Pablo Menendez was born in the U.S., but has lived in Cuba most of his life. For decades, he has tried to find ways for music to be a bridge between the two countries. Obama’s detente with Cuba brought Pablo closer to his goal, but the economic warfare unleashed by Trump and Biden has further separated Cuba and the U.S.

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“The United States has been waging war on Cuba for all of these years and it's just ridiculous because we are two peoples that are neighbors and friends and have so much in common,” says Pablo Menendez, who was born in the U.S., but became a musician in Cuba.

“I came in 1966 to study music here for a year. And I’ve liked it so much that I've spent a lot of the last 58 years in Cuba, or coming back and forth between the United States and Cuba and trying to build bridges between our two countries and our two peoples. Cultural workers, artists, from both sides, have always been at the forefront of trying to do away with this ridiculous separation,” Pablo says. 

“When Obama and Raul Castro came on TV announcing that they were going to reestablish relations I thought that that was just a great, wonderful thing. The Obama years things were just really different on every level. Business, tourism, everything. You have cruise ships arriving here and a whole lot of American tourists. And there was a whole lot more changes in Cuban life, reforms, different things,” Pablo says. 

“I've tried to have tours in the United States and in years of different presidencies it was practically impossible. And during the Obama period we actually were able to tour a lot. People could travel back and forth a lot easier. And it turns out that the people in the States knew very little about what was happening in music in Cuba. I think it was just really better in Cuba and for the world,” Pablo says.  

“Everything that had been going so well during the Obama years. was just shut off by the United States. Trump shut down the consulate, cut off all of the nonimmigrant visas in Cuba. My band was the last band of musicians from Cuba to get a visa in Cuba to tour in the United States. Right now, it's harder than ever for Cuban artists. To get a visa as a Cuban artist, you have to go to a third country and wait around to see if you can get the visa. It raises the cost of touring a whole lot. You want to try to get the basic tools of the trade. If you travel someplace, you can go and buy something and bring it back, but you can't actually import something directly,” Pablo says. 

“President Biden did nothing to change it. So, the policies now are based on: let's create the most desperate situation for the people of Cuba so that they will be the ones to bring on regime change,” Menendez continues.  

Pablo’s mother was musician Barbara Dane. 

“My mother was the first artist from the United States to defy the State Department ban on travel to Cuba and come to sing in Cuba. It was her way of expressing that the people of the United States, the music of the United States, the culture of the United States, was not the enemy of the people of Cuba. She's a trendsetting, groundbreaking artist, one of the most incredible singers of the United States. Every time there was a big rally, a big demonstration for peace or against racism is against injustice, she was there singing. She certainly inspired me. Everything that I've done in my life has been, also following that trend in that road of finding ways of music being a bridge between different peoples,” Pablo says. 

“The United States misses out on all of this wonderful culture coming from this little island, which is basically posing no threat whatsoever to the United States. Snd the United States would do a whole lot better in following the road that I think, courageously, Obama started when he reestablished, finally, relations with Cuba.”