americans from traveling to Cuba and to relax rules governing what items can be sent to the island. The announcement comes as the president prepares to leave Thursday for the Summit of the America's in Trinidad and Tobago, and a stop in Mexico.
The following Duke University faculty are available to comment on the implications of this news:
-- Alex Harris, professor of the practice of public policy and documentary studies, is author of the photo book, “The Idea of Cuba.” View a clip of Harris discussing his book on CNN here: tinyurl.com/cmwyyy, and listen to a radio interview on WUNC’s “The State of Things” here: tinyurl.com/dfe8vk.
“This begins to acknowledge a failed policy,” Harris says. “Not just an economic or political failed policy, but the idea that you could keep the United States and Cuba apart. I think we’ve been in each other’s collective minds perhaps more so because of the embargo than if it were not there.
“We’re stuck in the late 1950s and early 1960s in terms of the way we think of one another. What I really observed when I was there is this sense of waiting, of Cubans waiting for change. I think there is enormous readiness to have this kind of change happen, but I think the response will be mixed. This is only a first step towards what could and should be done.”
-- William Noland, associate professor of the practice of visual studies, is co-author of the book “Entrevistas Cubanas: Historias de una Nación Dividida” and author of the article and photo-essay “Cuban Stories.” Photos from “Cuban Stories” are online here: tinyurl.com/cs4fwa.
“My time in Cuba showed me that the contradictions of the situation are indeed stunning, and that a large number of stereotypes, both positive and negative, hold within them elements of the truth,” Noland writes in his abstract for “Cuban Stories,” online here: tinyurl.com/dy5y2f.
“Many of the promises of the Revolution have long since been discarded; most Cubans are frightened and intimidated by the regime on some level; while hunger is not widespread, most Cubans do have a shockingly low standard of living. On the other hand, the individual is important there; children are well-educated and kept in good health from infancy; family and community ties are naturally strong and enduring; and many people there seem to know how to enjoy their lives in ways that should make us envious.
“In my photographs, I seek to wrestle with some of the paradoxes that characterize Cuba at the beginning of the 21st century. The images delve simultaneously into the private and public realms and speak to the delicacy of a moment that straddles a rich but troubled past and a future that is alternately optimistic and ominous.”
-- Miguel Rojas-Sotelo is a visiting scholar at Duke’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies and an expert on cultural politics in Cuba.
“I am skeptical about what is going to happen -- if this will really make a change in terms of the Cuba-U.S. relationship,” Rojas-Sotelo says. “I don’t think it’s going to be a big change for Cuba. But I think this is part of a whole package of re-engagement with Latin America for Obama. I think the Obama administration is accomplishing something they promised during the campaign.”
