Tampa Cubans shrug at Castro resignation

TAMPA --  Although news that Fidel Castro would no longer be Cuba's president was a hot topic of morning conversation among Cuban Americans in Tampa, many went about their day mostly unfazed.

"The day he dies is when things will change in Cuba," said 71-year-old Danilo Izquierdo, who was stopping to buy a lottery ticket at a convenience store in West Tampa. He thinks Castro will keep calling the shots from behind the scenes. He found out the news during his morning walk in Al Lopez Park with some other Cuban friends at 7:30 a.m.

His sentiments mirrored many other Cubans of multiple generations, who doubted that Castro's departure from the presidency would mean any major shift for the island nation.

"I won't believe it until I see it," said Luis Ramos, 47, a roofer who stopped at the Florida Bakery plaza this morning to talk to his friends on his way to work in St. Petersburg. He arrived from Cuba in 1994 on a raft. He said he doesn't think things will change as drastically as they need to any time soon.

The initial wave of guarded optimism struck just after sunrise.

"It's not going to change," said Mario Canal, 49, sipping cafe con leche at the Cuban-owned La Teresita restaurant on Columbus Drive. "But I hope it does."

Canal said he's just not sure whether the predicted shift of power to 76-year-old Raul Castro would reflect political realities on the ground in Cuba and elsewhere.

Real change won't happen "as long as that guy's alive," said Canal, who runs a gas station at Columbus Drive and Howard Avenue that sells devil crabs and hand-rolled cigars.

Others at the cafe, including server Robert Rodre, were more upbeat.

"Raul, he wants the democracy," said Rodre, 57, who came to America from Cuba in 1979 with his wife. "Raul wants to change."

- Casey Cora and Saundra Amrhein, Times staff writers

Comments

[Steve Tamayo]

when he dies, will they move back?