Cuba travel bill vote postponed. Bummer!
UPDATE: Statement from Chairman Berman on H.R. 4645. The vote scheduled has been postponed.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
I, along with my family (parents) have been working as activists for nearly 10 years to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. My mother just got out of a routine surgery today, and less than an hour ago she called with the good news from her hospital bed that she was in some pain, but feeling strong. Following she said, “I wish I could be there with you tomorrow for the vote,” and it just broke my heart to tell her that moments before her call I got the public statement from the Chairman’s office about the postponement of the vote.
I told a friend, who is equally obsessed with the issue, that I feel like I am in an abusive relationship with U.S. legislature toward Cuba. You feel like you are making progress and then once again you get disappointed.
I took some breaths before writing this…Re-read the statement and re-evaluated my analysis…
I urge readers not to lose sight of the longer view. That we are clearly in the final chapter of this saga, we all know how it will end, but we also all know it’s not a short story but rather an epic – and most of all that the pages don’t write themselves, that it’s up to those who care deeply for the future of the Cuban people to keep pressure on and hope alive. There is a step back for every two forward but we have come an enormously long way and we’ll prevail. We are the majority and we have to organize our game tighter.
I am getting emails from the U.S. travel and agricultural industry to solidarity activists, who collectively have taken on this issue. We will reach this goal together, hopefully soon after the post- election session. I am motivated to keep on, keeping the fire under the Congress and the Administration to do more.
One supportive Cuban “Guajiro” from Virginia, wrote me in response to the news and said “no te desanimes mi hermanita.. pa’lante, pa’lante y pa’tras ni pa cojer impulso!”
Angelica Salazar
