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CUBANS IN SOUTH FLORIDA.
Term Paper ID:23459
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Essay Subject:
Impact of Cubans on culture, social structure, local politics & U.S. (Clinton) policy toward Castro.... More...
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6 Pages / 1350 Words
7 sources, 10 Citations,
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Paper Abstract:
Impact of Cubans on culture, social structure, local politics & U.S. (Clinton) policy toward Castro.
Paper Introduction:
The population of South Florida today contains a large contingent of exiles and refugees from Castro's Cuba, part of a mass exodus of disaffected and politically persecuted Cubans who have left their homeland since the Cuban Revolution. Many of those who came here in the first wave after the revolution believed they would be returning home, perhaps within a few months, but as the years have passed the Cuban population has become more socially and economically integrated into the U.S. culture in Florida even while maintaining ties with Cuba and while trying to keep alive the hope that Castro could be overthrown and democracy restored in Cuba. The presence of this large exile group has had a profound effect on South Florida, especially in terms of politics given the dedication of this group to influencing U.S. policy toward Cuba, but also in the
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. was that of prerevolutionary Havana, as perceived by Americans. TheCubans have had a great influence on the culture and economy of the region,and while this influence has not always been appreciated, it cannot beignored. The second change is historic andmeans that refugees from Cuban Communism, previously welcomed into theUnited States, will now be forcibly handed over to the Castro regime by theU.S. The marielitos are mostly Black and mulattoes of a color that I haver saw or believe existed in Cuba. . foreign policy withreference to relations with Cuba. . City on the Edge. Considering that the entire Cuban population is 11 million, American policy will remain, as it has been, disproportionately generous ("Closing the Doors" 7). Coast Guard. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.----------------------- 8 The population of South Florida today contains a large contingent ofexiles and refugees from Castro's Cuba, part of a mass exodus ofdisaffected and politically persecuted Cubans who have left their homelandsince the Cuban Revolution. . . At the same time, native white South Floridians saw thesenew refugees as a group to be firmly opposed (Portes and Stepick 21-23). But in Miami, from dawn to dusk, all people seemed to want to talk about was Cuba (Rieff 43).The Cuban population in South Florida has in many ways recreated Cuba in anew setting because Cuba remains an obsession. Florida already hasstretched social services, hospitals, schools, and charities, and in April1994 Governor Lawton Chiles sued the federal government for $2.6 billion tocover the costs of legal and illegal immigration. Some 2 , Cubans a year will get visas (although for the next two years the inhabitants of Guantanamo who are to be allowed in now will be counted against these quotas). The first wave camein planeloads of Cubans on "freedom flights" in the 196 s and 197 s. . The Cuban community in Florida has become a major political bloc tobe courted by candidates. What has developed in South Florida is actually a two-tiered socialstructure for Cuban refugees, with the long-term Cuban population moreintegrated into the economy and with newer refugees often straining socialservices in the early years after their arrival. In both moral and international legal terms, this is a departure for the United States. "'How Many More People Can We Absorb?'" Busienss Week (September 26, 1994), 48A, 48E.Didion, Joan. . The Exile. . There was even in the way women dressed in Miami a definable Havana look. Thepresence of this large exile group has had a profound effect on SouthFlorida, especially in terms of politics given the dedication of this groupto influencing U.S. Works CitedAbrams, Elliott. culture in Floridaeven while maintaining ties with Cuba and while trying to keep alive thehope that Castro could be overthrown and democracy restored in Cuba. Miami. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.Portes, Alejandro and Alex Stepick. (Didion 52).There are numerous suggestions that the Cuban culture in South Florida isin many places the dominant culture. The people of Floridaare expressing the view that the state has absorbed enough, with influxesof both Cubans and Haitians over the past four decades. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own." This right to emigrate has been repeatedly endorsed by American Presidents and American Congresses. . By the late 198 s, 43 percent of the population of Dade County wasHispanic, meaning primarily Cuban, and 56 percent of Miami was Hispanic.Cubans had achieved much in economic terms so that there were Cubans in theboardrooms of the major banks, Cubans in clubs that did not admit Jews orblacks, and Cubans in the mayoral campaigns of different Florida cities.Xavier Suarez was a 36-year-old lawyer who had been brought to this countrywhen he was a child, and he had become mayor of Miami, a city which showedthe influence of the Cuban people quite clearly: The entire tone of the city, the way people looked and talked and met one another, was Cuban. . policy toward Cuba, but also in the social and economicstructure of the region. Most educated Cubans in Havana hungered for information about the rest of the world, and tended to grill visitors about the latest American pop stars or for descriptions of the most recent European films. (Abrams 36).An editorial in The New Republic takes a different view: Clinton's policy is also justifiable, in part because it does not eliminate the freedom of Cubans to migrate to the United States. Many of the refugees brought in 198 on the Marielboatlift were Cuban criminals, however, and this contributed to a shift inpublic perception. It is not clear ifthis desire has been transmitted to the younger generation, but there havebeen many waves of immigrants over the years to keep the dream and theattitude alive in the Cuban-American community in South Florida. Theywere followed by the Mariel boatlift of 198 bringing 125, refugees.Thousands more fled the Sandinista reign in Nicaragua, with a massiveinflux in 1988 and 1989. The Cuban community is generally veryconservative in its politics. There is more to this thannostalgia or holding on to old ways, for always the Cuban population looksto the South and hopes for a return to the homeland. While Castro has promised that no one who is sent backwill be mistreated, and while President Clinton promises that no one inreal danger will be sent back, neither statement is taken as accurate.Elliott Abrams recently wrote of this new approach, The new policy is monstrous. In many ways, the period of the Mariel boatlift was also a period ofattitudinal change in Florida. The Cuban refugees prior to that time hadbeen largely welcomed, and their anti-Castro stance fit with that of thepeople of Florida. South Florida haslong been a point of destination for refugees fleeing the economic andpolitical problems of the Caribbean and Latin America. The Anglos in the region have neverfully understood the way the Cubans view their lives in America, for fromthe first the Cubans had the attitude that their stay would be temporary.They have seen assimilation as a doubtful goal as they dreamed of returningto their homeland and casting out Castro. The Cuban refugees havecome in waves, and the fear of another wave of such refugees caused Floridaofficials to seek assistance from Washington. Many of those who came here in the first waveafter the revolution believed they would be returning home, perhaps withina few months, but as the years have passed the Cuban population has becomemore socially and economically integrated into the U.S. What has happened, of course, isthat subsequent generations have been more Americanized simply by being inAmerica, leaving a certain gap between generations (Didion 53-59). This comes after several denials that those refugeeswould ever be allowed into the country. Thefirst of these changes is that Cubans who have been in detention camps inthe Guantanamo Bay Naval Base will be admitted to the United States overthe next few years. They don't have social networks; they roam the streets desperate to return to Cuba" (Portes and Stepick 22).In fact, the labels affixed to the marielitos by both the Castro governmentand the Cuban leaders in Florida created discrimination which made it verydifficult for these new refugees to make their way in their newsurroundings. This country never threw anyone back over the Berlin Wall; we never turned a Soviet Jew or Pentecostal over to the KGB; and under Presidents of both parties, we never turned a Cuban refugee over to Castro. It simply subjects that right to regulation, rather than to the special exemption from regulation that has existed under the 1965 Cuban Adjustment Act. Berkeley: University of California, 1993.Rieff, David. The very image the city had begun presenting of itself, what was then its newfound glamour, its "hotness". Miami. More recently, though, the Clinton Administration has challenged theCuban community in a different way by changing the rules concerning theadmittance and rejection of refugees from that part of the world. No American President has been willingto pay the political price of normalizing relations with Cuba (Allman 31 -311). Castro at the time made the following statement: Those that are leaving from Mariel are the scum of the country-- antisocials, homosexuals, drug addicts, and gamblers, who are welcome to leave Cuba if any country will have them (Portes and Stepick 21).A Cuban-American official in Miami who opposed Castro agreed in somerespects: Mariel destroyed the image of Cubans in the United States and, in passing, destroyed the image of Miami itself for tourism. The result has been a strain on Florida's alreadyovertaxed social services (DeGeorge 48A, 48E). New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987."Closing the doors." The New Republic (May 29, 1995), 7.DeGeorge, Gail. The Cubans have had a major influence on thepolitical course of Florida as a whole, and on the national scene theCubans have attained a virtual veto over change in U.S. "Castro's Latest Coup." National Review (June 12, 1995), 36-37.Allman, T.D. David Rieff echoes some of these ideas and notes the surprise manyCubans had when they reached Florida: The paradox was that it was actually far easier to get away from Cuba in Cuba itself than in Miami.
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