Latinoamericanos/hispanos en EEUU (XI): Desde Alejandro Portes hasta Carlos AlbertoMontaner, por Javier J. Jaspe

En pocas palabras. Javier J. Jaspe

Washington D.C.   

Esta es la decima primera entrega de una serie de artículos dedicados a reseñar los nombres y una breve semblanza biográfica de latinoamericanos/hispanos relacionados con territorios que hoy corresponden o se le asocian a Estados Unidos, con posterioridad a que Cristobal Colón descubriera a América en 1492. Los nombres que se incluyen se encuentran principalmente entre los que aparecen mencionados en el interesante libro: Latino Americans (The 500 – Year Legacy That Shaped A Nation), by Ray Suarez. El material usado para la semblanza biográfica ha sido seleccionado de entre textos publicados en Internet, en español o inglés, según sea el caso, los cuales se transcriben en itálicas. Sobre las características y propósitos de esta serie remitimos al primer artículo (http://latinoamericansintheunitedstates.blogspot.com/2017/05/latinoamericanoshispanos-en-eeuu-i-de.html). Este décimo primer artículo se refiere a nombres de personas que van desde Alejandro Portes hasta Carlos Alberto Montaner. Veamos:

Alejandro Portes: “Alejandro Portes is a premier sociologist who has shaped the study of immigration and urbanization for 30 years. He is chair of the department of sociology at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) as well as co-founder and director of Princeton's Center for Migration and Development. In 1998, Portes became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. From 1998 to 1999, Portes served as president of the American Sociological Association. He has authored and edited numerous books and has published articles on a range of policy issues, including immigrant assimilation, Latin American politics, and United States/Cuba relations (1–4). A Cuban exile himself, Portes has spent his career tracking the lives of different immigrant nationalities in the United States. He has chronicled the causes and consequences of immigration to the United States, with an emphasis on informal economies, transnational communities, and ethnic enclaves (5–8). In Portes's Inaugural Article (9), published in this issue of PNAS, he and Hao study the children of immigrants and the factors that determine their successful adaptation to life in the United States, such as family support and school socioeconomic status (SES)….. Portes was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 13, 1944. He began his under-graduate studies at the University of Havana in 1959 but left after just one year. At the time, Cuba was in the midst of a revolution, as dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown and a new regime was established under the leadership of Fidel Castro. “I left in 1960 because of opposition to the regime and became a political exile,” he says. In 1963, Portes resumed his studies at the Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires. He completed his B.A. in sociology in 1965 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Portes was drawn to the field of sociology because he wanted to make sense of his own experience during the Cuban revolution. “I needed to understand what had happened in the country where I was born. [Cuba] was literally taken away from me and my family by a major social process that I could barely understand,” said Portes. Portes pursued his graduate education in sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which housed one of the strongest sociology departments in the country…. After 16 years at Johns Hopkins, Portes joined the department of sociology at Princeton University in 1997, where he currently serves as chair. In 1998, he co-founded with Marta Tienda the Center for Migration and Development to support students and younger faculty carrying out research on immigration and national development. “In a sense, the center captures much of what has been the axis of my work,” he says. At Princeton, he launched a new project on immigrant transnationalism: the economic, political, and sociocultural activities carried out by contemporary immigrants who give rise to communities “that are suspended between two nations, as their members constantly move back and forth, living in two or more places and partaking of two cultures simultaneously.” The study has focused on Colombian, Dominican, and Salvadorian immigrant groups settling in different regions of the United States (26–28). Over the years, Portes has always been surprised by his research discoveries. “From the very first—the determinants of political radicalism among low-income urban dwellers, which were entirely different from what the theory at the time predicted—to the reality of second-generation children, which is quite different from the usual story of immigrant assimilation,” he remembers, “I have gained a great deal of respect for scientific work, because it turns out that my early hunches were inevitably wrong. These experiences have been sobering and have taught me the limitations of armchair speculation.”Portes lives in Princeton with his wife, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, a senior lecturer in the department of sociology. During his years of research, Portes says that is wife has been supportive of his work, evidenced by their collaboration on a number of projects, including her extensive participation in the CILS fieldwork (26, 29, 30). Together, they have three grown children. He notes, “All of my children are American-born, so they are members of the second generation. I see how they have evolved, very much filling in the theories that their dad has concocted.” (http://www.pnas.org/content/101/33/11917.full). También puede verse: (https://sociology.princeton.edu/people/alejandro-portes-phd); (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=585_aJ0RHXc).

Manuel Capo: “MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Manuel Capo, who fled Cuba in the 1960s and went on to build Florida's El Dorado Furniture, one of the largest U.S. furniture store chains, died early today after a short illness. He was 83. Born in Pinar Del Rio, Cuba, in 1925, Capo left school in the third grade and began working in his father's furniture shop. In 1966, he and two of his seven sons fled Cuba in a small wooden fishing boat named El Dorado. They landed in Mexico and then entered the United States as political refugees. More family members later followed. Capo settled in Miami and began building his business. Luis and Carlos, the sons who fled with him, manufactured upholstery and Manuel delivered the furniture.With a $10,000 loan from the Small Business Administration, Capo and his family opened their first El Dorado store in Miami's Little Havana area in 1967. It was the first of what is now an 11-store Florida chain of midpriced to high-end showrooms, catering to the large Hispanic population here and other consumers as well. Last year, the company had an estimated $133.4 million in sales of furniture, bedding and accessories at 10 stores and was ranked No. 47 on Furniture/Today's Top 100. El Dorado is the largest Hispanic-owned furniture store in the United States with more than 700 employees, according to the family. Manuel Capo was the store's CEO….In a statement, the Capo family said, "Manuel represented the meaning of leadership. Not only because he has been successful as an entrepreneur but because he has always focused on maintaining the family united, and succeeded at it as well. "The most important thing to him was his family. He always said, ‘The biggest business in the world is maintaining your family and keeping it together.'" Manuel Capo was nominated this year for election to the American Furniture Hall of Fame, one of many recognitions and honors bestowed on Capo and his family over the years. In 2005, El Dorado was named Furniture/Today's Retailer of the Year. Manuel Capo also has received honors from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration, was recognized by the U.S. Congressional Record for his commitment and work in local neighborhoods and communities, and in 1984 was invited to the White House by President Ronald Reagan. In 2003, the Capo family was honored with the Spirit of Life Award by the City of Hope's National Home Furnishings Industry Chapter. At the banquet, Pedro Capo told the crowd, "You are seeing a testimony to the American Dream." (http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/434865-update-el-dorado-furniture-ceo-manuel-capo-dies/, by Tom Edmonds). También puede verse: (http://communitynewspapers.com/cutlerbay/county-honors-manuel-capo-el-dorado-furniture-founder/).

Roberto Goizueta: “October 19, 1997…. The son of a successful architect and grandson of a Cuban sugar-and-land magnate, Goizueta grew up privileged in Cuba. Upon graduating from Yale with a degree in chemical engineering, he resisted his father's offers to join the family construction business. Instead, he answered a blind want ad in the local newspaper for a bilingual chemist. The ad was placed by Coke, which hired Goizueta in its Havana operations in 1954. He defected to the United States with his wife in 1960, just two months before Fidel Castro seized Coke's Cuban operations. At the time, the couple had only $40 and 100 shares of Coke stock, and lived in a Miami motel room with their three children. "Perhaps no other corporate leader in modern times has so beautifully exemplified the American dream," former president Jimmy Carter told the Associated Press. "He believed that in America, all things are possible. He lived that dream." Goizueta stayed with Coke, and moved up the corporate ladder rapidly in technical positions. Along the way, he picked up a key patron: Robert W. Woodruff, Coke's former chairman. With Woodruff's backing, Goizueta rose to the top executive ranks in the 1970s. Many on Wall Street were surprised at his selection for the top post in 1981. At the time of his ascension, the soft drink company's sales and profits were flat and arch-rival Pepsi was gaining. Undaunted, Goizueta moved quickly to revive the company. Out went Coke's friendly "Have a Coke and a Smile" ad campaign for the aggressive, almost confrontational "Coke Is It" campaign. Goizueta also steered Coke into the entertainment field, buying Columbia Pictures in 1982 (it dumped its stake seven years later, selling the studio to Sony Corp. for a big profit). Another of Goizueta's bold early decisions was to downplay Tab -- a diet drink marketed primarily to women -- and introduce Diet Coke. The new product played off the flagship brand's strong name awareness, a somewhat heretical move for a company that had long held the Coke brand name sacrosanct….. By restructuring the company's distribution network -- and by acquiring some of the bottlers outright -- Coke was able to gain more shelf space in more places. It also was able to raise wholesale prices for its all-important syrup and thus enhance its profits. … During his tenure as chief executive, Coke's sales more than tripled and profits increased by sevenfold, to $3.5 billion last year. Millions of investors were richly rewarded: The value of the company's stock rose from $4 billion in 1981 to more than $145 billion now….  died Oct. 18 in Atlanta. He was 65…..”

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/10/19/coca-cola-chief-roberto-goizueta-dies/9bb4d612-91d1-44df-95ca-5ddeaf95d345/?utm_term=.57deadf38dec, by Paul Farhi). También puede verse: (http://www.economist.com/node/104085).

Carlos Gutiérrez: “Carlos Miguel Gutierrez (originally Gutiérrez; born November 4, 1953) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gutierrez).... Carlos Gutierrez is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group. Secretary Gutierrez served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2005 to 2009 under President George W. Bush, where he worked with foreign government and business leaders to advance economic relationships, enhance trade, and promote U.S. exports. Secretary Gutierrez also played a key role in the passage of landmark free trade agreements that remove trade barriers, expand export opportunities, and boost global investment. Previously, Secretary Gutierrez spent nearly thirty years with Kellogg Company, a global manufacturer and marketer of well-known food brands. After assignments in Latin America, Canada, Asia, and the United States, he became President and Chief Executive Officer of Kellogg in 1999 − the youngest CEO in the company's hundred year history.  In April 2000, he was named Chairman of the Board of Kellogg Company.Secretary Gutierrez joined ASG from Citi, where he was Vice Chairman of the Institutional Clients Group and a member of the Senior Strategic Advisory Group. He currently serves as the Chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Cuba Business Council, which works to strengthen and expand business relationships between the two countries. He also serves on the boards of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, MetLife, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Time Warner, Viridis Learning, the U.S.-Mexico Foundation, the George W. Bush Institute’s Human Freedom Advisory Council, and Republicans for Immigration Reform. Secretary Gutierrez is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Meridian International Center and Chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council. He also serves on the Advisory Committee for Presidential Leadership Scholars. Secretary Gutierrez was born in Havana, Cuba. He is married to Edilia, and has three grown children.He is based in Washington, DC.” (http://www.albrightstonebridge.com/team/carlos-m-gutierrez). También puede verse (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Inauguration/story?id=289793): (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/12/12/former-commerce-secretary-carlos-gutierrez-weighs-in-on-trump-cabinet-picks.html); (http://time.com/4451658/hillary-clinton-carlos-gutierrez-george-w-bush/).

Ana Menéndez: “Ana Menéndez was born in Los Angeles (1970), the daughter of Cuban exiles. She is the author of four books of fiction, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, which was a 2001 New York Times Notable book of the year and whose title story won a Pushcart Prize, Loving Che (2004), The Last War (2009) chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the top 100 books of the year, and Adios, Happy Homeland! Since 1991 Ana has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, most recently as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she has written about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan and India, where she was based for three years. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Vogue, Bomb Magazine, Poets & Writers and Gourmet Magazineand has been included in several anthologies, including Cubanisimo! and American Food Writing. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from New York University. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she now lives in Maastricht and Miami.” (http://www.anamenendezonline.com/about.htm).También puede verse: (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Latina_and_Latino_Literature/Ana_Menendez); (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Bahadur-t.html, Gaiutra Bahadur).

Carlos Alberto Montaner: Carlos Alberto Montaner nació en la Habana. Cuba en 1943. Reside en Madrid desde 1970. Ha sido profesor universitario en diversas instituciones de América Latina y Estados Unidos. Es escritor y periodista. Varias decenas de diarios de América Latina, España y Estados Unidos recogen desde hace más de treinta años su columna seminal. … Es uno de los periodistas más leídos del mundo hispánico. La revista Poder calculó en seis millones los lectores que semanalmente se asoman a sus columnas y artículos. (http://www.elblogdemontaner.com/).....  is an exiled Cuban author known for his more than 25 books and thousands of articles, including several novels, the last of which is La mujer del coronel (The Colonel's wife). Some of his books are devoted to explaining the true nature of the Cuban dictatorship, for example: Journey To The Heart of Cuba. PODER magazine has estimated that more than six million readers have access to his weekly columns. He has been published widely in Latin American newspapers, and published fiction and non-fiction books on Latin America. Since 1968 he has had a syndicated weekly column in many newspapers around the world. Montaner is a political analyst for CNN en Espanol and a collaborator on the book, The Cuban Exile, along with well-known Cuban writers Mirta Ojito, award winning poet and writer Carlos Pintado and Carlos Eire, a book coordinated by Cuban musician and producer Emilio Estefan. In October 2012, Foreign Policy magazine selected Montaner as one of the fifty most influential intellectuals in the Ibero-American world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Alberto_Montaner. También puede verse: (https://www.cubanet.org/author/carlos-alberto-montaner/).

Apéndice

Deciphering the new U.S. policies that affect Cuban migrants

By Mimi Whitefield (Miami Herald, January 13, 2017)

“From the streets of Havana to the Mexican border with the United States to South Florida, there was a new immigration reality Friday, the day after the Obama administration said Cubans would no longer be allowed to enter the United States without visas. It turned on its head more than two decades of immigration policy that essentially allowed Cubans who made it to U.S. shores by sea or showed up at U.S. borders — even if their trips were arranged by people smugglers — to enter the United States legally and a year later become eligible for permanent residency. Because of the swiftness of the change — the new migration understanding between Cuba and the United States took effect immediately after signing Thursday afternoon — there was plenty of confusion about what the policy will and won’t do. Most provisions of previous migration accords between the two countries in the 1980s and 1990s remain in effect but the executive agreement signed in Havana by the two countries covers new ground. “Who was going to expect that all of a sudden they would come up with this news?” Midamis Martínez Cruz, 37, of Miami, asked Friday. Dennis Pupo Cruz, her brother, is stuck on the Mexican side of the bridge that connects Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, with the United States. He wasn’t allowed to automatically enter the United States but was told he could apply for political asylum. “We do not know what to do yet,” said Pupo Cruz , who does not want to return to Cuba. Although the policy shift was front-page news and amply aired on state-run television on the island, “people are confused,” said Hatzel Vela, a reporter for WPLG Local 10 who was in Havana when the news broke. “They’re wondering if, for example, they come with a visa whether the Cuban Adjustment Act will still apply.” The answer to that question is yes — unless Congress repeals it. Here’s a look at some of the most significant aspects of the new policy governing Cuban migrants: ▪ The elimination of automatic entry for Cubans who arrive in the U.S. without visas: This ends the policy known as wet foot, dry foot that allowed those who arrived on U.S. soil (dry foot) to remain in this country. Cuban migrants entering the United States illegally will be deported. “The aim here is to treat Cuban migrants in a manner consistent with migrants who come here illegally from other countries, particularly other countries in the same region,” said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. The wet foot part — return to Cuba or resettlement in a third country for those picked up at sea or who manage to penetrate the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay — will continue to be policy. The Cuban government also might agree to accept on a “case-to-case” basis other Cubans under deportation orders who are not covered under the migration understanding, Johnson said. ▪ Acceptance of Cuban citizens deported by the United States: Cuba has agreed to accept the return of its citizens trying to enter the United States illegally by air, land or sea if the time between when they leave Cuba and the time when the United States begins deportation proceedings is less than four years. Johnson said that eventually the United States would like Cuba to agree to accept every Cuban deported from the United States. A government declaration published in Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party, said the agreement implied that the United States will return to the island all Cuban citizens detected by the United States “when they attempt to enter or remain [in the United States] irregularly in violation of the law.” Meanwhile, Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s chief negotiator in talks with the United States, said Cuba “will continue to guarantee the right of Cuban citizens to travel and emigrate and return to the country in accordance with the requirements of our migration law.” She called the new policy an “important step” that is “in the national interest of Cuba and also in the national interest of the United States.” ▪ Certain aspects of a preferential policy for Cuban migrants will remain: An annual visa lottery that hands out a minimum of 20,000 visas to come to the United States remains in effect as does a family reunification program that allows residents of the United States to sponsor their family members. Approved family members who qualify for this program will be able to travel to the United States before their immigrant visas become available, rather than wait in Cuba until the visas are ready. As always, Cubans may apply for asylum and entry into the United States if they can establish a “well-founded fear of persecution.” “A Cuban migrant [arriving at the U.S. border], like a Guatemalan migrant or a migrant from El Salvador, can assert a claim of credible fear at the border when they arrive,” Johnson said. But now “our approach to Cubans arriving [today] will be the same as those arriving from other countries in Central America, Mexico and otherwise.” Previously, while awaiting an asylum determination, a Cuban would have been paroled into the United States and could begin to receive benefits under the Cuban Adjustment Act. “There’s not not going to be a separate queue for Cubans,” said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. “If they are not paroled in, they will not be able to adjust and achieve the benefits under the CAA.” Cubans who arrive with visas will be eligible for the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans to apply for green cards and permanent residency after they have been in the United States for a year and a day. But Vidal said Cuba also would like to see the Cuban Adjustment Act repealed so that there really is a normal migration relationship between Cuba and the United States. Johnson said the Obama administration would also “welcome repeal by Congress, our Congress.” It’s unclear what the incoming administration’s position is on the Cuban Adjustment Act or if President-elect Donald Trump would try to reverse the new Cuban immigration policy. Some analysts speculate he won’t. “Trump is unlikely to reverse: such an action would be at odds with his campaign promises to enforce orderly migration flows,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Washington-based Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. ▪ Cubans put on more equal footing with people from other countries who want to come to the United States: Haitians, who suffered a devastating hurricane seven years ago and more recent natural disasters that have slammed an already weak economy, said they were surprised and gratified that there will now be some equity in U.S. immigration policy. “I think it levels the playing field for the Haitian and the Cuban immigrants who are coming here because the Haitian community has been at a disadvantage since the policy,” said Fayola Delica, who recently lost a bid to represent state House District 108 and is the niece of the late Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, a Haitian human rights activist. “But yet I do hope there will be a replacement policy for both communities.” ▪  An end to the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program: Cuban doctors and other medical professionals working in third countries will no longer be given preferential entry into the United States. Vidal said that the program was undermining Cuba’s international medical cooperation programs. About 30 Cuban doctors gathered in Bogotá, Colombia, on Friday to protest the end of the program. In the past 10 years, about 8,000 Cuban professionals have taken advantage of the program to come to the United States from Venezuela, Brazil and other countries where they have been serving on Cuban medical missions. “We’re fearful about what will happen to our colleagues,” said Dr. Alberto López, one of the protestors, in a telephone interview. “There are a lot of people en route [to the United States] and we don’t know what will happen because they can neither return to their missions nor take advantage of parole.” ▪  Return of Cubans who are excludable from the United States under U.S. laws: The Cuban government had agreed to take back 2,746 Cubans who were deemed excludable from the United States after the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Some on that list have already been sent back to Cuba or died. Cuba also has agreed to consider accepting some others who emigrated and have committed crimes. One issue that is yet to be explained by immigration officials is what happens to Cubans who arrive with visitor visas then overstay their visas and seek residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act after more than a year in the country. Neither Johnson nor other top officials have addressed this. Miami Herald Staff Writer Jacqueline Charles and el Nuevo Herald reporters Alfonso Chardy, Abel Fernández and Mario J. Pentón contributed to this report. Mimi Whitefield: 305-376-3727, @HeraldMimi” (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article126498349.html). También puede verse: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Adjustment_Act); (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/25/cuban-adjustment-act-obama-rubio-cruz-wet-foot-dry-foot-immigration-editorials-debates/79129624/); (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/world/americas/cuba-obama-wet-foot-dry-foot-policy.html); (http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article72163832.html).