2 The Hampton Roads Messenger


Volume 6 Number 12


August 2012


First Havana-Miami Cargo Service Marks Sea Change for Cuba Past and Future


The Bolivian ship, Ana Cecelia, the “Peace Boat,” set sail with the first regular cargo service between Miami and Havana in a half-century, marking a new era.


BY LOUIS NEVAER MIAMI, Fla.—When the Bolivian


merchant ship, the Ana Cecelia, docked in Havana from Miami--ambitiously labeled “Peace Boat” on its side—it was set to unload its humble cargo of bedding and mattresses bound for the Cuban populace.


But the little-reported voyage The Best Bankers. Hometown Banking. townebank.com TowneBank is an Equal Opportunity Employer. SEA CHANGE PAGE 14


quietly marked the first regularly scheduled commerce allowed between the United States and Cuba in a half- century—and a sea change for Cubans on both sides of the 90-mile journey. In doing so, though, it also exposed a humanitarian barrier between affluent white Cuba and its largely non-white and impoverished population.


Since the Cuban revolution rolled


into Havana on New Year’s Eve 1959, exiled Cubans in South Florida have offered a narrative of their Homeland Recovered: Once Castro is ousted, they believed, they would return to rebuild and renew their country. And since October 1960, their desire for repatriation has been supported by a U.S.-imposed embargo on commercial and economic exchanges with Cuba, imposed by the United States.


The exiles’ narrative envisioned


a return to Cuba as it was during Camelot--when sugar cane, tobacco and beautiful beaches would be the basis of a restored economy, and where fresh capital inflows would modernize Havana--and the whole of Cuba.


Second Annual African Landing Day Commemoration in Hampton


August 17-19, 2012 An action-packed three days of heritage, music, reconciliation and healing in historic Hampton at Fort Monroe and The American Theatre. This special commemoration honors the first Africans who arrived in America on British occupied territory at Point Comfort in 1619, site of Fort Monroe.


To register or for more information call 757.380.1319 or visit www.project1619.org


VisitHampton.com


Hamcvb10147_hamptonRoadsMessenger.indd 1


8/3/12 9:26 AM


Meeting local


borrowing, community, and economic needs.


That’s the hometown way.


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