Cuban Americans

CUBAN AMERICANS

CUBAN AMERICANS began forming communities in the United States in the late nineteenth century. In the 1860s, cigar manufacturers began moving their shops to Florida to avoid political turmoil in Cuba, and workers followed. Struggling to end Spanish colonialism in Cuba, political exiles organized clubs and expeditions. By 1870, more than 1,000 Cubans lived in Key West. Communities also emerged in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Tampa, Jacksonville, and New Orleans. Migration continued, responding largely to political and economic changes in Cuba. With the 1959 Cuban Revolution, migration increased dramatically, and was shaped by the Cold War. Cuba instituted socialist reforms, while the United States defined its refugee policy based on anti-communism. American welcomed Cubans as refugees fleeing communism.

Cubans came in three major "waves" of migration. From 1959 to 1962, more than 215,000 Cubans arrived. Hoping to overthrow Castro and return to Cuba, some 1,300 exiles, with support from the Central Intelligence Agency, invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. The invasion failed. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States pledged not to intervene militarily in Cuba in exchange for the Soviet removal of missiles there.

From 1965 to 1973 more than 300,000 Cubans arrived, as the U.S. and Cuban governments permitted those with relatives in the United States to come via an organized airlift. In 1980 migration was rapid, and less controlled. The Cuban government opened the port of Mariel, and Cuban Americans rushed there by boat to retrieve relatives and friends. Another 125,000 Cubans came. Between waves, close to 100,000 Cubans arrived through third countries or through the Florida Keys by boat.

Cuba's upper classes dominated the first wave and constituted a significant proportion of the second wave. Described as "golden exiles," the first arrivals were political and military supporters of the former dictator Fulgencio Batista, those most threatened by Cuba's redistribution policies, and professionals. Although the second wave was less homogenous, it was the third wave that more closely resembled Cuba's population. This migration was more socio-economically diverse and included a higher proportion of blacks and mulattoes. The migrants, however, were overwhelmingly male (70 percent), younger

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by an average of about ten years, and included a significant number of gay men. The new arrivals were less welcome by the United States and the Cuban American community. Perceiving Cuba as dumping their "undesirables" in the United States, the U.S. media labeled them as "criminals." Yet authorities released half of the 1980 immigrants to sponsors in Miami. Of the others, held in military camps, an estimated 16 percent had been jailed in Cuba, some as convicted felons but many for participating in the black market or refusing military service.

U.S. government programs eased Cubans' settlement. The 1961 Cuban Refugee Program provided unprecedented and comprehensive assistance, with emergency relief checks, food distribution, medical care, education, job training, and loans. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act facilitated the transition from refugees to permanent residents by cutting red tape and allowing permanent residency regardless of how they had entered the country. With education and skills, as well as federal and private loans, early arrivals created an economic enclave in Miami that provided jobs to later arrivals. Cuban women entered the work force in much higher proportions than they had in Cuba. Their employment was facilitated by the enclave's garment industry jobs and by three-generation households, where grandmothers provided childcare. The resettlement program sought to disperse Cubans beyond Dade County, Florida, where the overwhelming majority lived. Communities emerged in Union City and West New York, New Jersey; New York City; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

As more Cuban Americans became naturalized citizens and registered to vote, they became a force in Florida politics. By the mid-1980s, Cuban-born mayors represented Miami, Hialeah, West Miami, and several small municipalities in Dade County, and ten Cuban Americans served in the state legislature. In national politics, the Cuban American National Foundation, founded in 1981 and based in Washington, D.C., voiced anti-Castro views and sought to influence U.S. policy toward Cuba. During the 1970s activists, and especially the younger generation, challenged the vehemently anti-Castro stance that dominated the Cuban American community. As they advocated an open "dialogue" with the Cuban government, family visits, and the release of political prisoners, some in the Cuban American community responded with violence.

Cuban migration is still shaped by U.S.-Cuba relations. A 1984 agreement between the two governments stipulated the admission of up to 20,000 Cubans per year. Yet during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States admitted an average of just 2,500 per year. As pressures mounted, Cubans tried to reach U.S. shores. In 1994, American authorities intercepted 36,791 rafters. The exodus slowed when Cuba agreed to seize rafters, and the United States agreed to issue at least 20,000 immigrant visas per year. U.S. policies toward Cubans shifted. Rafters already in the United States were detained for more than eight months before being admitted. In 1995 U.S. policy became to return rafters to Cuba. Although Cubans would ostensibly be treated like other migrants, in reality political context still shaped U.S. responses. By the 2000 census, 1,242,685 Cuban Americans lived in the United States, constituting 3.5 percent of the Latino population. Most, 67 percent, lived in Florida, especially Miami, Hialeah, and Tampa.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

García, María Cristina. Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959–1994. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Herrera, Andrea O'Reilly, ed. ReMembering Cuba: Legacy of a Diaspora. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

Portes, Alejandro and Alex Stepick. City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Carmen Teresa Whalen

See also Bay of Pigs Invasion .