Adolfo Nodal Welcomes Normalization of Ties with Cuba
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
President Barack Obama’s announcement that he was going to normalize relations with Cuba was met with surprise—a surprise that was welcomed in some quarters.
The mainstream press has by and large described the Cuban American response to the announcement as muted.
Adolfo Nodal, a Southern California titan of the arts going back 30 years and who owns and operates Cuba Tours and Travels with partner Peter Sanchez, believes the muted response is due in part of the graying and dying off of the generation of the expatriate community that left following the 1959 revolution. Also, there’s a younger generation of Cubans looking for change that can’t be achieved through isolation.
“There is a part of the community that is still very, very upset about what happened in Cuba,” Nodal explained. “They’ve lost loved ones; they’ve lost property; they’ve suffered a lot; and are dead set against [our reestablishment of relations with Cuba]. I understand that.”
“Then there’s the other part. People who are younger that are saying, ‘we’ve gotta move on and if we don’t do something, Cuba is going to stay like this and rot forever if you leave it as it is.’ It’s already has rotted.”
From the 1990s to the early 2000s, Nodal served as the general manager of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, and he helped shape the city’s Cultural Master Plan, which included a healthy emphasis on Los Angeles’ diversity.
Nodal’s family fled Fulgencio Batista’s regime when Nodal was 7 years-old in 1957. Nodal’s father was a city councilman from a town in Southern Cuba called Cienfuego.
In an interview with Random Lengths, Nodal noted that his father initially sympathized with Fidel Castro’s revolution.
“We were really supportive of all that,” Nodal noted. “But then he started nationalizing lands, then there was the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was really scary, so I never went back… my family never went back until I went in the 1990s… That was the typical Cuban experience.”
Nodal stayed away from his homeland until 1991, shortly after the Soviet Union fell with the Berlin Wall. It was then he decided to “restart” his relationship with Cuba.
“When you’re Cuban, it’s something that doesn’t ever get out of your blood,” he replied when asked what made him return to his homeland.
Reflecting further on the question, Nodal noted that Cuba had remained a big part of his family life. He decided he wasn’t going to run anymore and go see Cuba for himself. That led to Nodal getting more involved with Cuba, starting with the artists.
“At first, I was just dealing with artists and organizing exhibitions and stuff like that,” Nodal explained. “But in 1999, my partner Peter [Sanchez], who is also Cuban American, and I decided to start a business related to Cuba.”
Nodal noted that at the time, about the only thing that could be done and was licensable on the United States’ side was travel.
“We wanted to follow U.S. law and all of that,” Nodal said. “The only thing we could do was start a travel business. And that’s why Cuba Tours and Travels was started.”
Nodal noted how huge a deal the fall of the Soviet block was to Cuba.
“Then the Soviet Union was their biggest trading partner,” Nodal explained. “[When communism fell] Cuba went through what was called a special period. A special period of time of peace, that’s what they called it. It was a time of belt-tightening. There was nothing else that could be done but the tightening of the belt and having Cubans to struggle through all of that.”
His work on Memoria Cuban Art of the 20th Century, which was published in 2001, took Nodal to Cuba quite a bit during the 1990s. As Cuba underwent changes that included the liberalizing of its economic system and cutting back of government support, Nodal found himself carrying bags full of food back to his homeland.
Nodal notes that after some fits and starts, Cuba is beginning to emerge from that period. The emergence is credited in part with Fidel Castro handing over power to his brother, Raul, who was often touted as one likely to help Cuba’s neo-liberal economic transition during the 2000s, when Fidel’s age and health was constant topic of discussion.
“Now that Raul [Castro] is in charge, he made some very major changes…some real transcendental changes,” Nodal said. “For instance, he’s allowed Cubans to travel for the first time in 50 years. He’s letting people have their own businesses, allowing people to own real estate; letting people buy cars. We take it for granted here, but it’s brand new there. Basically it’s evolved to the point where Cuba is a very, very interesting place and can grow now and the U.S. can play a very a big part of it.”
Nodal’s view of the United States role in Cuba’s transition from communist rule isn’t just hyperbole. The Obama administration’s move to normalize relations with Cuba doesn’t just include reestablishing an embassy and high level exchanges. It includes changes to the Treasury Department regulations that have been the bedrock of the U.S.-Cuba embargo. The Obama administration’s new stance means an expansion of licensure of those allowed to travel to Cuba—travel that includes travel visits, journalist activity, public performances, clinics, workshops, athletics and other competitions, humanitarian projects.
Remittance levels from Cuban expatriate to family members in Cuba has been raised from $500 to $2,000 per quarter and support for the development of private businesses in Cuba will no longer require a specific license.
The normalization of ties also includes initiating efforts to build Cuba’s communication infrastructure. The Obama administration noted that only about 5 percent of Cuba’s population has access to the Internet — one of the lowest rates in the world — while telecommunications on the island is exorbitantly high for limited services.
Even with these changes, there’s still more to be done. For Nodal, the next major item on the list is getting Cuba off the Secretary of State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism, a designation the island has had since 1982.
“Cuba is not a terrorist country in any shape or form, even though they may have helped FARC [a rebel socialist rebel organization the government has been at war with for the past 40 years] at one point,” Nodal said. “They are now creating the peace plan between the Colombian government and FARC. It’s a peaceful country. Not a terrorist country.”
Obama has instructed the Secretary of State John Kerry to launch a review of the designation and report back to him in six months.
“As soon as Cuba gets off the terrorist list, it’s going to open up the heavens in many ways,” Nodal said. “We as a travel service provider… the problem with Cuba being on the terrorist watch list and it being a Treasury law, is that no bank in America wants to deal with it. They are all afraid of it. They have to fill out all of these forms. It’s almost impossible to do business.”
Obama noted in his announcement that his measures will further increase people-to-people contact; further support civil society in Cuba; and further enhance the free flow of information to, from and among the Cuban people.
Nodal noted that people-to-people diplomacy was the reason he and Sanchez started Cuba Tours and Travels.
“We started this business with the intent of bringing more Americans to Cuba, so that Americans can see for themselves what Cuba is all about and Cubans can meet Americans,” Nodal said. “People-to-people is the best form of diplomacy. That’s what [is] going to make change and that’s happenin