A Castro legacy: Cuban-Americans’ hefty clout in US politics
MIAMI — Cuban-Americans carry hefty political clout in the United States — they vote more frequently than any other Latinos; they have a strong presence in Washington with three senators, two of whom were serious contenders for the presidency; and only one non-Cuban has been Miami’s mayor since 1985.
Much of this is a legacy of Fidel Castro, the longtime Cuban leader who died Nov. 25. His communist revolution in 1959 not only sent thousands of Cubans to the U.S. but engendered in them a fervour to resist communism at the height of the Cold War — an issue that resonated heavily in their adopted country and helped transform them into a potent force in its politics.
The clout Cuban-Americans now enjoy comes as no surprise to Lorenzo Rodriguez, a 41-year-old Miami real estate agent who grew up, like many people of Cuban heritage, in households where politics are a passion and people are eager to participate in a democracy after fleeing the communist island.
“Because America gave us this platform, I think Cubans utilized it,” he said days after Castro died at age 90. “The fact that America took them in is a debt they feel they can never repay.”