Cuban-American Democrat who praised Fidel Castro runs for Congress in Miami
Cuban-born blogger Yadira Escobar is used to stirring controversy in Miami: She has spoken with admiration of Fidel Castro, branded some Cuban dissidents “criminals” and “counter-revolutionaries,” and asked the United States to take its “hands off” Venezuela.
But Escobar is now taking things a step further, running for Congress as a Democrat in Florida’s 25th District representing the heart of Miami’s Cuban and Venezuelan exile communities.
“I’m running for Congress on a very unique platform, and one of the pillars to this message to our grassroots campaign is that we need to rethink our foreign policy,” Escobar said in a recent campaign video. “Essentially, I’m going to be focusing on Cuba.”
Escobar, 32, says she has dedicated her adult life to unifying Cubans and exiles. But her candidacy — which currently places her on a collision course with Republican incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart, one of the staunchest critics of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes — has inflamed both the right and the left.
Miami Republicans have blasted her as “shameless,” reacting harshly last month after she posted old pictures on social media of her in Cuban Revolutionary garb. And Florida’s Democratic Party, already wary of being branded as socialist, wants nothing to do with her.
“We’re a big-tent party,” said Luisana Pérez Fernández, a Venezuelan-born spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to have people who support Castro.”
Escobar arrived in the United States in 1994 as the daughter of a political prisoner. She is the CEO of a media company, and within Cuban-American circles she is known as a political commentator who has collaborated with pro-Castro organizations and appeared on local TV stations representing opinions close to those of the Cuban government.
Escobar, though, denies toeing the line of the Cuban state, saying her opinions and policies are her own.
“It is not my fault that the Cuban government, coincidentally, supports the right to self-determination,” she said in a telephone interview with the Miami Herald. “I advocate for the sovereign right of every nation to decide its own political future.”
She takes controversial positions
Still, on her YouTube channel, Escobar shares fond memories of a Soviet-era children’s book translated into Cuban Spanish. Some of her blog articles have been republished by Cuban state outlet Cubadebate, an unusual gesture, especially for a Miami-based author.
She has also frequently criticized independent journalists and dissidents, such as the imprisoned José Daniel Ferrer, whom she has called “a criminal.” On her radio show Moderna, she attacked Cuban activist Rosa María Payá, Berta Soler from the protest movement Ladies in White, and independent journalist Yoani Sánchez, as “women who have no honor, who are shameless, traitors who give reasons, excuses to the outside enemy to continue tightening the nut against our island.”
She promises on her YouTube channel to go against the establishment of Cuban-American Republican politicians whose politics are rooted in the Cold War.
Diaz-Balart, among the most vocal and visible proponents of Cuban regime change in Miami and Washington, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Escobar is adamant that she is not a Castro supporter. She argues that the media often ignores her criticisms of the Cuban government, which she said “has many authoritarian tactics.” She also pushes back on allegations that she is a communist, describing herself as a social democrat, which is distinct from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialist movement.
Though she says it has brought her threats and harassment, Escobar proudly broadcasts what in Miami are contrarian views about Communist Cuba. When Castro died in late 2016, for instance, Escobar called hundreds of Cuban exiles who took to the streets in Miami to celebrate “uncivilized” and wrote in her blog that “they are making fun of the mourning of millions of Cubans on the island.”
Days later, in an interview with a radio station linked to Alianza Martiana, a known pro-Castro organization, she defended the legacy of the long-term Cuban ruler.
“Fidel Castro did not fall before his enemies; history has quite absolved him,” Escobar said. “The truth is that Fidel Castro will be portrayed in history books in a very positive light.”
Castro’s changes ‘mostly positive’
The changes he implemented after 1959 were “mostly positive and necessary to protect the sovereignty of Cuba,” she said.
Had she been in Cuba at the time of Castro’s death, she continued in the same interview, she would have voluntarily signed a government document circulating on the island with the concept of revolution that Castro offered in one of his speeches. The signing was mandatory for students and state workers.
“It is always absurd and counterproductive and just in complete denial of reality when from Miami we try to ignore the fact that [Castro] did leave a legacy,” she told the Miami Herald.
Many Cubans who left the island “still have a very fond regard towards the process,” she said, because to “the majority [of Cubans] Fidel wasn’t a man but represented a counterbalance to the capitalist notion that money is above human life.”
The Cuban Revolution still generates polarized opinions, and Castro remains a protagonist for some on the left. But the Castro-led socialist uprising created a massive exile community in Miami that fled repressive policies against economic and personal freedoms. More than 1 million Cuban Americans now live in Florida, and more than 43% of the people living in the 25th Congressional District, which includes Hialeah, are Cuban American, according to the U.S. Census.
And the exile community in the district has only grown in recent years as Venezuelans have flocked to Doral while fleeing economic turmoil and a socialist regime.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to topple the regime of embattled leader Nicolás Maduro have won him praise among South Florida’s Venezuelan exiles. But Escobar, who participated in a Hands-Off Venezuela protest when Trump gave a socialism-themed speech last February at Florida International University, is among those who believe that the Trump administration has tried to orchestrate a coup d’état.
More recently, the Democratic candidate generated controversy by posting on Twitter photos taken on a trip to Cuba in 2008, in which she appears to be holding the flag of the July 26 Movement, the armed organization created by Castro to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s.
Escobar told the Miami Herald that the photos were a tribute to her grandfather, who “was not a communist” when he was part of that movement. But the images drew condemnation from conservative Cuban Americans.
“Absolutely outrageous and offensive that the democrat @yadiracongress is running for Congress in Miami as a shameless supporter of the communist dictatorship of Cuba that terrorized our families. Our community condemns it!,” wrote Armando Ibarra, president of Miami Young Republicans on Twitter.
Escobar was also condemned on the left, as mainstream Florida Democrats don’t want to be associated with socialism. Christian Ulvert, a Miami political consultant who helped Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum fight socialism smears last year, worried that Escobar’s candidacy will become a convenient cudgel for conservatives. He said Republicans “will use her candidacy as a proof point where none exists.”
“Standing in pictures with Fidel regalia is exactly what we fight against as a party and a nation, and we’ll continue to do so,” said Ulvert, who was born in Nicaragua and is married to a Venezuelan.
“She needs to understand that,” he said. “Her campaign will inject unnecessary emotions that extend beyond the borders of the 25th Congressional District, and she’ll be met with bipartisan rejection.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 7:00 AM.