Response to Jimmy Carter's Speech to the Cuban People

For my outside speech, I chose Jimmy Carter’s 2002 address to the Cuban people. This topic interests me because my step-mother and her family came to the US from Cuba several years ago. Today they are all American citizens; however, they still have a great deal of extended family living in Cuba. Her family does not wish for everyone to be living in the US but rather, they want to be able to openly communicate, visit, and share gifts with one another. On May 14, 2002, Jimmy Carter met with President Castro to discuss this very issue.

Upon his arrival, Carter gave a speech to all the Cuban people. I personally found the speech to be very useful in its purpose of setting the stage for a future peaceful relationship between the United States and Cuba. Carter’s ethos was already established simply by his position as a past US President. His ethos was further identified with his mention of his dealings with US/Chinese relationship; which was similar to this situation.

Carter also uses a great deal of logos in his speech. He uses the Cuban and American pasts to show that the two nations should be friendly towards one another. Carter also attempts to show the spreading success of democracy throughout Central and South America and the advancements that could be made through free trade. He also uses the argument that this friendliness is desired by a majority of people in both countries; therefore, a friendship should exist. Most effectively, Carter points out that the rest of the world has completely changed; therefore this relationship should also be reconsidered.
The speech contained little pathos but some was established with his discussion of Cuban immigrants and the split families.

I also felt that this speech was a great deal epideictic. Carter spends a lot of time discussing the successes of both the US and Cuba; I believe that this is to show the Cubans that we value their strengths and they should value ours (Civil Liberties-as presented by this speech). Because Carter is trying to convince them to allow the UN and other inspections, it is important to make them feel important in the decision.

The speech was very carefully varied between forensic (in his discussion of the histories of both nations) and deliberative (in his wishes for a peaceful future relationship). I believe that this speech is both epistemic and non-epistemic. Carter is using the known facts of our pasts to generate a result of a peaceful future. He is attempting to use some already known facts to push the people to a new product.

This speech can be found at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercubaspeech.htm