¿Qué pasa, U.S.A.?

From 1977 through 1980, Americans caught a glimpse of what it was like to be “Cuban” in America through the eyes of TV sitcom family, the Peñas, on the TV show ¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A.?

The first bilingual comedy to be produced and taped before a live studio audience at the PBS station in Miami, Florida, the show went on to air for four seasons. The series was set in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood and documented the struggle to cope with a new country, a new language, and a new culture. For young immigrants like myself, it was not only comic relief, but the show provided us with a sense of security and reinforcement that our “experience” was not an isolated one.

{mosads}For those of us who came to the U.S. from Cuba in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the show was not only true-to-life…but it was accurate in portraying the life and culture of Miami’s Cuban-American population. The show was humorous, actually it was downright hysterical!! The main theme of the series was the identity crisis and the many ‘adventures’ the Peña family experienced as they were pulled in one direction by the traditions of their elders (abuela y abuelo) and in another direction by the pressures of their new society.

Today, we have that same dichotomy in the Cuban-American community, except the theme is less humorous and the topic a more serious one; U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations and where that leaves the embargo?

For more than two decades, Florida International University (FIU) professors Gernier and Gladwin have carefully tracked the opinions of the Cuban-American community in South Florida. In their ongoing “Cuba Poll,” sponsored by The Cuban Research Institute, they reliably measure the views of Cuban Americans in U.S policy options toward Cuba and as such the FIU Cuba Poll has become a standard reference on the public opinions and demographic profile of Cuban immigrants and their descendants in the US.

So what does the study reveal about the sentiments and opinions of the Cuban exile community? The first caveat is that not all Cubans are created equal. What I mean by that is that there are numerous differences in the public opinions of Cuban Americans based on their year of arrival in the U.S., as well as their age and place of birth. As a group, those who left Cuba before and after 1994 display different attitudinal patterns. For instance, recent arrivals are more likely than earlier ones to oppose the continuation of the embargo; support a dialogue among exiles, dissidents, and the Cuban government; and favor sending medicines, food, and money, as well as unrestricted travel to Cuba.

Furthermore, the most recent wave of Cuban immigrants tends to favor the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, to a much larger degree than those who arrived earlier. The findings of the poll suggest that Cuban immigrants who left the island in the last two decades support engaging with Cuba more often than those who left in the first decades after the revolution. As these later immigrant waves increase their weight within the Cuban-American community, as well as the numbers of those born in the United States increase relative to those born abroad, swift demographic changes are reshaping Cuban-American attitudes regarding U.S. policy toward Cuba.

By the numbers:

• 52 percent of the respondents oppose continuing the embargo.
• A large majority favors diplomatic relations with Cuba (68 percent), with younger respondents strongly backing the policy shift (90 percent).
• A large majority of respondents (69 percent) favor the lifting of travel restrictions impeding all Americans from traveling to Cuba.
• The final question on embargo options asked registered voters how likely they would be to vote for a candidate who supports replacing the embargo with a policy that increases pressure on the Cuban government over human rights. 81 percent of voters said they were very or somewhat likely to do so.

Torres is a former Navy officer living in Virginia Beach.