First Person: Returning to Cuba more than a half-century later I just went back for the first time s

[Judi Lynn]

I just went back for the first time since my family left in 1959
DAVE RIVERA
FEB 23, 2018 11:00 PM

I lived in Cuba from the age of 1 to 14 — my father was in the U.S. military and my mother was Cuban — and I returned last month to Cuba for the first time since our family left in 1959. I didn’t know what to expect, mainly because of the economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country by the United States for nearly 60 years. From some of the images we have seen from afar, we expected to see a lot of old cars, bicycles, general shortages of almost everything else and a broken people.

We landed at Jose Marti airport, went through customs and exited to a waiting fleet of modern European cabs. Our cab ride to the bed and breakfast where we stayed took us on a modern four-lane highway to the crowded one-way streets of Old Havana.

Early on, the U.S. trade embargo deeply affected Cuba. More recently, though, the rest of the world has resumed trade relations with Cuba, and the main effect of the U.S. embargo has been keeping American investment and tourism down to a trickle. While we were there, we saw ample evidence of Europeans, Asians and South Americans.

Old Havana streets are bustling with tourists and tourism-related activities. Drivers with their antique cars gather around plazas near hotels waiting for fares. Street vendors populate corners, and roaming groups of street performers were everywhere we went in the center city. Markets, sidewalk cafes and stores were busy; some even had waiting lines.

More:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2018/02/24/First-Person-Returning-to-Cuba-more-than-a-half-century-later/stories/201802240022