I've seen what you're talking about when you speaks of an “embargo on hearts and minds that has kept families separated from one another between mainland US and mainland Cuba…” and also when you said, “The latter hard line embargo has extracted a ‘right of humanity’ by setting barriers for decades against family members being able to freely move back and forth to visit, to love, fight with, care about, watch over, joke with, walk with, heal, guide, help one’s own relatives, visit the graves, do the feasts, play the music, on either shore.”

Such a true and deep sorrow.

For those who have never lived near, been friends with, a person who's been kicked out of their own country, there is a palpable feeling to the heartbreak these people suffer – day in, day out. The denial of their rights, as fellow human beings, to be able to ever go to their physical “home.”

Home. Such a deep meaning that word has for all of us.

Every person I've ever met, knows what the term “homesick” means. To imagine that one is separated from the country of their birth with no recourse. Also, there is a strange belief amongst many Americans I know that, “Well, at least they're out of that hell hole that deprived them of their freedom, their basic civil rights, etc. They are in a much better place now.” And, yes, to an extent that is true….But what of the heart place. The home of the heart. Indeed, most people I know who have come to the United States for political reasons were much better of in terms of their basic liberties, civil rights, religious freedoms…but that does not mean that this is not a heartbreak for them. For these people, they can never (at least not in the foresee-able future) put their feet on the earth, or breath in the air of the locality from which they came. They can no longer speak with their neighbors (and for most of the people I've known in this situation, they GREW UP with their neighbors..these are people they've known and loved all of their lives – they are, in a very real way, “familia”).

It is a strange bittersweet sorrow they hold in their hearts…and it is so rare that they speak about it as, most typically, in my experience, they don't wish to ever be thought of as “ingrates' (and I've seen some American people be short with folks who have the heartbreak of losing their home place – for some Americans – certainly not all but – there is this assumption that every person born on the planet wants to come here no matter what their situation is). So for those who have come here who suffer a grief and a longing for their original home place….they suffer a deep abiding homesickness with no reprieve and very few people they can share these thoughts with.

Such a sad and tragic and emotionally traumatic situation.
I always keep these people in my prayers.

Thank you for your insightful post Doc!

Ghost

PS I've been living out here in the midwest/northern plains for going on 7 years and still, to this very day I will get physically ill when I see pictures of my home…so deep is my grief and homesickness for the city of my birth and it's in the same country (although one would never know that to look at the geography, politics, etc. even the dialect of English is different out here), 1616.32 miles away. For people forced from their homes from foreign countries, I can only imagine the depths of their grief and it must be an ongoing “dark night of the soul” for many of them (if I guage it on my own homesickness – which is very subjective but ….).

The problem is that I don't think anyone has any ideas for better solutions either. The idea of sanctions itself is meant to be more benign than potentially going to war or instigating revolution or coup, but if this solution makes conditions worse instead of bringing about the desired outcome then we're right to reverse course. I just wish someone could find a third way, because I agree with you DaGoat that we still shouldn't treat Castro with any legitimacy or respect.

Is the goal to normalize relations with Cuba and hope they change? I apologize if I am being dumb here but it seems like many of the concerns of the past couple of decades have disappeared for some reason.

I think the restrictions have likely done what the Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain did, dont you?… to not allow freedom of movement, freedom of love, new and different solutions, real medicines, evolving technology to move freely among the people, keeping the people impoverished in so many ways….whilst the guys at the top argue through FOUR generations of souls.

I am pretty clear, StockBoy, that the Cubanos, including those who fly for freedom and those who attempt to flee, as well as those who are pretty happy where they are, would, like many of us, prefer free movement of ideas without being pounced on. Let's hope it will be a new time now.

dr.e

And I am glad you could read this article about family resonance and how it ought not be broken by political leaders, as you said so succinctly.

dr.e

There are other critival issues that need ongoing articles too about Cuba, that is the inability for people in the States to help bring the most modern medical equipment into Cuba, (even though they have developed good equipment and import from nations that are not hostile to them) especially for outlying regions for the Cubans, as we have often done, elsewhere in the world… especially when we have a large population of immigrants/ refugees from that country in our nation.

I think a Cubanista KFC, McDonalds, etc would be a good idea if only the food actually fed the body instead of essentially putting in an I.V. the equiv of Crisco. Here, people might just as well drive up and order a half cup of melted lard to go. 'Sad but true' tag. Actually in many parts of Cuba, the diet is still decent: fresh fish, fresh fruits. And of course, handmade pasteles…. just to add a bit of levity… these are cookies, rolls, buns, cakes… considered the other food group by many?

dr.e

It is time to stop punishing the peoples—the friends, the brothers, the sons and daughters–on the two shores for the misdeeds of an ailing dicatator, for the unfounded hates and fears that have been around now for over fifty years, for the political convenience and strawmen of a few.

But it would be better than having the far-left 60s dinosaurs (the Dellums era crowd from Congress) happy.