By Alfredo Corchado and Tracey Eaton
The Dallas
Morning News, Sept. 25
State poised to influence island's future, many say
Jose Hernandez has seen the future of his Cuban homeland, and it's big - as big as Texas.
While the Florida peninsula seems to reach out to the island nation like the hand of a long-lost brother, exiles' relationship with Cuban residents is so fraught with anger and mistrust, analysts say, that Texas and its Cuban-Americans just may help fill the void when Fidel Castro is gone or when the two nations rekindle friendly ties.
"Texas will play a key role in the reconstruction of Cuba," predicted Mr. Hernandez, a Plano lawyer and former president of Cubans of the Metroplex, a Cuban-American civic group. "Texas was influential during the pre-Castro period, and Texas will be just as influential in the post-Castro days."
Texas and Cuba - the Western Hemisphere's last Communist nation - may seem like an odd match, but they share intriguing bits of history. Both republics were borne by revolutions. Both have a passion for gritty cowboys, fine cattle and sports. And both have unwavering pride in their independent spirit, underscored by their flags, each emblazoned with a single defiant star.
On Mr. Castro's first and only trip to the United States in 1959, he stopped in Houston, met with the Texas Cattleman's Association and donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat for the cameras.
Texas lore fascinates Cubans. Visiting Texans are sometimes called "John Waynes." And in Cuba's heartland town of Camaguey, where the King Ranch once owned thousands of acres and raised the most prized cattle herd around, locals readily embrace norteno music known in Texas as Tex-Mex.
Cubans see Texas-Cubans as likable sorts, not known for bombing Havana's four- and five-star hotels, trying to assassinate Mr. Castro or insisting that the United States tighten its longtime ban on trade with Cuba.
About 30,000 Cuban-Americans live in Texas, with about 6,000 of them in North Texas. And they could serve as a vital bridge to the island in the near future, analysts say.
"When it comes to Cuba, we're as passionate as our compatriots in Miami," said Mr. Hernandez. "But our politics may be more moderate because we're less influenced by the harsh rhetoric of Miami radio stations. Make no mistake, we're anti-Castro, but we're more willing to look at other alternatives like dialogue and negotiations."
Added Dallas business consultant Delia Reyes, who left Havana in 1962 at the age of 20 and has lived in Texas since 1976: "Cubans in Miami are violent and bloodthirsty. They forget there are still 11 million Cubans on the island. They want a second revolution. . . . We have to ensure that Texas is a link to Cuba's future."
Indeed, just as Texas has been at the forefront of Mexico's economic development, the state could ease the economic transition in Cuba, some say.
In Galveston, businessman Byron Barksdale, 48, said he has had a passion for things Cuban for as long as he remembers. As a kid in West Palm Beach, Fla., he saw Cuba-bound ferries chugging along the coastline on their way to Havana. He now heads the United States Cuban Business Consortium, a nonpolitical, nonprofit coalition of people with interest in Cuba. Among the many businesses he hopes to launch someday is a diving operation aptly called "CUBASCUBA."
"I've been intrigued and enamored by Cuba for more than 40 years," he said.
Not all Texans are quite so open about their keen interest in Cuba. Said an official at a large Dallas-based corporation: "Of course we're interested in developing new markets. But when it comes to Cuba, we're not too anxious to advertise it. The last thing we want in the world is to have some wacky hard-line Cubans picketing our office in Miami."
A 1994 trade study by the Texas State Comptrollers office estimated that Texas could benefit from an additional $200 million to $300 million exports a year if Washington lifts the embargo. Exports would include agricultural products, cotton, cattle, petrochemicals and machinery.
A 1994 study by two visiting Cuban scholars at the University of Texas at Austin put the number at $800 million.
If the United States lifts the embargo, economists say, U.S. trade could reach $7 billion within the first three years.
Those figures pale in comparison with the nearly $32 billion of goods Texas exported to Mexico last year. And Florida, with nearly 700,000 Cuban-Americans and a closer proximity to Cuba, is poised to be the biggest beneficiary from the lifting of the embargo.
But Texas, with the nation's sixth-largest contingent of Cuban-Americans, benefits from several ports along the Gulf of Mexico, several key airports, particularly Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and trade experience with other Latin American countries, analysts say.
Perhaps most important, many say, is the attitude that the state's Cuban-Americans have toward Cuba. In Miami, radio stations constantly blast Mr. Castro as an evil dictator. Not so in Dallas, where Mr. Castro doesn't draw nearly as much attention as the Dallas Cowboys, a sizzling steak or even the Mexican peso.
Still, the old immigrant refrain holds true for many Cubans in Texas: "The farther they're away from their homeland, the more Cuban they become."
Mr. Hernandez' voice still cracks when he recalls the day his parents dressed him in his Sunday best and watched as he boarded a Miami-bound plane. What he remembers most is tearfully struggling to run back to his parents as his sisters pulled him back toward the plane. He was 8 years old.
"December 23, 1961, is a day I will never forget," he said.
Alfonso Martinez-Fonts, chairman and CEO of Chase Bank of Texas in El Paso, has similar bittersweet memories of his homeland, which he left in 1960 at age 10.
Nearly 40 years later, he wonders if he'll ever return.
In June, he was overwhelmed with a rush of memories when his mother died. And he often thinks of what she told him in January during Pope John Paul II's landmark visit to Cuba.
"Alfonso," she said. "I really think I was very stupid for not taking advantage of the opportunity to go back to Cuba."
Now he thinks about Cuba all the time. He cherishes an 8-by-10-inch photo taken recently of the home where he used to live on the island even though the five-bedroom house is now crumbling and has two families living in it.
For many Cubans living in Texas, it's the memories that count. They want a feeling of home again, unlike many hard-line exiles in Florida and New Jersey, who want their businesses, factories, farms and houses returned to them.
George A. McNenney, who recently retired as chief of the U.S. Customs office in El Paso, asks anyone going to Havana to snap photos of his broken-down pale-blue home in the once-posh Miramar district. He was 11 years old when he left.
"Tell el senor McNenney that he can have all the photos he wants and he can come and visit anytime, as long as he remembers and respects that this is our home now," said Maria Elena Gonzalez, who has lived in the house, along with 10 other siblings, for the last 32 years.
Said Mr. McNenney, "That home represents my birth, my first country, my first language, my first good and first bad times. But 32 years, huh? That family has lived there longer than I ever did. It's their home now."
Staff writer Nancy San Martin in El Paso contributed to this report.
© 1998 The Dallas Morning News