I watched a YouTube video the other day, apparently produced by a Fox News affiliate--MyFox--in which a Cuban-American Barack Obama supporter in Houston was confronted by a reporter for displaying a Cuban flag on the wall of her office. The title of the video was “Obama Supporter, Che Guevara Shill”, though I doubt the woman so attacked was old enough to remember, let alone shill for, Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara.
I can see why a Cuban-American supporting Obama might be of concern to Fox News. In Miami, if not Houston, Cuban-Americans have traditionally represented guaranteed votes for the Republican Party. That a younger generation of Cuban-Americans may be deviating from this would indeed be a Cuban crisis of sorts. But only for Fox News viewers.
In its efforts to pour the new wine of young Obama supporters into the old wineskins of the Cold War, MyFox seems to have overlooked something. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened 46 years ago, before the typical viewer of YouTube was born.
Several years ago I knew a couple with Open Doors who smuggled Bibles into Cuba. Cubans this couple encountered on the street said it was obvious they were Americans because they “walked free.” And yet, these “free” Americans had to fly to Canada to obtain Cuban visas.
Though Bill Clinton later raised the Cuban travel embargo, George W. Bush reimposed it, an action opposed by younger Cuban-Americans who still had family members in Cuba. Last summer, Obama pledged to ease restrictions on Cuban-American travel to Cuba.
I doubt most young people care whether a Cuban-American displays a Cuban flag. A Cuban has as much right to honor her ethnic heritage with a Cuban flag as a southerner does with a Confederate flag. I see pictures of an elderly Fidel Castro in failing health and wonder why MyFox cowers before a nation that allows our government to torture military prisoners within its sovereign borders.
In 1981, I travelled to the USSR as an American tourist. Today, I’m free to travel to Cuba as a student or as a journalist, but not as an American.
I can see why a Cuban-American supporting Obama might be of concern to Fox News. In Miami, if not Houston, Cuban-Americans have traditionally represented guaranteed votes for the Republican Party. That a younger generation of Cuban-Americans may be deviating from this would indeed be a Cuban crisis of sorts. But only for Fox News viewers.
In its efforts to pour the new wine of young Obama supporters into the old wineskins of the Cold War, MyFox seems to have overlooked something. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened 46 years ago, before the typical viewer of YouTube was born.
Several years ago I knew a couple with Open Doors who smuggled Bibles into Cuba. Cubans this couple encountered on the street said it was obvious they were Americans because they “walked free.” And yet, these “free” Americans had to fly to Canada to obtain Cuban visas.
Though Bill Clinton later raised the Cuban travel embargo, George W. Bush reimposed it, an action opposed by younger Cuban-Americans who still had family members in Cuba. Last summer, Obama pledged to ease restrictions on Cuban-American travel to Cuba.
I doubt most young people care whether a Cuban-American displays a Cuban flag. A Cuban has as much right to honor her ethnic heritage with a Cuban flag as a southerner does with a Confederate flag. I see pictures of an elderly Fidel Castro in failing health and wonder why MyFox cowers before a nation that allows our government to torture military prisoners within its sovereign borders.
In 1981, I travelled to the USSR as an American tourist. Today, I’m free to travel to Cuba as a student or as a journalist, but not as an American.
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