Right to Travel to Cuba > Defending Our Rights > Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists for Change in U.S.-Cuba Policy - March 2006

Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists for Change in U.S.-Cuba Policy - March 2006

We are a group of Cuban American scholars and artists who have coalesced as a network of U.S. citizens opposed to current U.S. policy toward Cuba. We are committed to promoting reasoned debate in the public arena, to countering the stereotype of a monolithic Cuban American community, to challenging the disproportionate influence of an unrepresentative sector out of touch with U.S. public opinion, and to help bring about an end to a failed policy that defies all sound principles for conducting foreign affairs.

New regulations on travel by Cuban-Americans to visit their families in Cuba restrict family visits to once every three years, providing no exception for medical and other emergencies. The restrictions also radically and absurdly redefine "family" in a way that excludes cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Such redefinitions are not in line with widely-held understandings of "family", especially in the context of Cuban cultural practices, and undermine and disregard the emotional and psychological importance of family ties.

New limitations in the number and dollar value of shipments to family members of such basic necessities as medicines and medical supplies, as well as the elimination of packages containing clothing, toilet paper, soap, and other basic necessities, are cruel and counter to humanitarian principles. We insist that family values must include the freedom to visit and to send vital necessities to our families.

The tightened restrictions on travel also curtail the freedom of American citizens to pursue programs of cultural and educational exchange in Cuba. The value of scholarly study about Cuba, as well as the right of U.S. citizens to pursue such study, is seriously undermined, and the ideal of the free exchange of ideas is profoundly diminished. Further, the possibilities of contacts and exchanges of a religious and humanitarian nature between U.S. citizens and Cubans are seriously restricted. These limitations on the basic freedoms of U.S. citizens are unacceptable.