Hours after the news broke in December that the United States and Cuba were reinstating diplomatic relations, I arrived at a Catholic Church in one of Miami’s largest parishes. The church’s priest is a charismatic man of Cuban descent well known throughout Miami. He was in meetings all morning and thus had only heard rumors that something had happened. “Padre,” I asked him in Spanish, “did you hear the news?”
In the flurry of conversation that happened in the hallway—a discussion that only grew bigger as the cleaning ladies, IT guys, seminarians, and front office staff joined in—the details surfaced. Months of secret meetings between government officials had culminated in the announcement on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. Both the United States and Cuba would ease restrictions on travel and financial transactions between the two countries; prisoners would go free; and President Barack Obama said he would push to end the 54-year-old trade embargo.
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