|
The Miami Herald, February 10, 2003.
Non-Hispanics find influence among Cubans
By Karl Ross. Kross@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Feb. 09,
2003
At a recent gathering at a Coral Gables schmoozing spot, then U.S.
Rep.-elect Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, and his former business partner,
publicist Seth Gordon, expressed their undying devotion to each other.
''It's a man-man love thing,'' Gordon later joked at Díaz-Balart's
farewell party days before his swearing-in last month. "But don't tell
anybody because it would hurt his chance for reelection.''
The light-hearted exchange capped a successful 10-year public relations
business partnership for Díaz-Balart, the rising Cuban-American leader,
and Gordon, the New England native who describes himself as their firm's "ideologically
ambiguous gringo civic dude.''
When the two joined forces, Díaz-Balart was a young, hungry
politician in need of a paycheck and Gordon was a public-relations man short on
clients. Both say they prospered as a result of the partnership, as blue-chip
companies such as BellSouth and the Florida Marlins enlisted their services.
Such symbiotic alliances between members of Miami's Cuban-American ruling
class and non-Hispanics such as Gordon are not as uncommon as some residents may
believe.
The image of an ethnically polarized metropolis was etched into the national
psyche during the standoff over child rafter Elián González in
2000. Such tensions surfaced again recently, when Miami Shores fired a building
department official who told a Herald columnist that Cuban immigration was
responsible for the demise of the Orange Bowl Parade.
Gordon and other non-Hispanics who have prospered in partnership with local
Cuban Americans say their experience provides little-publicized evidence of
cooperation.
''Those who think there's a big Cuban conspiracy, a Cuban cabal are very
much uninformed,'' said Ric Katz, a publicist and political consultant. "They
haven't read American history.''
Other non-Hispanics influential in Cuban-American circles include:
- Hugh Cochran, a retired FBI agent who lives in Hialeah and runs a Little
Havana campaign data and political consulting office.
- Patrick Fiore, a political activist and chairman of the West Kendall
Community Council, appointed to that post by County Commissioner Joe Martínez.
- Michael Pizzi, a Miami Lakes councilman who represents a heavily Hispanic
district.
- Brian May, former chief of staff to county Mayor Alex Penelas and informal
advisor to Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, now a prominent lobbyist.
A COMMON THREAD
Dario Moreno, a political science professor and campaign consultant, sees a
common thread.
"What these guys all have in common is they are willing to accept that
Hispanics are the dominant force politically in Miami-Dade County -- by sheer
numbers. And democracies are about sheer numbers.''
Despite Cuban majorities on the County Commission and in the legislative
delegation, Moreno said, Miami-Dade's body politic is not monolithic. Barriers
of language and culture are far from insurmountable.
''I have friends who call me an honorary Cuban even though I don't speak
Spanish,'' Gordon said. "I never felt at a disadvantage.''
He is not alone. May describes his Spanish as ''minimal.'' Katz says most of
his vocabulary was derived from the menu at Versailles restaurant in Little
Havana. Cochran admits he's far from fluent, though he says ''I'm Cuban by ZIP
Code.'' Pizzi and Fiore are conversant, although their grammar lacks polish.
But they say you don't have to speak the language to prosper in Miami-Dade's
Cuban business and political circles. Katz, in fact, was appointed spokesman for
Penelas' 2000 reelection campaign. 'Initially, I said, 'Wait. Who's going to
handle the Spanish media?' and the answer was 'You are.' ''
He said Spanish-language TV and print reporters had no problem translating
his sound bites or news releases.
May ran the mayor's previous campaign in 1996 and was a key advisor in 2002.
Since leaving the mayor's staff, he has made a lucrative career at the lobbying
firm Barreto, Cunningham & May.
While speaking Spanish is optional, observers say, being attuned to
Cuban-exile sensitivities is important.
''I'm probably the only person from Bangor, Maine, who sided with the Cuban
population on Elián González,'' Gordon said.
May, a native of Carmel, N.Y., and Fiore, who hails from Scranton, Pa.,
could make similar statements. Both supported the exile position of keeping Elián
in the care of U.S. relatives against his father's wishes -- a stance that met
strong opposition in most of the country.
''There's no future in Cuba,'' Fiore, a former state child welfare
investigator, said.
Outwardly, Fiore's Marlboro Man visage -- tall, lanky, with blond hair and
piercing blue eyes -- makes him seem an unlikely match for his political mentor,
Commissioner Martínez.
Martínez, a former police officer, won a commission seat in 2000 with
the help of police labor unions, the Latin Builders Association and exile
businessmen such as the late Carlos Salman, a co-founder of the Cuban American
National Foundation.
Yet he tapped Fiore, a casual acquaintance who pitched in on his campaign,
to sit on the local zoning board.
''I think Patrick pretty much connects with everybody,'' Martínez
said.
'IT CAN BE DONE'
After working on several local races for Cuban-American candidates, Fiore,
46, is pondering running for elected office, though he lives in a predominantly
Hispanic district.
''It can be done,'' Fiore said, "if you have a good personality, speak
some Spanish and you're a staunch anti-communist.''
Miami Lakes Councilman Pizzi has found a way to ingratiate himself with at
least some Hispanic voters. He uses his limited Spanish to flirt with female
constituents, usually in the presence of their husbands.
''I call every woman in my district linda or novia and they kind of like
it,'' said Pizzi, a Brooklyn, N.Y., transplant. "They smile and give me a
big hug.''
In October, Pizzi successfully defended his City Council seat with 65
percent of the vote, despite drawing a Cuban-American challenger. The district
is 59 percent Hispanic.
Former FBI agent Cochran said his bonds with Miami's exile community were
forged during his years thwarting plots by anti-Castro groups. He calls many of
those he once pursued "freedom fighters.''
Since his retirement in 1996, Cochran has become active in another popular
cat-and-mouse game -- Miami-Dade politics.
His firm, Campaign Data, has crunched voter information for more than 200
campaigns in the past five years.
Less frequently, Cochran still conducts ''opposition research.'' His client
roster includes Penelas, whom he met through Herman Echevarría, one of
the mayor's closest confidants.
As citizen activists in the late 1980s, Cochran and his wife once tried to
oust Echevarría, who was at the time Hialeah City Council president. They
blamed him for the city's haphazard zoning.
The effort failed, but a lasting friendship followed.
Cochran said unlikely friendships, such as that with Echevarría,
which was born out of adversity, have taught him some lessons about life in
Miami.
''Anglos are squandering an opportunity to be involved,'' he said. "Cubans
are very inclusive, and I am proof they will allow even a rigid, former FBI
agent to be, at the very least, on the periphery of power.''
Protecting borders a complex challenge
By Tim Johnson and Jennifer Babson. tjohnson@herald.com.
Posted on Sat, Feb. 08, 2003
WASHINGTON - So how good is U.S. homeland security if four uniformed Cuban
agents can climb out of a vessel and trundle down a Key West street before
detection?
Or if a boatload of 235 Haitian migrants can run aground off the
Rickenbacker Causeway?
Questions about U.S. preparedness to intercept terrorists arise after such
blunders -- and spark concern. Only nine days ago, Homeland Security Secretary
Tom Ridge warned in Miami that "one slip, one gap, one vengeful person, can
threaten the lives of our citizens at any time.''
By all accounts, the four Cuban border agents who arrived in Key West before
dawn Friday, one of them carrying a Chinese-made handgun in a hip holster, meant
no harm.
But the latest breach of U.S. territory underscored the complexity of
homeland security. The limited resources of the Coast Guard and Border Patrol,
as well as the nation's lengthy perimeter, are among the factors restricting
U.S. control, experts and scholars say.
Compounding the challenge are the difficulties of judging where terrorists
could penetrate the country, and what weapons of terror they could bring, they
say.
Even as security is tightened at U.S. airports and seaports, huge stretches
of the coastline and the land borders with Mexico and Canada remain porous,
experts say, leaving a vulnerable flank to terrorists.
Some experts worry that extremists might exploit that weakness.
''We are acting as if we are at war in our effort overseas but we are not
behaving as if we are at war at home, which is perplexing given that our
adversaries have said they are going to bring the war to us,'' said Stephen
Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander and homeland security expert at the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
ADDITIONAL DUTIES
The Coast Guard, which has come under particular fire for the recent
incidents in South Florida, is one of the federal agencies pulled in new
directions in the war on terrorism.
Just last week, the Coast Guard said it was deploying 600 of its personnel
and eight of its 110-foot cutters from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Middle East
in preparation for a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Even given new ships and more employees, the Coast Guard might never be able
to keep out unwanted penetrations from the sea.
''There's no way the Coast Guard can secure all that shoreline,'' said
Philip Anderson, director of the homeland security project at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.
''We have a Coast Guard smaller than the New York City police department. Do
you think they have a chance?'' echoed retired Air Force Col. Randy Larsen,
director of the Anser Institute for Homeland Security in Arlington, Va.
Land borders, while not an issue in Florida, are equally as penetrable, and
the constant flow of illegal migrants -- and narcotics -- into the United States
highlights that point.
About 350,000 foreigners cross illegally into the United States every year,
the majority of them via land, said John Keeley, of the Center for Immigration
Studies, a Washington think tank.
Keeley said Friday's incident in Key West only brings attention to the
matter.
''It's just another of an ongoing, near-daily exhibit of the porous nature
of our borders,'' Keeley said. "Our borders are so porous -- whether you're
talking about South Florida or the Southwest border or the 5,000-mile border
with Canada -- that anybody who wants to come in can come in, whether it's a
Mexican day laborer or an al Qaeda terrorist.''
Anderson said U.S. taxpayers and legislators would be unwise to focus too
heavily on human traffic across land and sea borders -- instead of other,
perhaps larger, threats, such as weapons of mass destruction in shipping
containers.
''It's not something that I'm worried about,'' Anderson said. "If
somebody wants to walk across the border, or get across by boat, they are going
to do it.''
Most of those who cross into the United States illegally are harmless in
terms of national security, and the cost of trying to halt the flow completely
is too onerous, he said.
'WHY WORRY'
''Here's the key point: Why worry about something that there's no easy
solution to?'' he said.
Terrorists from the al Qaeda network could attempt to approach U.S. shores
from abroad, but they would probably need a ship to do so, Anderson said.
''Some have suggested that they may have 15 ships,'' he said. "Big
ships are a lot easier to detect than these small boats the Cubans come over
on.''
Larsen concurred that U.S. citizens may have to learn to live with small
violations of homeland security, as counter-terror officials focus on averting a
more massive type of attack.
''You can't go chasing every single nut with a sniper rifle or who crosses
the border,'' Larsen said.
But "spending money to defend against biological threats is very
important.'' | 
