Cuba on the verge of change, and not

“I know that at present there are great differences between our peoples,” she said, “but in the future all will be well, because we are all the sons and daughters of Abraham Lincoln.”

This statement, by an old lady in Cuba, fundamentally summarizes how I feel about the United States and our Latin American and Caribbean neighbors -- from Cuba to Bolivia, Argentina to the Antilles, Puerto Rico to Puerto Montt. We are all children of Lincoln, and of Jose Marti as well. We have much more in common than we have that separates us.

The quote is from the New York Times Sunday magazine article on Cuba, a must read by a writer who manages to educate and inform about an island nation that has been our most strident adversary in this hemisphere for more than a half century, and does so without resorting to the political and social stereotypes of so many journalists, myself included.