UVA prof: Cubans eager to get along with U.S.
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One University of Virginia anthropology instructor is watching President Obama's journey to Cuba with great interest. Hawes Spencer has this report.
His parents having left after the 1959 revolution, Roberto Armengol moved into a Havana apartment eight years ago to research his doctoral dissertation.
"People had a lot of interest in normalization of relations with the United States. But the funny thing is they also talked about a desire to avoid what they called 'savage capitalism.'"
Armengol found that tiny entrepreneurships might be more than a quarter of the island economy.
"Like any business, they're set up to make money and make a living. They're also conducted in such a way that people support each other through complicated networks of reciprocity."
However trade changes, Armengol hopes families can reunite and that ordinary Cubans will benefit from the president's visit.
"It's really the end of the Cold War."
On Monday, Obama echoed Cuban President Raul Castro's call for the U.S. Congress to end the economic embargo.
For WCVE News, Hawes Spencer in Charlottesville.
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PHOTO: A woman strolls past a Havana mural in 2008. (photo by Ophelia Lenz)