President Barack Obama announced Monday that he would lift restrictions for Cuban Americans to visit or send money to relatives back home, breaking tradition with nearly a half−century of United States policy toward the communist country.
Travel would still be limited for the rest of U.S. residents and a trade embargo with Cuba remains in place.
Corona and Jackson Heights are home to a small Cuban community, but the nation’s largest Cuban population lives in New Jersey and Florida.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy broadened a partial trade embargo put into place by his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy’s goal was to bring down Fidel Castro’s government following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion as well as tension caused by Cuba’s hosting Soviet missiles, which led to the Cuban missile crisis.
— Nathan Duke
