Paul Crespo

  Cuban Americans were the darlings of the Cold War era, admired as hard-working, successful and patriotic émigrés -- role models of the American dream.
  That was true at least until the fall of the Berlin Wall, when to many they became alienated outcasts in a world trying to ignore that the Castro Wall in
  Cuba remains.

  Unfortunately, in Miami and Havana, the Cold War isn't over yet.

  I refer to Cuban Americans as ''they,'' because though my parents are Cuban exiles, and I'm part of the community, I was born and reared in Los
  Angeles, served as an officer in the U.S. Marines and am an American Cuban. Slightly different emphasis, but same issues.

  When I was a freshman at Georgetown University early in President Reagan's first term, the now oft-vilified Cuban American National Foundation had
  just begun lobbying for a free Cuba. Along with other Cuban exile groups that focused on peaceful political activity to bring democracy to Cuba, the
  foundation -- while perhaps sometimes heavy-handed -- had major influence in Washington, D.C. The community was feted for its enthusiastic support of
  American policies to end communism and promote democracy.

  Americans from across the country regularly regaled me with anecdotes of their Cuban-American friends' exile success stories: of Coca-Cola Chairman
  Roberto Goizueita, a Cuban American and of other previously well-off Cuban doctors, lawyers and business people such as my parents. These exiles
  were transplanted here suddenly with nothing, unable to speak English, working long hours at menial jobs to send their children to good schools, while
  they studied law again or prepared for U.S. medical boards or created successful businesses. Others joined the military, putting their lives on the line for
  the good old U.S. of A.

  Somewhere along the line, though, after the Soviet collapse, after Bill Clinton and especially after the Elián saga, something happened. Deriding Cuban
  Americans as corrupt zealots became commonplace. Cuban Americans became the group that the politically correct in-crowd loves to hate. Now we
  regularly hear them called ''those people'' and even the ''Miami Mafia'' -- a Castro-coined phrase.

  What happened?

  Well, chief among many reasons is a dichotomy -- Cuban Americans are both successful and an aggrieved minority. While influential, their immense
  suffering from lives destroyed, fortunes lost, families separated and discrimination is also real and ongoing. I never met my dying grandmother; Castro
  then wouldn't allow my parents back. But because of their success and affluence, Cuban Americans get little sympathy. Some critics even believe that
  attacks are justified. Often the insults are based on envy and resentment, or simply a cover for bitter ideological differences.

  Sadly, commentators can now call older Cuban Americans a ''failed generation,'' insult Cuban-American members of Congress or label the entire
  community as corrupt and dangerous without fearing charges of racism or prejudice.

  Often disguised as attacks on the ''leadership,'' the smearing extends to the whole group. Some slights are minor or indirect, such as calling Miami a
  banana republic. Other insults are more serious and direct.

  In the new book Cuba Confidential, the author, in two especially egregious chapters, essentially equates the ill-defined ''Cuban-exile leadership'' with
  Fidel Castro's tyranny. Referring to Miami's Cuban exiles as a ''modified dictatorship'' with a ''mirror system'' to intimidate and stifle dissent, she also
  describes them as ''the roughest, toughest crowd this side of the Mujahadeen'' and blames them for making ''corruption a growth industry.'' Apparently
  she has never lived in Chicago or Washington, D.C. -- much less in Afghanistan.

  Admittedly, some Cuban-American wounds are self-inflicted, and every community has bad eggs. During Elián some, while morally justified, behaved less
  than admirably. There also are those who lash out, rather than reach out, at the slightest provocation.

  Other criticisms, too, are valid. But it also has been proven in recent Cuban spy trials that Castro has an untold number of operatives infiltrated in the
  Miami community whose sole mission is to act as provocateurs, magnifying these negatives, thereby discrediting all Cuban exiles.

  While this diverse community should endeavor to improve its image, let's all watch ourselves and keep things in perspective when we criticize. Remember
  the good as well as the bad, and treat Cuban Americans with the same consideration, compassion and fairness given everyone else.

  pcrespo@herald.com