Cuba - Scholars Denied U.S. Visas - NYTimes.com The State Department this week gave Mariela Castro, President Raúl Castro's daughter, a visa to attend an academic conference in San Francisco, but on Friday it confirmed that it had also rejected the visa applications of 11 of the more than 70 Cuban scholars who had applied to attend the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association. The list includes academics who are among the most interested in engaging with the United States, and some who have pushed for greater political and economic change in Cuba. Some have traveled to the United States before.