Missing Perspective

When it comes to the Cuban exile community, it's apparent from reading many news stories and from interaction with ordinary people out there that there's quite a bit of misunderstanding. Of course, this is more common the farther you get from Miami, but that doesn't mean that Miami itself is immune, far from it.

I was reminded of this when reading this morning's Herald story on Cuban exiles, part of a loosely connected series the paper is running this week. I won't publish the article in its entirety here due to its length, but you can find it here.

The basic themes of the article as written by Oscar Corral (a below-average journalist in my book) are: older Cuban exiles are virulent, anachronistic, old-fashioned dinosaurs who are trapped in 1959.

Now, a lot of that may be true to a point, but what Corral fails to do is explain why. You would think it would be easy, right? Many of those exiles suffered through traumatic experiences at the hand of castro. They are saddened by the putrid conditions on the island. They hurt for their relatives back in Cuba, both alive and dead. It would be perfectly understandable, even rational, to feel hate for castro and his cronies.

The perspective of the exile, that's what's missing in Corral's article, and in the opinions of so many out there. It's the job of us bloggers to put everything in its proper perspective.