[LINK] "Spain and Cuba; A 500-year-old Affair"

[rfmcdonald]

Megan Lardner's article "Spain and Cuba; A 500-year-old Affair", part of the Cubans 2001 project of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, surveys the depth of Spain's reengagement with Cuba, from the early 1990s on. Cuba once was a major destination for ambitious migrants from a considerably poorer Spain; now, after Spain's successful modernization and Cuba's relative decline, the balance of power in the relationship has reversed.

[T]oday's Spaniards are arriving by airplane - not ocean vessel - and importing cash, new ideas, and high hopes of becoming Cuba's most trusted business partner. It wasn't always this way. In colonial days, Spaniards who emigrated to Cuba had little to offer. María del Carmen Molina, the Cuban granddaughter of Spanish immigrants, shakes with laughter remembering a television show she watched as a child during the early days of Cuba's Revolution. The program poked fun at those early Spanish immigrants who - fleeing Spain's economic depression - arrived in Cuba penniless and had to prove themselves. But time has turned the tables and today all that is Spanish is the ticket to success. "Now everyone wants to be Spanish," Molina laughs.