ABSTRACT
In 2016, President Obama made an historic visit to Cuba. The first U.S. president in eighty-eight years to visit Cuba, Obama was there to begin the diplomatic process of normalizing relations between the two nations. The president met with Cuba’s president, Raul Castro, visited the José Marti monument in Havana, had a private meeting with political dissidents and took in a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Major League team, the Tampa Bay Rays. Adding to the geopolitical drama of the president’s visit was the fact that it took place against the backdrop of a hotly contested presidential election where two Cuban Americans were vying for the Republican nomination in 2016. Both candidates opposed the president’s visit to Cuba, even as most Cubans on the island and the U.S. agreed it was time to fix diplomatic ties with Cuba.
