Roberto Soto Santana
User
| Posts: 7 |   |
|
Derogatory cartoon by Pat Oliphant in the Washington Post - 2007/08/29 13:41
E-mail sent to the Washington Post e-mail editor on Aug. 28, 2007 by Roberto Soto Santana (from Spain)
Dear Sirs,
I would appreciate the following comment/feedback being published in the appropriate "Letters to the Editor" or similar section of the Post's printed edition, in which I presume Pat Oliphant's cartoon on the subject of Cuban-Americans was posted.
Needless to say that Pat Oliphant's (and anybody else's) right to free speech, whether through cartoons or any other form of expression, is sacrosanct, and neither he nor anyone else should in any way be impaired, restrained or much less prevented from the exercise of that right.
Having said that, and in the exercise of the same right, I am compelled to take exception to Pat Oliphant's cartoon in which Cuban-Americans are referred to as "nuisances" who apparently deserve to be pushed and shoved against their will back to Cuba, by an Uncle Sam figure (obviously purporting to represent U.S. public opinion), with an accompanying "say hello to Batista" farewell message (as if to say, "good riddance!").
Cuban-Americans have not merely re-settled in Florida and elsewhere in America, and become highly respected U.S. citizens with flying colors, since beginning way back in 1959 they have been compelled to stream out of their country by the hundreds of thousands into exile mostly in America, due to political persecution and the deprivation of even the basic liberties in their native Cuba. They have contributed inestimably to the development and the economic and cultural enrichment of their adopted country, have served loyally and honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces, and have commingled successfully with American society, keeping their home country traditions while melding into the U.S. social fabric. They have served and continue right now serving honorably and fruitfully in the State legislatures and in Congress, in numerous Executive branch positions, and in the judiciary.
How many Cuban-Americans have been notorious in the news as scandal-mongerers or sex-soliciting politicians in public restrooms or Congressional aisles (and I refer to Congressmen Foley and Craig)? How many (save a despicable and notorious handful, from among the almost two million Cubans who relocated to the U.S.) have become Benedict Arnolds? Does Pat Oliphant know that the incumbent U.S. Ambassador to Spain and his DCM are both Cuban-Americans, serving their country, the U.S., with distinction overseas?
It is also an unwelcome slight to identify the Cuban-American community with the dictator Batista (who ruled the country by force betweeen 1952 and 1959) since the followers of the late dictator have always constituted a microscopic fraction of the Cuban exile community as a whole. Equating Cuban-Americans with Batista's ideas or followers is tantamount to toeing the slanderous political propaganda line which the Cuban communist regime has been dishing out in the past almost fifty years, in its untiring effort to dismiss and smear all anti-Castroites and anti-Communists as ultra-rightwing diehards.
Pat Oliphant's cartoon is a needlessly derogatory remark on the highly worthy past half century of contributions by Cuban-Americans to American society. An apology for that ethnically biased insult should be forthcoming from Pat Oliphant.
The undersigned is a Cuban exile legally resident in Spain for the last three decades, a law practitioner as a Spanish-licensed attorney-at-law, and the resident delegate in Spain of the Cuban Patriotic Junta, based in Miami.
Respectfully,
-Roberto Soto Santana
Telephone and fax (34) 968575160.
e-mail address: sonetti@asociacioncaliope.org
Office address:
Calle de la Hiedra, 43
30710 Los Alcazares (Murcia)
Spain.
Moderator's Note:
Just to show a snapshot of this infamy, I reproduce the Patrick Oliphant's cartoon that Mr. Roberto Soto describes so right.
|
Foro / Forum 
