Forget what you hear in Washington: Most Cuban Americans favor diplomatic relations with Cuba

[Mika]

Forget what you hear in Washington: Most Cuban Americans favor diplomatic relations with Cuba

That was the conclusion of the latest annual survey of Cuban Americans taken in Miami-Dade County between February and May this year by the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

Cuban American members of Congress like Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) angrily criticized President Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba. “The White House has conceded everything, and gained little,” Rubio said.

Yet among Cuban Americans surveyed by the Cuban Research Institute in its annual poll on the question, “a large majority” favored diplomatic relations. Support is strongest among younger Cuban Americans, 18-t0-29, 90 percent of whom favor normalization. In fact, the poll found, “support for re-establishing diplomatic ties maintains a solid majority among all groups to age 70.”

“In sum,” wrote Jorge Duany, director of the Institute, “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.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/18/forget-what-you-hear-in-washington-most-cuban-americans-favor-diplomatic-relations-with-cuba/

[Judi Lynn]

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