Lost Son of Havana & the Cuba Travel Embargo
October 5, 2009 by Mary Jo Manzanares
Filed under Things to See & Do, history
I watched a movie earlier this evening, and after wiping away more than a few tears from my eyes, it got me thinking, once again, about the United States’ travel embargo to Cuba.
First, the movie.
It was, ostensibly, a baseball movie – The Lost Son of Havana – about former baseball pitcher Luis Tiant.
In 1961, the Cleveland Indians brought the young pitcher to the United States to play professional baseball, following in the footsteps of his father, also a pitcher, who played in the Negro League for the New York Cubans. While living out his dream, Tiant received a message from his parents back in Cuba – don’t return home. The rise of the Castro regime made returning back to Cuba an unwise decision.
Tiant heeded the advice of his parents, but it would be 14 years before he saw them again.
Castro eventually allowed the elder Tiant’s to travel to the US (following intervention by then Senator George McGovern), and they saw their son play in the 1975 World Series, where he was the winning pitcher for two games against the Big Red Machine of Cincinnati. Luis Sr. even through the first pitch of the game, which resulted in father and son being on the mound. The Tiant’s stayed in the US for 15 months, as they watched there son play baseball and got to know him once again. Eventually, they both passed away here in the US, within a day of one another.
If that was all the movie was about, it would be a nice, simple movie, with baseball as a subtext for a warm family, feel-good movie. But the heart of the movie lies in following Luis as he is finally allowed to journey back to Cuba following a 46-year exile. After a couple of previous attempts to return, all futile, this movie is about finally going home again, to a country that has changed nearly to the point of being unrecognizable.
Tiant reunites with elderly aunts, former baseball colleagues, and numerous extended family members and friends from the neighborhood, as he takes a trip down memory lane that is both joyous and painful. A new generation of Cubans come out to meet him, thinking of him as not only a great baseball players, but as a “millionaire from the United States.”
The movie, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, does a nice job of weaving old film clips into the filming of the journey back home. It does an amazing job of showing the emotions of a rather stoic man, as he wrestles with the guilt over leaving his family and homeland, and his successes as opposed to the poverty of his former home. There’s grief, there’s joy, there’s guilt, and just a teensy bit of hope as Luis Tiant says that he will return to Cuba again.
After watching the movie, I was left asking myself once again – why do we continue this crazy embargo on travel to Cuba? Who is really hurt by it?
It’s a mere 90 miles away from our shore, but there’s a mountain of policy that says Tiant will probably never be able to cross that divide again.
So please. . . somebody. . . tell me again, why is this a good policy?
If I’ve piqued your interest, please take a look at the movie trailer:
Photo credit: wikimedia
Thank you for sharing this; I will look forward to the movie.
One of the best posts I have read on any blog to date. Having traveled extensively across the US I am convinced that the poor relationship between the US and Cuba is rooted in the resentment that Cubans living in the US feel towards the Castro regime. Many of them appear to have lost property or suffered in some other way. One person told me that even now there are still legal claims pending against Cuba that were filed by such expatriates. The person went on to say that the only way his family and other expatriates would accept normalization of relations with Cuba was if some kind of reparations were made. I think the chances of Castro paying them reparations would have far slimmer odds than the poor relationship continuing. The poor relationship between the US and Cuba is in neither country’s interest. This begs the old question of how the US political system can free itself from being bound by very motivated special interest groups into pursuing a path that is not good for the majority, but that the majority do not care deeply enough about to act on. Obama has improved the situation: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/13/cuba.travel/index.html but Obama has already taken on enough really big political impasses. One wonders how far he can go in solving it once and for all.
Thanks for your comments, Andy.
I agree that is seems like a small minority of people driving this political decision. At some point I can only hope that prudence will prevail. I just don’t see the status quo benefiting many people.