The diminutive term marielito itself reflected the public scorn accorded to the new immigrants, both in Cuba and in the United States. Approximately 13 percent of the marielitos was classified as black or mulatto, compared to only three percent of the exiles in The occupational structure of Cuban Miami became even more hetero-geneous than before as more blue-collar and service workers entered the local labor market.
Mariel refugees faced longer periods of unemployment, low-paid work, and welfare dependence than earlier migrants As a result of the Mariel exodus, the exile community in Miami became much more representative of the entire Cuban population. Furthermore, « the sudden influx of more than 85 Mariel refugees in the Miami area has created major problems in housing, unemployment, and apparently crime as well » As Alejandro Portes has pointed out, « The few thousand delinquents and mental patients put by the Cuban government aboard the boats stigmatized not only the entire Mariel exodus, but the pre-Mariel exile population as well » In , a Gallup poll showed that Americans perceived Cubans to be the second less desirable group of neighbors after religious cult members Between and , about Cuban immigrants were admitted to the United States, compared to nearly during the s After Mariel, Cubans were labeled « entrants status pending », an ambivalent category that placed them in a legal limbo for an indefinite period and did not provide the special benefits accorded to those granted political asylum.
To qualify as refugees, applicants had to prove a « well-founded fear of persecution » in their home country. Only some groups of Cubans, such as former political prisoners, were now eligible for refugee status. Most were labor migrants, such as blue-collar and service workers, reflecting the socioeconomic composition of the Cuban composition more accurately than before. In December, , both governments signed an agreement allowing the migration of up to 20 Cubans per year.
Consequently, thousands of Cubans moved to other countries, such as Panama and Jamaica, where they hoped to obtain visas to the United States. Others attempted to reach Florida by boat or overstayed their temporary visit permits.
The stage was set for another migratory crisis. Between and , a total of 94 Cuban immigrants were admitted to the United States. In addition, 13 rafters arrived from Cuba between January of and July of In august of , the number of refugees broke all records since the Mariel exodus. By the end of that month, the U. Coast Guard had rescued 21 Cubans near the coast of Florida. The so-called balsero crisis involved about 36 Cuban rafters interdicted at sea at the height of the exodus between august 13 and September 13, Until august, , the U.
However, the Clinton administration increasingly perceived the balsero crisis as a national security threat that could quickly become « another Mariel »: that is, a prolonged, massive, and chaotic boat lift from Cuba to the United States. To prevent such a situation, President Clinton decided to return all future refugees to Cuba. Both governments therefore moved swiftly to address the crisis through a series of bilateral measures, beginning in Septem-ber, In May, , the U.
The balsero crisis had been temporarily solved. In July, , the U. State Department announced the temporary suspension of tourist visas for Cubans due to a backlog of 28 applications.
Many Cubans overstayed these visas and did not go back home, thus becoming undocumented immigrants in the United States. Moreover, the U. Interests Section in Havana only granted 3 immigrant visas between and Illegal exits from Cuba therefore became the primary means of migrating to the United States during the early s. These were the worst years of the so-called Special Period in Time of Peace in Cuba, characterized by a sharp decline in economic growth, a dramatic decrease in living standards, a rise in social tensions, and unmet demands for political reform Migratory pressures accumulated rapidly, including large sectors of the Cuban population, such as service workers, professionals, and the growing unemployed.
Cuban scholars have recently estimated that between and a million more Cubans would migrate if allowed to do so Thus, the contem-porary Cuban diaspora is less of a politically motivated exile and more of an economically motivated migration, as in much of the Caribbean region.
A recent sample of balseros, detained in their attempt to leave Cuba, still over-represented the white, male, urban, and educated population of the island Most of the respondents were manual workers, especially in transportation and communications, although many were professionals, technicians, and administrators. The majority said they wanted to leave the country for economic or personal reasons 29 ; most had relatives and friends living abroad.
A surprising proportion 21 percent were members of the Cuban Communist Party or the Communist Youth Union; not surprisingly, nearly a third 29 percent were unemployed. Altogether, the data suggest that current emigration reflects the profound economic crisis that affects all strata of Cuban society.
Coast Guard to transfer the rafters to U. Thus, the Clinton administration reversed the traditional open-door stance toward Cuban migration and began a series of major policy shifts, such as intercepting, detaining, and repatriating the rafters. This transformation in the official treatment of Cubans in the United States signaled an attempt — not entirely successful — to develop a coherent immigration and refugee policy in the post-Cold War period.
More particularly, it was a political response by the Clinton administration to long-standing criticism of U. Hence, analysts have begun to write about the « Haitianization » or « Caribbea-nization » of U. Cuban migration policy For the first time since , Cubans leaving their country without visas were considered illegal aliens subject to deportation, just like Haitians, Dominicans, or Salvadoreans.
This policy shift represents the beginning of the end of the special status of Cuban immigrants in the United States. Emigration began with the disaffected sectors of the Cuban Revolution, initially concentrated in the most privileged groups of pre-revolutionary society especially urban, upper — and middle — class whites.
But the subsequent deterioration in U. During this period, working-class, dark-skinned, and rural migrants left Cuba in larger numbers than before. In the s, the economic crisis deepened the migratory potential and even impacted formerly pro-revolutionary segments of the population. Finally, economic motives have become as important as political ones during the latter phases of the exodus. Cuban communities are also notable in Madrid, Caracas, and Mexico City, but little has been published about them Geographic distribution of the cuban population in the United States, Number of Cubans.
Percent of Cubans. New Jersey. New York. Other states. Metropolitan area. Miami, Florida. Los Angeles, California. New York, New York. Tampa, Florida. Other areas. In Union City, Mariel refugees recently organized a rumba group at the Esquina Habanera restaurant Initially deterritorialized identities have taken hold across national boundaries through such settlement patterns.
Even where they share the same neighborhoods with other ethnic and racial groups — such as Nicaraguans in Sweetwater or Colombians in Queens —, Cubans tend to remain socially encapsulated in their own communities. Although residential segregation has many pernicious effects, it allows for the consolidation of Cuban barrios and the transformation of the urban landscape along transnational lines. It also makes possible some degree of political representation through concentration in certain electoral districts.
Since the s, Cubans in the United States have been increasingly empowered, partly as a result of their extreme clustering in south Florida and northern New Jersey. Another large Cuban enclave is found in Hialeah to the north of Dade County. In , sixteen percent of all Cubans in the county lived in the core of Little Havana and another 22 percent lived in Hialeah In Miami, Cuban-American culture thrives through numerous commercial Spanish-language signs and mass media, coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants, social clubs, political organizations, Catholic and Afro-Cuban yard shrines, artistic and musical activities, and the popular Calle Ocho Festival.
The shrine to Our Lady of Charity, the patron of Cuba, located in downtown Miami, embodies the diasporic identity of Cubans in exile In several essays, Portes has defined the enclave as a spatial concentration of ethnic enterprises and residences with a wide variety of economic activities and a large ethnic market that competes with the dominant economy According to this definition, the Cuban enclave of Miami has expanded dramatically over the past four decades.
In , Cubans owned 7 businesses in the Miami-Hialeah area, most of them in services, retail trade, and construction. By , Cubans owned 46 firms in the Miami metropolitan area. The city now has the second largest concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States after Los Angeles By , more than half of all foreign-born Cubans in the United States had become U.
Once they naturalize and register to vote, Cuban-Americans tend to support the Republican Party and its conservative ideology. The exiles have recently organized as a pressure group to defend their interests in U.
As a result, their voice has been heard more clearly in local, state, and national arenas. During the s, three Cuban Americans were elected to the U. Here, too, the exiles have created a strong ethnic community that protects them from personal and social disorganization, although scholars have debated whether they have constituted an economic enclave such as the one in Miami. For instance, the residential pattern of Cubans in West New York-Union City is much more dispersed than in Miami, and their occupational distribution is much more concentrated in blue-collar jobs in light manufacturing.
Many were members of the lower class in Cuba, but others were professionals and managers who were forced to accept lower-status jobs in the United States. However, initial downward occupational mobility has been a common experience for Cubans in the United States, especially those arriving in the early s. This allegiance to Cuban identity is partly due to the predominance of foreign-born immigrants, but also to the proliferation of Cuban organizations in the area.
In Milwaukee and Indiana-polis, for example, most exiles quickly adjusted to their new occupations and regained their former Cuban status On average, Cubans have higher incomes, educational levels, and occupational skills in states like Illinois and California than in Florida and New Jersey. Unfortunately, little detailed information is available for Cuban communities outside the main centers of the diaspora In , over 57 Cubans lived in New York City alone.
Since , many Cubans continued to move to New York and settled primarily in Washington Heights, in northwest Manhattan. They are often physically removed from other minorities because they tend to live in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, whereas the latter are largely confined to inner-city districts.
Even when they share the same neighborhoods, as in Washington Heights, Latinos usually cross national lines only in public places such as parks, schools, markets, and churches In the last three decades, Cubans have been moving out of New York and New Jersey and into Florida, as part of a resettlement pattern characteristic of the entire Cuban population in the United States.
But they deserve special attention because they display yet another adaptive strategy among Cubans in exile. The Cubans who moved to San Juan were even more over-representative of the propertied classes in their country of origin than those who moved to the U. For example, the Cuban-born population in Puerto Rico has a much larger share of upper-status workers, such as managers and professionals, than in the U.
Cuban immigrants also have higher income and educational levels than the Puerto Rican-born population. Four Waves Since the triumph of Fidel Castro's revolution in , there has been a steady influx of Cubans into the United States, punctuated by four significant waves: ; ; ; and Each wave has reached deeper into the layers of Cuban society, from the wealthy in the s to the dwellers of Havana's squalid inner city neighborhoods in the s.
Soon they were joined by increasing numbers of wealthy Cubans whose property had been confiscated by the Cuban government: executives of U. Most did not expect exile to last long, but thought Cuba would soon be liberated -- first placing their hopes on the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and later on the certainty that the United States would never allow the consolidation of a Communist government ninety miles away from their shores.
Starting Over Many of these pioneers left Cuba with nothing and had to begin anew. Sugar mill owners became gas station attendants; professional women took jobs as maids. Told many times over, their story has by now become an epic.
Character loans, dispensed by the Republican Bank, and especially by a Cuban banker named Luis Botifoll, allowed Cubans to start small businesses.
Applying the entrepreneurial skills brought from their native Cuba, and taking advantage of the growing Cuban population in Miami, little by little they created the Miami success story for which Cuban Americans have become known.
Violent Anti-Castroism There was a dark side to this story. As the Cuban exiles fought Castro's repressive regime from abroad, many committed acts of terrorism.
There were illegal incursions into Cuba, assassinations, bombs, and plots -- some involving the U. The burglars who broke into the Democratic headquarters at Washington, D. But the most shocking act committed by Cuban Americans took place in , when Orlando Bosch and Luis Carriles Posada placed a bomb aboard a Cuban civilian airliner, killing dozens of innocent victims including young athletes returning from abroad.
Political Muscle By the early s Cuban Americans began to try new strategies. Even after the end of the Cold War, the Cuban American Foundation succeeded in maintaining, and even tightening, the U. The Second Wave: Freedom Flights By the mid to late s, a swell of discontent rose in Cuba, fed by economic hardship along with the erosion and virtual disappearance of political freedoms.
In particular, when Castro closed down some 55, small businesses in , virtually eliminating all private property, more Cubans turned against the revolution. It was now the turn of the middle- and lower-middle classes, and skilled laborers. Henceforth, most Cubans arriving in the United States would be authorized to stay. They would also immediately become eligible for various kinds of federal government assistance, such as health and educational benefits, whereas other legal immigrants must have five years of U.
The Cuban Adjustment Act has come under increasing scrutiny as anachronistic, unfair, and even racist. Critics have argued that the full normalization of U.
However, this is not a priority for the Trump administration or the current Congress, and as a result the prospects for changes to the law or its repeal remain unclear. Over the past six decades, the Cuban exodus has unfolded in several distinct stages, which have grown increasingly more diverse.
Emigration began with the disaffected sectors of the Cuban Revolution, initially concentrated in the most privileged groups of prerevolutionary society especially urban, upper- and middle-class whites.
But the deterioration in U. In addition, economic motivations became increasingly intertwined with political ones during the later migrant waves. With the thawing of U.
The long-term impact of this policy shift remains unclear. Current trends suggest that Cuban immigration will be reduced to about 20, persons per year. Larger numbers of Cuban migrants may increasingly turn to other destinations in Latin America or Europe. However, it remains to be seen what actions the Trump administration might take that could affect Cuban migration one way or another.
Should the current pattern continue, Cubans will no longer be a sizable component of international migration to the United States, and may lose their symbolic value in the geopolitics of international relations. Ackerman, Holly. The Balsero Phenomenon, — Cuban Studies — Ackerman, Holly and Juan M. The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty.
Miami: Cuban American National Council. Al Cruzar las Fronteras. Duany, Jorge. Available online. Valencia, Spain: Aduana Vieja. Eckstein, Susan Eva. New York: Routledge. Fagen, Richard R. Brody, and Thomas J. Cubans in Exile: Disaffection and the Revolution. Frist, Bill. Forbes , June 8, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Grenier, Guillermo J. A History of Little Havana. Charleston, SC: History Press. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Hirschfeld Davis, Julie. New York Times, June 16, Hughes, Joyce A. Rethinking the Cuban Adjustment Act and the U. National Interest. Thomas Law Review 23 2 : — Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Pedraza, Silvia. Diasporas: Waves of Immigration since In Cuba, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. Portes, Alejandro and Aaron Puhrmann. Cuban Studies 40— Poyo, Gerald E.
Prieto, Yolanda. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Census Bureau. American FactFinder. Commissioner-General of Immigration. Various years. Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration.
Washington, DC: U. Government Printing Office. Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Immigration Data and Statistics. Updated June 21, Skip to main content.
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