Cuban-Americans polled recently have spoken:  they want the ban on travel to Cuba lifted for all Americans.  A majority of 59% of Cuban-Americans surveyed in 2009 favored lifting the travel ban right now.

Another survey, one which polled not just Cuban-Americans but Americans (US citizens) in general, found similar results:  70% of Americans polled are in favor of lifting the ban, allowing all US citizens to travel to Cuba.  The USA to Cuba movement is strong in both groups. US hardliners who want to keep the ban seem to be out of step with at least those surveyed in the polls.  The public’s feelings toward USA to Cuba movement is clearly heading towards more leniency on our part on Capitol Hill.

The New York Times has reported on the events on Capitol Hill, including in the White House.  In April of 2009, when President Obama repealed the ban on Cuban-Americans going to Cuba, and sending money to relatives, the paper called it the “most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades”.

Travel-oriented companies and businesses in Florida are anticipating lots of business if Cuba opens up.  Everyone from Miami to Key West is excited for the future of USA to Cuba.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act is gaining ground in the US House of Representatives.  There are 180 congresspersons willing to endorse it, and there’s even a similar bill in the Senate now, which has thirty-two cosponsors.  The House Foreign Relations Committee is the group that holds the open hearings on the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, and which must approve the Bill before it continues its way on in the legislative process.

There are over a hundred thousand online signatures collected in support of the act, which would open up travel to Cuba for all Americans (US, that is).  Orbitz has collected lots of signatures in just a few months.  There is much popular support for the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.  More people want Cuba opened up now more than ever since the US first imposed a travel ban and embargo more than forty years ago.  Even into the 1990s, the US government was passing new laws restricting US interaction with Cuba on all levels, but especially in doing business with the country.

The Vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council views this time in history as an historic opportunity for the President to start change towards travel to Cuba for all Americans.

For the first time in about twenty five years, American art is traveling to Cuba.  At Havana’s Museo De Bellas Artes, the first major art exhibition for comtemporary art is on view now.  About thirty artists from New York City’s Chelsea district are showing art at an exhibition they’re calling Chelsea Visits Havana.  Artists and supporters hope this is one step towards a thawing of relations between USA and Cuba.

For so long, American artists couldn’t show their work here.  Bush really tightened up restrictions.  Before Bush, Clinton allowed museums and art dealers to visit Cuba to buy art.  Art isn’t covered by the US trade embargo on Cuba, by the way, but how can you buy art in Cuba if you’re not allowed to go there?  Art and other cultural exchanges were more and more difficult but now with “Chelsea Visits Havana”more than a dozen art exhibitors and dealers have made the trip and are eager to show good will towards their Cuban counterparts.  They even want to bring a group of Cuban artists to the US to display their work in a similar style exhibit, but this may be more difficult.

The art displayed at Chelsea Visits Havana is mostly not very political at all, despite the very political circumstances under which it has come to exhibition.  There is one work that depicts a US nuclear facility, which is a grim reminder of just how close the US and Cuba came to a nuclear war during the Bay of Pigs incident.  Another work shows President Obama and Fidel Castro eyeing each other.  Other than these two works, the rest of the pieces aren’t very political.

April 2009 – President Barack Obama began fulfilling promises early in his presidency.  This April, he lifted restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba.  This means a lot to the Cuban community he made campaign promises to, but for the rest of US would-be travelers to Cuba, nothing much has changed.  Obama is not planning yet to lift trade embargoes yet, and that would require Congressional approval, but this is a step in the right directions for those wanting freer relations (i.e. TRAVEL!) between USA and Cuba.  It’s the USA to Cuba movement.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 01 July 2009 15:53