Editorial: Castro's death may be step toward appreciating 'the real Cuba'

For the father of Elgin teacher Luis Cabrera, "the real Cuba" of the 1960s was a place of imminent personal danger.

So, like thousands of Cubans in the mid 20th century, the Cabreras were forced to flee for their lives and for their hopes for the future.

Reflecting on Fidel Castro's death last week, Cabrera observed in an interview with our Jim Fuller, "The generations that are there now do not really know the real Cuba."

Which leads to a significant lingering question as we contemplate Castro's passing: Who does?

Maybe no one. That is why there is great value in the emerging new relationship between Cuba and the United States. Illinois Gov. George Ryan recognized that value when he took the opportunity in 1999 to curry improved interactions between Illinois and Cuba.

Yet, it is somehow telling that it would be more than a decade and a half before the United States would take serious steps toward normalizing relations with a neighbor just 90 miles off our shores. Deep suspicions, uncertainties and fundamental political differences persist.

Such differences can only be bridged through engagement, so our increased interactions are a necessary start, and Castro's death - however one wishes to celebrate or mourn it on political and historical grounds - removes an impediment to the process. With his brother Raul still firmly in control, the path to truly open connections remains rocky, but a hopeful horizon at least is coming into sight.

Somewhere on that horizon is a nation that is stubbornly unfamiliar to most Americans, whose most prominent images of Cuba probably involve some mix of haggard refugees in makeshift flotillas, well-maintained automobiles from the 1960s, a strong national health care system, the occasional expatriate professional baseball player and, of course, that peculiar geopolitical anomaly at Guantanamo Bay.

Clearly, Cuba is more than this; and clearly, Americans need to have a deeper, more nuanced impression than this.

Luis Cabrera aims to provide that to his family. Even before Fidel's death, Cabrera was making plans for a trip to Cuba next summer.

"I would like to take my family to see the country I'm from, a place they've never been allowed to go," he said.

What they will see is not "the real Cuba" of Cabrera's past. It could be argued that whatever they experience under today's regime is not "the real Cuba." But it is interesting and gratifying to consider that, with the death of Fidel Castro, we may be moving closer than we've been in 50 years to appreciating "the real Cuba" that is practically next door.