In some of her most extensive public comments about Cuba, Tampa area Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor says it's an "exciting time" on the Communist island in regards to some of the modest free-market reforms recently enacted under President Raoul Castro, and she says Tampa can become the gateway to Cuba, but emphasized reforms must continue to happen there.
"Do they come fast enough? No," she admitted, but quoted friends who have just traveled to the island raving about the new entrepreneurial spirit happening in the country. "You can buy and sell homes, you can buy and sell used cars, you can have your own small businesses as restaurants in your own home – to us those are pretty modest things, but to the island that has been closed since the revolution in 1959…living under a mean-spirited regime, you can see a little bit of change, a little bit of light."
At a lunch held in her honor at the Hyatt Regency sponsored by the World Trade Center Tampa Bay, a local business group, Castor confessed she's no expert on Cuba, and says (as she has in the past) that she likes to get "all points of view" regarding the country to Florida's south. But she did make certain to mention Ralph Fernandez, the most oft-quoted hardliner on Cuba in local media, as somebody she did consult.
As she told CL months ago, she says she will travel to the island ultimately, but did not give any indication when that would be. At times it almost sounded like such a trip would be conditional, such as when she said the government there "doesn't make it easy," referencing the fact that the nation played host to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.