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This week marks 50 years of the United States embargo on all trade with Cuba. Since 1991, FIU has polled South Florida Cuban-Americans to gauge sentiment toward the embargo. The poll shows support for the policy eroding. As part of FIU News’ Panther Voices series, lead investigator and sociology professor Guillermo Grenier shares the findings.
If there was ever a consensus among Cuban-Americans in Miami about the effectiveness and necessity of the embargo, it dissolved many decades ago.
In 1991, Hugh Gladwin, director of FIU’s Institute for Public Opinion Research, and I began surveying the Cuban-American community on their attitude toward the embargo as part of the FIU Cuba Poll, a detailed survey designed to measure the political attitudes of the Cuban-American community in South Florida. The community’s attitudes toward the embargo reflect the diversity of Cuban-Americans and their vision of U.S.-Cuba relations.
The first year we conducted the poll, approximately 87 percent of Cuban-Americans in, then, Dade County favored the continuation of the embargo. In subsequent years, that number has steadily decreased. The steepest decline occurred after 2000, bottoming out in November of 2008 when fewer than 50 percent of our community supported the continuation of the embargo.
The latest poll – completed in Sept. of 2011 and funded by the Ford Foundation, the Cuban Research Institute and the Department of Global and Sociocultural – showed an increase to approximately 50 percent in support, well below its heyday. This, despite 80 percent believing that the embargo has not worked very well or not well at all.
The embargo remains a strong symbol of the alliance between the “exile” community and the U.S. government. For 50 years, it has offered a vision, born of the Cold War, of how to achieve “regime change” on the island. This (nerf) stick of power has not dealt the death blow its crafters hoped.
When Cuban-Americans are asked about specific restrictions of the embargo, they show a willingness to introduce some new approaches into the policy mix. Seventy-five percent support U.S. companies selling medicine to Cuba (up from 50 percent in 1993). Sixty-five percent favor selling food (up from 23 percent in 1993). Fifty-seven percent would like to see all travel restrictions lifted to the island for ALL Americans (up from 44 percent in 1991). And more than 60 percent are against any legal restrictions to the number of trips or amount of remittances Cuban-American can send to relatives on the island.
Attitudes in the community are changing because the community itself is changing. Approximately 35 percent of Cuban-Americans living in Miami-Dade arrived from Cuba after 1994. These are the members of our community who are more likely to have personal as well as emotional links to the Cuba of today. Only 40 percent of these new Cubans have become citizens, however, and of these, only 35 percent are registered to vote.
We all have an opinion on the embargo and other elements of U.S.-Cuba policy. But only citizens with a vote can change policies. It is up to the new wave of Cubans to revamp the vision of how change can occur in modern Cuba.
— Guillermo Grenier
Our most impactful research:
Panther Voices: Sentiment toward Cuba embargo changing as community changes http://t.co/Jmp5rdeR #FIU
Can the kind professor provide us the with the sample audience and sample questions. Since its a publicly funded project can he publish his method? If not it seems it was based on biased sampling.
Check out the FIU Cuba Poll on-line: http://casgroup.fiu.edu/cri/pages.php?id=1696.
Thanks for the link: I hope this was translated into English. If it was done asked in Spanish I have no idea who they called. It would be nice if the kind professor would provide Demo/GEO data as to sampling and the amount of numbers dialed/reached to receive these responses.
It should be stated that Cuba already buys food from the US. They don’t need to buy our overpriced medicine since they can buy it from Canada. If one leaves south Florida, no one really cares about the embargo, and see it as silly. If you leave the country, they see it as ridiculous.
Most Americans don’t really care about or think about what happens in Cuba. Americans don’t wallow in a third-world mentality because Americans live in the first-world, they design first-world concepts; they’re Americans.
At the moment, Americans are concerned and concentrating on what happens in their own country, the U.S.
That’s what I’m hearing from the American community; that’s just the short version…
Chuck- that is why the survey was done in South Florida only for the Cuban-American community to answer. It was not conducted in Middle America nor for “most Americans” to answer it. Which is a good thing- because “most Americans” would not be able to find Cuba in a map. Just like they have a hard time locating many of their own states in a U.S. map or name some of the American’s heros in U.S. history. I just love watching Leno when he asks simple American trivia questions to people on the streets and then get the dumbest answers. As you said Chuck “they’re Americans”!!
We should strengthen the support for the embargo. What people fail to remember is that Cuba is a terrorist country. Would you support Iran, and N. Korea, or maybe the Chinese Hackers that attack US sites daily. There is no reason to do business with Cuba, as it stands medicine can pass and family can travel to visit. There is no reason to invest in a country that all the profits will go to the Castro regimen and that the funds will be used to be used in attacks on the U.S. This kind of “easying” of the embargo is what the people placed hear by the Castro’s want to be in the public dialogue. They bring up the topic to get doubt in peoples minds. If things “are getting better” as they say then the embargo has worked, they have been pressured to ease their control. KEEP THE EMBARGO! I am a cuban american with family on the island.
I am sure both Carlos Alvarez and his wife Elsa agree with the good professors findings. FIU has lost all credibility with anything Cuba… Our school should focus on how to provide Freedom to these folks not how to be apologetic’s for 52 year old military dictatorship- Truly shameless “research”
There is no way you are an FIU student. Sorry to say but today’s youth would Never use the derogatory “good professor” language used by this person. Sounds like something my 70 plus parents might say! Get over it the embargo is a failure. I’m not saying unlimited trade is the solution either but get over yourself there is no great solution at this time other than military intervention which is not going to happen.
Thank you, David! Glad to see there are still some of us left who see things clearer that others. There is so much confusion caused by the relentless propaganda fostered by castro’s regime (yes, lower-case “c”), masters in twisting the facts -for decades- for their own benefit and no other’s. Far too many “infiltrados” preying on the well-intended “tontos utiles” and taking advantage of our laws to manipulate them for their cause. There may still be a silent majority somewhere, yet we let them fool all, shame on us!
Amazing insights on Cuban-Americans’ views on U.S. policy. http://t.co/JNBNLzYA
And about half of the Cubans that came after 1994 are detriments to society. Be it, drug crimes, grow houses, Medicare fraud, human trafficking or just plain scheming. I feel bad for the honorable Cubans like my family that actually work hard for things and the small percentage that come here for good reasons. These “new” Cubans are like another breed or race of Cubans.
Unfortunately I agree with your comment that the new wave of Cubans is completely distinct to the old. So what is the solution? I say let’s forget about Cuba and end the Cuban adjustment act and the embargo. Cuba is disaster.
The embargo is NOT a failure. I am a freshman who came from Cuba 4 years ago. I know how things work in Cuba and I know it doesn’t matter how much “exchange” or “openness” we try to provide. Remember that Fidel is in charge, he distributes resources as he pleases. He will always keep things the way they are because that’s how the communist system thrives. The problem is that ONLY the U.S is doing the right thing. Cuba has being receiving support from Chavez for years now. I remember how in 2005 we had blackouts every day and things got so bad that every morning we would see sings such as “abajo fidel” and many other things. The U.S is doing the right thing. The problem is that the embargo is not enough. We need to provide information to the Cuban youth inside the island. There is no way change is going to happen if people don’t lose the fear.