Jekyl’s World - Cubans
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Disclaimer:  I live in South Florida.  I have many friends who are Cuban and I count them among my favorite people so please consider that before throwing coconuts through my windows or attacking me with machetes…   I’ve got to let you in on something:  Cuba is not an island, it’s another planet.

Cubans are a very passionate people. ( which means that they speak at the top of the lungs while waving their arms around, which is pretty disconcerting if they’re driving the car you’re in) They believe deeply in the reasons that they fled communism and Fidel Castro.  These, of course, would be hot dogs, cold beer, air conditioning, and a decent working wage.   The cab drivers in Miami are all physicians who are making 4 times as much money as they did in Cuba.  That’s a little joke; our cab drivers are actually Haitians.   The doctors are driving around in Hialeah doing dental work in the back of a van and becoming rich from Medicaid dollars.   Suffice it to say that they’ve found the good life. 

The problem is that they can’t leave Cuba behind.  Now, lest we make a huge demographic mistake here, it should be pointed out that there are a number of sub-divisions among the Cuban population in South Florida.  Basically it can be boiled down to (1)  Those who came to America before Castro (BC),    (2)  Those who left on principal when the communists took over, and (3)  Those who have come over after they discovered that communism didn’t work nearly as well as the mafia run Havana that they grew up loving.
 
The BC group has acclimated pretty well and they have daughters named things like Jennifer and Tiffany who, as a general rule, believe all the fuss is about as relevant to them as Vietnam.  The other two groups, however, are really pissed off at Castro and anything which currently comes from Cuba except them.  I am referring, of course, to all the hub-bub in recent days over the location of the upcoming Latin Grammy Awards. 

As I mentioned, the Cuban people feel very strongly about just about everything that they have feelings about.  I think it might have something to do with those little bitty evil cups of coffee they pass out which have an octane rating that could be used to fuel the Space Shuttle.  At any rate, they like to protest a lot, mainly about things that they feel give any semblance of legitimacy to Castro’s government.  On Sunday, I read a quote by one of the leading figures in the latin music industry, Mr. Gloria Estefan, who said he feared that they were losing the Grammys.  Now, for those of you who don’t live down here, a little background is in order.  Cuba is considered Latin.  Musicians from Cuba are considered Latin, which is why they are invited to the Latin Grammys.  The Cubans who live in America consider musicians from Cuba to be Cuban, though, and hate them, at least the ones that do anything with official approval.  You following this?  They feel that because they haven’t defected, floated, or bought their way over yet that they’re somehow propping up Senor Castro.   Thus, they protest.  Now, back to the news.

The issue is very simple.  The loud group of Cubans wants to hold protests during the Grammys to show their disapproval for allowing Cuban musicians to perform.  They have claimed that it is their Constitutional right of freedom of speech.  You still following this?   The mayor of Miami/Dade County (Alex Penisless, of Elian Gonzales fame) was on the front page headlines Monday morning saying We Will Not Lose the Grammys!  So, the local Miami government, under the guise of doing the American thing (which, of course, has nothing to do with it), wants to allow them to protest.  They actually have been negotiating with the protesters about how close or far away from the venue that they will be allowed to protest. 

The problem?

The Grammy people said today; You know what?  We think we’ll just stay in Los Angeles.  You want to protest? Go right ahead and we’ll hold our awards ceremony out here on the West Coast where we don’t have this nonsense.  You know what else?  The Cubans are the only ones surprised by this.  Just like in the Elian saga, the rest of the world sat around wondering what the hell was wrong with these people while they marched, sang, locked arms, and created a gauntlet to keep out the Big Bad Janet Reno and her stormtroopers.  It’s not a brain-related thing, either.  I have a good friend that I’ll call Willie whom I regularly look to for business advice and even-keel viewpoint.   I distinctly remember him taking an afternoon off so he could go stand in front of Elian’s house (which is a shrine of some kind now, I hear).   Well, it didn’t work and I’m again sorry to report that the protesters are the only ones that didn’t understand.  They still don’t understand and if I can offer a fair criticism, it’s that these folks don’t learn very quickly from their failures.

So while you and me and 99.7% of the American population wake up and wonder what, on Earth, they expected the Grammy people to do in the face of street protests, you can be sure of one thing.  Where ever that planet Cuba is, they will get up tomorrow and make another batch of that coffee.