For many Cuban immigrants, old habits die hard
By JACKIE BUENO SOUSA
jsousa@MiamiHerald.com
Judging by the letters I received in response to my last column,
Miamians are divided into two camps: those who believe Cubans have made
Miami a world-class city, and those who believe Cubans have ruined this
once-fine town.
The debate can get ugly. But I gotta admit I love the honest communication.
Last week's column, you might recall, was about the tendency to blame
immigrants for crimes and all that's wrong with our city. In particular,
it spoke of the ease with which Cubans are being blamed for the recent
wave of Medicare fraud mainly because many of those arrested locally
have been, well, Cuban.
OVERALL PERCEPTION
But much of the correspondence I received wasn't just about the Medicare
issue, but about a general perception that Miami's Cuban community
espouses a culture that too easily accepts defrauding government and big
business. We're talking Medicare fraud, mortgage fraud -- slyly selling
new goods from the trunk of a car.
Unfortunately, there's good reason for that perception. And to summarily
dismiss those who have such views by automatically labeling them bigots
or xenophobes would be to ignore a strain of truth in their criticism.
DANGER OF ACCEPTANCE
''Accepts'' is the key word here. While the overwhelming majority of
Miami's Cuban community consists of honest, hard-working people, there's
a certain passivity and acceptance in how we react to those who do
engage in such fraudulent acts.
Perhaps it's the effects of 50 years of communism reaching over the
Florida Straits. The first time I went to Cuba, we were visited by
several distant relatives. As is typical, the discussions initially
consisted of the usual small talk, catching up on the whereabouts of
so-and-so. At one point, when someone asked one of the men in the room
what his son was doing for a living, he answered casually, ``Oh, you
know, living off el bisne [the business].''
In the states, that might seem like an innocent enough answer. But in
Cuba ''el bisne'' usually means hustling stolen government goods. Soap,
paint, shoes, light bulbs, gas, rice -- anything that can be pilfered by
employees working at a government factory or store. Everyone knew what
it meant, and no one was offended.
SHAME HAS ITS PLACE
The need for such goods is so great that no one cares how they are
obtained. What matters is feeding your family, being able to fulfill
needs, to desperately feel some sense of progress, even if that progress
comes in the banality of splashing a fresh coat of paint on your
living-room walls. The act has so permeated Cuban society that stealing
from the government no longer elicits shame, not even by a father
speaking of his son.
It's not always possible to leave such an attitude behind; you don't
wash it away with 90 miles of ocean water or wipe it away with a green
card. As a result, the attitude finds its way here more often than it
should.
Except that here, it's usually not about stealing rice to help feed your
family or illegally hooking onto a satellite connection because it's the
only way to know what's happening in the world.
No, here, there should be shame. Shame in the lies, shame in the deceit
and, most of all, shame in killing the dream of a new way of life by not
shedding the unsavory ways of an old one.
For many Cuban immigrants, old habits die hard - Columnists -
MiamiHerald.com (6 July 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1128794.html
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