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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFor black Cubans, Obama visit a source of pride, inspiration
?uuid=ibmLVO6dEeWio9TpaXkX0Qhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/for-black-cubans-obama-visit-a-source-of-pride-inspiration/2016/03/20/8b5e2078-ee9d-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html?postshare=601458482845651&tid=ss_tw
HAVANA Yolanda Mauris ancestors almost certainly came to Cuba in chains, laboring as slaves on an island of French coffee plantations and fields of Spanish sugarcane.
Her parents became their familys first professionals, graduating with engineering degrees after Cubas 1959 revolution ended segregation. Mauri, 26, graduated from an elite technical university with a degree in computer programming. Today, she struggles to patch together a living from poorly paid government work and freelance jobs like building websites. She feels the sting of racism in casual derogatory comments or a maître ds refusal to seat her in an expensive restaurant.
For Mauri and hundreds of thousands of black Cubans, Barack Obama isnt just the first U.S. leader to visit their country in nearly nine decades. Hes a black man whose rise to the worlds most powerful job is a source of pride and inspiration.
Obamas March 20-22 visit has raised Cubans hopes that a new era in relations with the United States will bring an end to the U.S. trade embargo and improve life for everyone on the island. For Afro-Cubans in particular, the presidential trip carries a special charge, a hope that an African-American leaders near-universal popularity among Cubans of all races will help end lingering prejudice and inequality.
Hes black and in some moment of his life he must have realized that as an African-American he had to elevate his performance level because as a black person you have to work twice as hard to get the same result as a white, Mauri said. I identity a lot with him because of that.
Cubas culture is a blend of African and Spanish influence. The islands world-renowned music and dance traditions draw deeply from the cultures of the West Africans brought to the island as slaves. Its Santeria religion is a blend of Catholicism and the Yoruba practices of western Africa.
One of Fidel Castros first acts after overthrowing Cubas government was to declare an end to a regimen of segregation that mirrored unequal conditions for blacks in the United States. Afro-Cubans praise the countrys incorporation of anti-racism into its official ideology, and acknowledge that black Cubans have made dramatic advances thanks to the revolution.
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For black Cubans, Obama visit a source of pride, inspiration (Original Post)
flamingdem
Mar 2016
OP
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)1. K & R enthusiastically.
BHO
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)2. WATCH: POTUS departs for #Cuba! ABC News Politics
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)3. Historic, indeed. BHO has been in SO many ways.