I imagine there are mixed feelings in Miami's Little Havana today

Those feelings are going to be largely (not exclusively) generational. Cubans have always been a part of the Florida landscape, but a huge wave arrived after the Revolution. This generation is aged, and stridently anti-Communist and anti-Castro. This Generation has never forgiven JFK for the Bay of Pigs. Then there are the Marielistas -- those who came in the 1979 boatlift. Some who fled poverty, and others who'd been let out of Castro's jails. Many of Miami's Cuban Americans are just that - born in America to parents, grand parents, or great grandparents who came over in the past 50 + years.

Make no mistake about it, the Castro bros. (Raul & Fidel) violated human rights; failed to ever deliver anything remotely close to democracy; let Cuba be used as a cold war Soviet pawn; and have committed torture and murder. They are not nice guys. Having said that, they've dramatically improved health care for all Cubans and they've brought literacy to most of Cuba.

It's easy to be critical of Marco Rubio, and to be sure, he's pandering to his base. I am truly sympathetic to those whose relatives were jailed or killed by the Castro regime, or whose families have been irreversibly divided by the Cuban/American rift. It's also worth pausing for a moment to remember the many Cubans who died at sea atempting to escape Cuba, and who never reached America

Nevertheless, this is a good thing. I know it's going to be difficult for some, just as normalizing relations with Vietnam was difficult for some who'd served in the war, as well as some who fled here in the aftermath of the fall of the South.

I posted this in LBN as my basic reasons this is a good thing.

1) We've tried embargo and isolation for 50 years. It hasn't worked.
2) Time is working against the Castro brothers, not for them.
3) We're not in a position to lecture anyone on human rights (#Ferguson # ICan'tBreath #TortureReport)
4) It's a good move for American agriculture
5) We've fought a war and subsequently normalized relations with Vietnam in the in the period between the Castro revolution and today.
6) Cuba has its faults, but it's not Iran and it's not North Korea
7) ..and I'd add that most every other western democracy has a relationship with Cuba at this point.

If nothing else, the time has come to talk to Cuba and engage them.