President Barack Obama on Sunday became the first United States president in office to visit Cuba since 1928. Even though Cuba is only 90 miles from the coast of Florida, the relationship between Cuba and the U.S. has been hostile since Cuba was taken over by a communist government in 1959, according to The Washington Post.

In 1960, the U.S. imposed a trade embargo on Cuba that halted all exports and further damaged the relationship, according to The Post. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, there was a confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba, but former President John F. Kennedy successfully stopped the attack. Afterward, Americans were prohibited from traveling to or doing business with Cuba.

The relationship has only began to change recently during Obama’s presidency, according to The Post. Fidel Castro, who led Cuba as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and as president from 1976 to 2008, was succeeded by his brother Raúl in 2008, and Raúl and Obama have been working to mend the relationship between their countries.

As of 2013, more than 1.1 million Cuban immigrants live in the U.S, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Many Cubans immigrated during Fidel’s reign, beginning in 1959. They make up 2.8 percent of the U.S. immigrant population, and make up the seventh largest immigrant-origin group in the country, according to the institute.

To learn more about Obama’s historic visit, The Daily Orange interviewed Matthew Cleary, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University who specializes in Latin American politics, democratization and ethnic politics.

The Daily Orange: Why is Obama’s visit to Cuba important?

Matthew Cleary: Since the early 1960s, Cuba and the United States have not had normal relations because of the Cuban alliance with the Soviet Union because of the Cold War. It’s important because Cuba is the only country in Latin America that doesn’t have normal diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, and the president needs to change that.

The D.O.: Why is he going now?

M.C.: I suspect that the president views our relationship with Cuba as an anachronistic legacy of the Cold War, and he believes that it would be important for his legacy to do something that would change that relationship and alter the long-term course of U.S.-Cuban relations in the future.

The D.O.: What kind of relationship does Obama want to establish between the U.S. and Cuba?

M.C.: I’m sure that the president has diplomatic, economic and political motivations. Clearly the normalization of economic relations is one of the most important facets of his attempt at policy change. The United States has imposed an economic embargo on Cuba that originated in the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s. Even though the countries are neighbors geographically and millions of people of Cuban descent live in the United States, we currently have very limited economic relations with Cuba.

The D.O.: Are there any groups that oppose the meeting between the U.S. and Cuba?

M.C.: There are important differences of opinion on the normalization of relations with Cuba, both in the United States and in Cuba itself. There is significant opposition in the United States primarily — but not only — from the Republican party, who argue that the current Cuban regime does not deserve the normalization of relations because of its hostility toward the United States and its continuing human rights abuses toward its own citizens. I take it that the meeting is also controversial among Cuban human rights and pro-democracy groups for the same reason.

Published on March 21, 2016 at 10:59 pm

Contact Caroline: cbarthol@syr.edu