NOTE
1. María Cristina García, Havana USA (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 165.
THE EMERGENCE OF A CUBAN AMERICAN IDENTITY
As early as the 1970s, there was evidence of a shift in the emigre community, as Cubans began to perceive themselves as permanent residents rather than temporary visitors, as immigrants rather than refugees. This shift in consciousness— Attributable, in part, to the termination of the freedom flights, which forced many emigrés to come to terms with their status in the United States—was especially evident in three areas: the economic success of the Cuban community in south Florida;
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the growing number of exiles seeking naturalization; and their new involvement in domestic politics and civic affairs.
As the Cubans bought homes, built businesses, paid taxes, and sent their children to school, they established ties to their communities in spite of their original intentions. In south Florida they created a thriving economic enclave that absorbed each new wave of immigration from Cuba as well as from elsewhere in Latin America.1 By 1980, emigrés in Dade County generated close to $2.5 billion in income each year. Forty-four percent of the nearly five hundred thousand Cubans living in greater Miami were professionals, company managers, business owners, skilled craftsmen, or retail sales and clerical personnel, and eighteen thousand businesses were Cuban-owned. Sixty-three percent of emigrés owned their own homes.2 The figures improved with each year, and by the early 1990s over twenty-five thousand businesses in Dade County were Latino-owned, making south Florida home to the most prosperous Latino community in the United States.3 In both the 1980 and 1990 censuses, Cubans also exhibited the highest income and educational levels of the three major Latino groups, levels only slightly below the national average—a notable accomplishment for a community of first-generation immigrants.4
The Cubans' success could be attributed to several factors. Cuban women had a high rate of participation in the labor force; as early as 1970, they constituted the largest proportionate group of working women in the United States.5 Women expanded their roles to include wage-earning not as a response to the feminist movement or the social currents of the 1960s but to ensure the economic survival of their families. The structure of the Cuban household, with three generations living under one roof, also ensured success because it encouraged economic cooperation.6 The elderly contributed to the family's economic well-being both directly, with salaries, refugee aid, and Social Security checks, or indirectly, by raising children and assuming household responsibilities. These factors, along with the Cubans' low fertility rates and high levels of school completion, facilitated the family's structural assimilation.
In the community, the Cubans created prosperous businesses, built with the skills and capital of the middle- and upper-class emigrés who comprised the first wave of immigrants. The wealthy elite had money invested in American banks at the time of the revolution, and when they settled in Miami they invested that capital in new business ventures. The middle-class emigrés lacked that kind of capital, but they did have the skills and business know-how with which to create lucrative businesses. They identified the needs in the community and built businesses catering to those needs, with the assistance of loans from local banks or the Small Business Administration and long hours of work by family members. As their businesses expanded, these emigrés took on additional employees, almost always their compatriots. Thus, south Florida became home to a thriving business community that provided job opportunities for the new immigrants who arrived each year, easing their assimilation into the economic mainstream.7
The Cuban presence attracted international investment and helped convert Miami into a major trade and commercial center linking North and South America.
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By 1980, thirteen major banks and over one hundred multinational corporations had established regional offices in the Miami area. Between 1977 and J 980 the port of Miami, which had already replaced New Orleans as the chief port of trade with Latin America, tripled its ship passenger traffic. From 1975 to 1980, air passenger traffic at Miami International Airport increased 100 percent and air cargo traffic 250 percent, making it the ninth busiest airport in the world in passenger traffic and sixth busiest in cargo traffic. During the same period, exports and imports increased by close to 150 percent.8
As early as the 1960s, the national news media, particularly popular magazines such as Life, Fortune, and Newsweek, celebrated the Cubans' business acumen and mythologized the "Cuban success story." Articles with titles like "To Miami, Refugees Spell P-R-O-S-P-E-R-I-T-Y" and "Cuban Refugees Write a U.S. Success Story" proclaimed the Cubans to be "golden immigrants" and the newest Horatio Algers.9 In an era of social upheaval and disillusionment, when Americans questioned and discarded old values and perspectives, the Cubans seemed to prove that the American Dream was strong and intact. News of the Cubans' apparent success helped ease any misgivings Americans might have had about giving these people asylum or spending millions of taxpayers' dollars on refugee aid.
The "Cuban success story," however, overlooked the fact that many Cubans did not share in the community's wealth, as well as the fact that their success, while substantial, was less spectacular than the rags-to-riches stories promoted by the popular media.10 Despite the large middle and upper classes and the comprehensive federal assistance pumped into the community, Cuban income still remained below the national average (albeit slightly) and a significant percentage of Cubans lived in poverty." Working class emigrés, like other Americans, struggled for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, as well as job security, particularly if they were women. Black Cubans experienced discrimination from both their white compatriots and the larger society, and as late as 1990 their income lagged behind that of white Cubans by almost 40 percent.12 As one editorial in an exile newspaper said:
Many think that all exiles are rich; and it's not that way. . . . Ninety percent of exiles in Miami work in the factories or other such workplaces. They are all workers—some at a higher rank—but they are all workers. It is for these people that we publish our newspaper, so that they will learn American laws and realize that they don't have to be exploited ... and many of them are exploited, especially by Cuban bosses.13
Nevertheless, the Cuban success story enjoyed wide circulation within the exile community: the Cubans made the story an essential element of their collective identity. Rather than focusing on those who had not assimilated economically, they focused on those who had—and there were plenty Horatio Algers in the community. To do otherwise would have been to give Fidel Castro propaganda to use against them. They wanted to prove to their compatriots back home what could be accomplished. That the community had accomplished so much in so little time, they argued, was a testimony to the old-fashioned values of thrift, hard work, and
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perseverance, and a symbol that God was on their side. The U.S. news media celebrated the Cubans' adoption of the Puritan work ethic, but for the emigrés it was simply the exile work ethic. Their strong anticommunism and their economic prosperity were the two characteristics they took the most pride in and promoted about themselves. Their success within the American mainstream was an indictment of the revolution, the best revenge a gusano could have.
But not all Cubans were comfortable with the community's success. Some emigrés accused their countrymen of sacrificing la causa cubana for the comforts of exile: if they had invested as much time in assisting the counterrevolution as they had in climbing the economic ladder, went the argument, they could have all returned to Cuba within a matter of years. "The dollar sign has destroyed the patriotic values of many," lamented one editorial.14 Another warned that economic success was "prostituting the combative spirit of the exile community . . . distracting our youth from working on behalf of our slave country."15 Yet another editor wrote, "We exchanged the committed, militant exile of [1961] for the present apathetic exile, committed only to dances and festivities."16 For these and other exiles, the economic success of the community signified a denial of their responsibilities toward Cuba.
Nowhere was the theme of national allegiance more evident than in the debate over naturalization, a debate carried out in homes and offices, in newspapers and on the radio, throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Many Cubans were completely opposed to the idea of applying for U.S. citizenship. Some even resented that their children were forced to swear allegiance to the American flag at school. Many Cubans believed that becoming an American citizen meant assuming a new identity, emotionally erasing any memory of life prior to taking the oath of citizenship. The oath was a symbolic act by which they renounced allegiance to their homeland, their heritage, and their people; as one individual wrote, "How can I ever forget my language, my customs, my folklore? How can I honestly forget my past?"'7 Becoming a citizen meant that they had failed la causa cubana and compromised their ideals. They would no longer be exiles but rather ethnic Americans. In an effort to remind exiles of their responsibilities, the periodiquitos dedicated a number of issues in the early 1970s to defining the concepts of patria (nation) and cubanidad.
College students were particularly caught up in this debate over identity and national allegiance. Many had left Cuba as teenagers, and they were acutely aware that they straddled two cultures. At the University of Miami, Miami-Dade Community College, the University of Florida at Gainesville, and other universities around the country, Cuban students joined organizations such as the Federación de Estudiantes Cubanos and the Agrupación Estudiantes Abdala (known more commonly as Abdala)18 to discuss issues of nationality, identity, culture, and their responsibilities toward Cuba. They tried to define cubanidad for themselves. "Young people who wish to identify themselves as Cuban face many difficulties in exile," wrote one student in Antorcha, the Cuban Students Federation publication at the University of Miami:
I am not referring to the obvious problem of having to choose whether one is Cuban or American, but rather to a more subtle (and perhaps more dangerous) conflict, which
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is distinguishing between cubanía and being Cuban-like. It is one thing to be concerned about the people who share one's language and origin, to be genuinely concerned with Cuba. It is quite another thing to think that one is Cuban simply because one likes arroz con frijoles or reads a Spanish-language newspaper in the afternoons. It is best to do both.19
Some students became more staunchly nationalistic than their parents, and they castigated the community for forfeiting its ideals. One editorial in Antorcha challenged its readers: "We must ask ourselves why we came to Miami. To contribute to its growth? To become involved in its politics? To make money? Did we leave Cuba as emigrants? . . . While we should be proud of being Cubans we should be ashamed of not having a country."20 Others appealed to their compatriots' sense of cubanidad, warning them that the traditions and values they took most pride in would eventually die in the United States. "The Cuban family will be destroyed on foreign soil. ... It is only in Cuba that we can preserve her."21 Not surprisingly, many students, particularly those affiliated with Abdala, became more deeply involved in the war against Castro.
Many Cubans, however, saw no contradiction in being both exiles and citizens of the United States. Tangible legal, professional, and economic benefits could be derived from U.S. citizenship; Cuban professionals in particular realized that in order to practice their careers they had to meet state licensing requirements, and permanent residency or citizenship was always a prerequisite. But it was more than just economic considerations that led many Cubans to apply for citizenship. As they resigned themselves to a lengthy stay in the United States, they developed a sense of loyalty to the country that gave them refuge, and citizenship seemed a logical step.
The Miami Herald reported in 1974 that approximately two hundred thousand Cubans had sought U.S. citizenship.22 In late 1975, Cuban professionals, led by media personality Manolo Reyes initiated a citizenship drive, the Cubans for American Citizenship Campaign, with the goal of registering ten thousand new citizens in celebration of the United States Bicentennial. Members of the steering committee recruited exiles, helped them fill out the necessary papers, and taught courses in schools to help them prepare for the examinations. The campaign surpassed its goal: on just one day—July 4, 1976—more than sixty-five hundred Cubans swore the oath of citizenship, and by the end of the year 26,275 exiles had become U.S. citizens." The campaign continued throughout the late 1970s. By 1980, 55 percent of the eligible Cubans in Dade County were American citizens, compared to just 25 percent in 1970.24 Even with their new legal status, however, these new citizens continued to regard themselves as Cuban exiles—and they would always maintain this dual identity. Their ties to Cuba were unseverable.
During the 1970s, the local news media, and in particular the Miami Herald, monitored the sentiments of the exile community. In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, the media tried to reflect the concerns of ethnic minorities and to study the relationships between the different groups in the community. The Herald commissioned various polls and surveys to determine how well the Cubans were
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adapting to life in the United States. Did they feel accepted? Did they want to return to Cuba? Did they object to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the Castro government? Many of the surveys yielded surprising results: a 1972 poll revealed that while 97 percent of the Cubans interviewed felt that they had been accepted in Miami, 62 percent were less satisfied with their lives in the U.S. than with the lives they had led in Cuba.25 The termination of the freedom flights, however, proved to be a turning point in the exiles' attitudes toward Cuba and the United States. A study by sociologists Clark and Mendoza in 1972 showed that close to 79 percent of the Cubans interviewed wanted to return to Cuba once Castro was overthrown, but two years later, less than half expressed the same desire.26 Another study by Portes and Mozo yielded similar results: in 1973, 60 percent of those interviewed reported plans to return to Cuba once Fidel Castro fell, but by 1979 less than one-fourth wanted to return.27
The Cubans' growing involvement in civic affairs and local politics also revealed a shift in consciousness. In 1965, seventeen Cuban businessmen created the Cámara de Comerdo Latina (Latin American Chamber of Commerce), or CAMACOL, to lobby on behalf of Dade's Latino business community before the Metro-Dade County Commission and the state legislature. In 1970, emigrés created the Cuban National Planning Council to study domestic (U.S.) issues that were important to Cubans, including language, education, health care, and employment. A Cuban ran for the mayoral seat as early as 1967, two ran for the city commission in 1969, and another five ran for various public offices in 1971. All were unsuccessful, but in 1973 two veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion were elected to public office, Manolo Reboso to the City Commission and Alfredo Duran to the Dade County School Board. The city of Sweetwater also became the first city in south Florida to elect a Cuban-born mayor.
Another example of the Cubans' growing influence in Dade County was the Bilingual-Bicultural Ordinance of April 1973- The resolution designated Spanish as the county's second official language and called for the establishment of a Department of Bilingual and Bicultural Affairs, the translation of county documents into Spanish, and increased efforts to recruit Latinos to county jobs.28 The passage of such an ordinance by a board comprised entirely of non-Latinos demonstrated a recognition of the role Cubans and other Latinos were playing in the local community, and would play in the years to come. As the resolution declared, "Our Spanish-speaking population has earned, through its ever increasing share of the tax burden, and active participation in community affairs, the right to be serviced and heard at all levels of government."29 (The resolution was repealed in 1980 in the aftermath of Mariel, but reinstated in 1993.)
Over the next decade, the Cubans' political accomplishments were even more impressive. Cubans came to occupy positions in the local, state, and national government, as well as key positions in the key institutions of Miami and Dade County. At the same time, they continued to be actively concerned with the political affairs of their homeland just ninety miles away. Whether they called themselves Cuban exiles or Cuban Americans, it was clear that the emigrés had carved a niche for
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themselves in their country of refuge and were satisfactorily resolving the question of identity—at least for themselves.
THE 1970s: A TRANSITION PERIOD
During the 1970s, the exile community in south Florida seemed to be developing along parallel courses, one of adjustment and acceptance, the other of increasing militance and desperation. It was a decade of social and economic progress. The number of emigrés seeking American citizenship increased. The Latino business community of Dade County became one of the most productive in the nation. Emigrés became involved in domestic politics: by 1976, they comprised 8 percent of registered voters in Dade County and occupied important elected offices in city and county governments. There was an indication that some Cubans were developing an ethnic (as opposed to purely national) identity, as seen by their growing membership in pan-Latino organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) as well as in the creation of groups such as the Cuban National Planning Council, the Spanish American League Against Discrimination (SALAD), and the National Coalition of Cuban Americans, which focused on voting rights, employment, housing, education, health, and other domestic concerns. All signs seemed to indicate that the emigrés had psychologically unpacked their bags and settled into their new society.
Alongside newspaper headlines celebrating the emigrés' success, however, was news that the war against Castro had taken a menacing turn. Propaganda and paramilitary groups decreased in number in the late 1960s, victims of a lack of funding and growing apathy in the community—an apathy generated, in part, by suspicions that many of these political groups were embezzling funds. But at the same time, new, more militant organizations emerged, committed to overthrowing Castro at whatever the cost. Most had no specific political vision for Cuba, no particular leader they wanted to see occupy the presidency; their goal was simply to eliminate Castro. As these groups became desperate their tactics became more radical, drawing international attention to the exile community in south Florida and polarizing emigrés further.
A shift in American foreign policy catalyzed this radicalism. Under the guidance of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the Nixon and Ford administrations adopted a policy of detente. Negotiations concentrated on the Soviet Union and China, but the U.S. government also turned its attention to improving relations with Cuba. In 1973, both countries signed an antihijacking treaty. In 1975, the United States supported the OAS's vote to lift the eleven-year-old embargo of Cuba. For the first time, the U.S. government also allowed subsidiaries of U.S. corporations in foreign countries to trade with the island.
During the Carter administration, the United States and Cuba moved further towards rapprochement. The countries negotiated a fishing rights agreement and a maritime boundary agreement. The U.S. lifted its ban on transferring American
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currency to Cuba as well as on using an American passport to travel there. In April 1978, the first commercial flight between Miami and Havana in sixteen years departed from Miami International Airport, and the federal government also granted visas to Cubans to come to the U.S. on a temporary basis.30 An unprecedented number of scholars, artists, writers, and scientists traveled to and from Cuba in the interest of cultural and scholarly exchange. The Cuban government also allowed a group of fifty-five young Cuban exiles of the Brigada Antonio Maceo to witness first-hand the accomplishments of the revolution—the first exiles since the revolution to be permitted to return to the island. The most important development, however, was the creation of American and Cuban "interests sections," which provided limited diplomatic representation.
Many emigrés of course were enraged by this new climate of tolerance. Polls conducted by the Miami Herald showed that more than 53 percent remained opposed to reestablishing diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba and felt betrayed by the U.S. government.31 Emigrés expressed their anger in the exile news media and staged rallies and demonstrations in Miami, Union City, Washington, and other cities. A "Congress Against Coexistence" was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1974, attended by representatives from some seventy exile organizations. When the OAS announced that member nations would debate the lifting of sanctions against Cuba, emigrés traveled to the meeting as a protest lobby, and in Miami emigrés destroyed the Torch of Friendship, a monument to hemispheric solidarity at Bayfront Park. When the sanctions were finally lifted a year later, m 1975, exile organizations organized a "Liberty Caravan," a thousand-car parade through Little Havana culminating in a boisterous rally at the Orange Bowl condemning the OAS's action.32
At the same time, polls indicated that a growing number of emigrés supported some type of rapprochement with the Castro regime. A 1975 Herald poll, for example, revealed that 49.5 percent of Cuban emigrés were at least willing to visit the island; a surprising revelation to hardliners in the community. Letters to newspaper editors revealed that some favored reestablishing diplomatic and trade relations— not for the idealistic goal of furthering world peace but for more practical considerations: the normalization of relations would allow them the opportunity to visit their family and friends in Cuba. Many questioned the value of the U.S. embargo, which instead of weakening Cuba's revolutionary fervor only seemed to tighten its ties to the Soviet Union. Polls revealed a generational difference in attitudes: Cubans raised and educated in the United States were more likely to approve of some form *>t rapprochement than their elders were. While they shared their parents' suspicion of—perhaps even their contempt for—the Castro regime, they tended to favor a diplomatic solution to the problems in Cuba rather than continued military or economic aggression.
A handful of organizations emerged during the 1970s to lobby for the diplomatic approach, among them the Cuban Christians for Justice and Freedom, the National Union of Cuban Americans, and the Cuban American Committee. In 1979, the latter group sent a petition with over ten thousand signatures to President Jimmy Carter requesting that the United States normalize relations with the Castro government.”
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A few individuals established careers as advocates of a new diplomacy, the most controversial being the Reverend Manuel Espinosa, pastor of the Evangelical Church in Hialeah. Espinosa, a former captain in Castro's military and a former member of several anti-Castro organizations, used his weekly sermons to preach reconciliation and to advocate the normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba.
The number of emigrés that joined these organizations, or who supported these activists, was not significant enough to serve as an effective lobby—at least during the 1970s. Those who favored the normalization of relations kept silent, for the most part, because they feared being branded comunistas. In this politically conservative community, such a tag inevitably affected careers, businesses, relationships, and even lives. Espinosa's activism brought him a severe beating at the hands of militant Cuban exiles in 1975, and other activists had their businesses boycotted, their homes vandalized, their families harassed, and their reputations ruined.34
Many emigrés believed that an accommodation of the Cuban government was an endorsement of Castro-communism. They could not understand why exilados would even speak to the individuals who had tortured, imprisoned, and executed tens of thousands of their compatriots. As one exile wrote, "Those who speak of coexistence demonstrate that they have forgotten our language."35 Another had harsher words: "Those who physically or intellectually support the Castro regime are traitors, as are those who support a fidelismo sin Fidel, a nationalist communism, or who surreptitiously plant the idea of coexistence. Those who forgive, accept, or befriend the traitors are also traitors. Yes, one can be a Cuban by birth, but if one's heart is not Cuban one is a traitor."36 When Manuel Espinosa publicly admitted (years later, in 1980) that he was an agent for the Cuban government, most emigrés were not surprised; his admission simply confirmed the popular belief that active supporters of renewed relations with Cuba had to be in some way connected to the regime.
Even the shipment via third countries of medicine and food parcels to Cuba was considered by hardliners to be an accommodation of the Castro government.37 Radio talk show hosts attributed Castro's continued hold on Cuba to the "economic subsidies" Cubans received in the form of packages from the exile community— estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. If exiles stopped sending their relatives food, clothing, and medicines, they argued, discontent on the island would grow and ultimately lead to Castro's overthrow. For those emigrés who had elderly relatives or children in Cuba, though, maintaining a hard line against Cuba came at great personal and psychological cost. Those who sent packages to Cuba preferred to keep it secret, to avoid censure.
Angered by the new developments in American foreign policy and what they perceived to be a growing complacency in the exile community, the militant extremists escalated the war against Castro. As one militant explained: "It is to be expected that after eighteen years in exile a frustrated generation would emerge whose impatience would lead them to use extreme methods."38 Their methods were so extreme that even the exile community feared to speak out against them. Groups such as El Condor, Comandante Zero, Movimiento Neo-Revolucionario Cubano-Pragmatista,
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Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas (CORU), Poder Cutuno, Acción Cubana, M-17, the Frente de Liberación Nacional de Cuba, and Omega 7 bombed Cuban embassies and consulates around the world, murdered Cuban diplomatic employees, harassed and threatened individuals and institutions alleged to have ties to the Castro government, and placed bombs aboard planes heading for Cuba.
1976 was a particularly violent year. As thousands of emigrés celebrated the U.S. Bicentennial by taking the oath of citizenship, others waged war against Cuba. In April, commandos attacked two Cuban fishing boats, killing one fisherman, and bombed the Cuban Embassy in Portugal, killing two persons. In July, bombs exploded at the Cuban mission at the United Nations, at the offices of the British West Indian Airways of Barbados (which represented Cubana Airlines, the national airline), and inside a suitcase that was about to be loaded onto a Cuban jet in Kingston, Jamaica. Later that summer, two employees of the Cuban Embassy in Buenos Aires disappeared; the Cuban consul in Merida, Mexico, was almost kidnapped; and a bomb exploded in the Cubana Airlines office in Panama. In October, bombs exploded on a Cuban jet minutes after it left Barbados; all 73 passengers died. In November, a bomb destroyed the Madrid office of Cubana Airlines.39 The violence increased further in 1977 and 1978 as a result of the Carter administration's new policies towards Cuba and the diálogo.
While the paramilitary organizations of the 1960s had limited their actions to Cuba and its allies, the militant extremists targeted all those they perceived to be their enemies, including members of their own community, and many did not care how many innocent victims got in the way. They bombed Little Havana travel agencies, shipping companies, and pharmacies that conducted commercial transactions with Cuba. They harassed and threatened all who favored political coexistence. Extremists bombed the offices of Réplica, a popular Spanish-language news magazine, because its editor, Max Leznick, advocated lifting the trade embargo.40 They harassed and ultimately murdered crane operator Luciano Nieves and Hialeah boat-builder Ramón Donestevez because of their suspected ties to the Castro government.41 In 1973, they assassinated Cuban exile leader José de la Torriente, who was suspected of embezzling funds from a liberation effort he had established, the Plan Torriente.42 From 1973 to 1976, more than one hundred bombs exploded in the Miami area alone, and the FBI nicknamed Miami "the terrorist capital of the United States";43 but the groups also operated in (and out of) New York, Union City, Los Angeles, Madrid, Santo Domingo, Mexico City, and Caracas. During the late 1970s, a Cuban exile tabloid in Puerto Rico, La Crónica, published interviews with the controversial leaders of these militant groups, whose identities were disguised-They warned the exile community to watch their backs.
Many emigrés spoke out against the terrorism of their compatriots, condemning these acts not only as immoral but also as tactically stupid. "They are politically and militarily incapable of producing a change in the regime," wrote a former member of the CRC of the terrorists: "[They will) cost human lives, create immense anxiety in the community, and, more importantly, discredit the exile community before
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U.S. public opinion. . . . Whether one likes it or not, these acts do not serve the liberation cause but, rather, serve subversive Marxist elements in this country."44
Sadly, many who spoke out against the terrorism became victims themselves. In 1976, extremists murdered José Peruyero, president of the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association, because he condemned the participation of Brigade veterans in terrorist activities.45 Journalists became popular targets; they were frequently threatened and their homes and offices vandalized. Three months after Peruyero's death, a bomb exploded in the car of WQBA news and program director Emilio Milián. Milián, who denounced acts of terrorism on his radio program Habla el pueblo, miraculously survived the explosion, but he lost both his legs. A few weeks later, he courageously returned to his job at WQBA and resumed his critical editorials, but a year later he was fired by the station because his editorials were allegedly too incendiary.46
A joint committee of local, state, and federal agencies investigating these terrorist acts learned that membership in the terrorist groups interlocked—that is, those who committed acts of violence often worked on behalf of three or four different groups. Organizations frequently disbanded and their members created splinter groups, giving the impression that there were more terrorists than there actually were. When a congressional subcommittee asked the Dade County Public Safety Department to identify the number of groups operating in the Miami area, one investigator revealed the frustration of tracking these organizations: "I can say that we have more than 10 militant groups with hard-core militants. . . . those 10 groups may be 12 tomorrow, and next week there may be 50. And then week after next it may be [down] to eight, because there is a constant change in the staffing of these groups and there is constant exchange."47
While the terrorist groups received some funding from sympathetic individuals in the community, more often than not they resorted to extortion, threatening wealthier emigrés with death or property damage if they did not supply the necessary funds.48 A few militants received financial assistance from foreign agents—agents who later used the Cubans in their own domestic plots. The Chilean state police, for example, reportedly hired Cubans to assassinate the former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington in 1976.49
Investigations were made especially difficult by the Cuban intelligence network in Miami. American law enforcement agencies had to determine whether the violence and terrorism were actually committed by emigrés or by infiltrados who tried to destroy exile organizations by framing them. The Castro government had reportedly infiltrated hundreds of spies into Miami, most of them arriving in the U.S. as small-boat escapees, "fence-jumpers" at the U.S. base at Guantanamo, or immigrants arriving from third countries.50 So extensive was this network that Castro's spies often served as the FBI's informants on the emigrés' illegal activities: when Alpha 66, for example, hired a gunman to assassinate Fidel Castro during a planned speech at the United Nations, Cuban spies uncovered the plot and notified American authorities.51 Interviews in the Cuban press with emigrés who defected back to Cuba also revealed the inner workings of the top militant groups operating in south Florida.52
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Emigrés hotly debated who was responsible for the wave of terror. Most preferred to interpret it as a Castro plot to divide and demoralize the community," arguing that these acts of terrorism were too professional to be done by the "weekend warriors." Castro also stood to gain the most by the campaign of intimidation, which divided and silenced his opponents. In the meantime, while Justice Department officials tried to track down the culprits, emigrés with unpopular views or in visible positions took extra precautions. The exile press carried advertisements for security devices, including remote-control gadgets that could start cars from a distance of one hundred meters.
The FBI eventually tracked down fifteen terrorists associated with the New Jersey-based Omega 7, regarded as the most dangerous of the organizations; all fifteen were ultimately convicted. The FBI also arrested dozens of other militants, including five emigrés accused of assassinating Letelier.54 Many cases, however, remain unsolved.
The wave of violence that rocked the community during the 1970s arose in part out of the secret war of the 1960s. Several of those convicted for terrorism and government espionage were former CIA protégés. The skills they had learned to destabilize and overthrow the Castro government were now used against their own community and their host society. According to some newspaper accounts, some of the Cubans involved in organized crime in south Florida, particularly in drug trafficking, also had CIA connections. Three of the Watergate burglars, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, and Eugenio Martinez, were Cuban exiles with ties to the CIA."
Some in the emigre community regarded the extremists as heroes and patriotas. One editor of a periodiquito wrote:
I know there are many Cubans who don't like these tactics and criticize them, but I have to ask myself, "What have these compatriots done all these past years, and what has been their contribution to the struggle for liberation?" Most of them have simply enjoyed the comforts of living in the land of liberty. . . . No, my friends. A Cuban is not merely someone who was born in Cuba. A Cuban is someone who thinks about the seven million compatriots who are living as slaves.56
A well-known journalist wrote, "The realities of world politics leave no alternative but to use violence. Only when the exiles destroy the lives and interests of our enemies will Washington, Moscow, the OAS, or whoever take our views into account."57
Some exiles raised funds to help the militants in their cause—and later in their legal defense.58 In 1974, Cuban radio stations in Miami helped raise over twelve thousand dollars for the families of two militants associated with the Frente de Liberación Nacional de Cuba who had been injured while constructing a bomb.59 In 1978, La Crónica printed an advertisement for the Cuban Defense League, Inc., which raised funds for the legal defense of "Cuban political prisoners in the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela."60 That same year, a New York-based publication entitled Desde las Prisiones began publishing articles by or in support of the "Cuban freedom fighters," The White House and the Department of Justice frequently
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received letters and petitions asking the government to commute sentences. In August 1979, for example, a Chicago exile coalition called the Federación de Organizaciones Cubanas de Illinois wrote Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti on behalf of ten men detained for various acts. "Now that the Cuban Communist authorities are releasing political prisoners," they wrote, ". . . we believe the United States Department of Justice should also grant benevolent concessions to the exile patriots incarcerated in this country, who acted according to the best interest of what traditionally has been a struggle to restore freedom and democracy in Cuba."61
The most famous militant was Orlando Bosch, a Miami pediatrician who in 1968 was sentenced to ten years in prison for firing on a Polish freighter with a bazooka. Released on parole after four years in a federal penitentiary, Bosch fled the country in 1974 when he became a chief suspect in the assassination of Cuban exile leader José Elias de la Torriente. Over the next two years, he served as leader of the militant group Accion Cubana, which claimed responsibility for the bombings of several Cuban embassies and consulates throughout Latin America. In 1976, the government of Venezuela charged Bosch with conspiracy in the Cubana Airlines bombing that killed seventy-three people, including the entire Cuban national fencing team. Although a Venezuelan judge found insufficient evidence to charge him in the bombing, Bosch remained in prison while his case was reviewed in civil and military courts.62 Although he was acquitted two more times, he was not released from prison until 1987.
Over the years, Bosch's supporters staged marches and demonstrations to protest his incarceration. They organized exhibitions of his drawings in art galleries in Little Havana, Tampa, Union City, Chicago, and New York City to raise money for his defense and to assist his family. Miami mayoral candidates, hoping to garner a few votes, even visited Bosch in prison in Caracas. The emigre press in particular rallied to his defense. "[Bosch] has done some things which the U.S. government could call terrorism," said WQBA news director Tomás García Fusté, "but he is fighting for the liberation of our country. It is not terrorism but self-defense. We, the Cubans, are at war with Fidel Castro."63
Not all emigrés regarded Bosch as a hero, of course. When Miami City Commissioner Demetrio Perez introduced a resolution in 1983 for an Orlando Bosch Day, both his office and the Miami Herald were swamped with letters, as many opposed to the motion as in favor of it. "I am a Cuban, and proud of it," wrote one woman, ... but I do not support someone whose idea of patriotism is to attack a Polish freighter, who has violated parole in the United States, and who has been accused of killing 73 innocent people”64 The federal government was also unsympathetic. When Bosch returned to the United States in February 1988 following his release born prison, he was arrested by U.S. marshalls for having violated his parole. Deportation proceedings were begun, but the Justice Department was unable to find any country willing to grant Bosch entry. Finally, in late 1990, he was placed under house arrest.
For many emigrés, the wave of violence posed a moral dilemma that forced them to seriously reconsider their heroes as well as the methods they considered acceptable
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in the war against Castro. They learned that the line that divided revolutionary activities from terrorist activities could be a very thin one. The violence of the 1970s, then, led some emigrés to disassociate themselves completely, in fear or disgust, from exile politics. For others the negative media attention focused on the community, plus the realization that even the militant groups were impotent in bringing about change, forced them to reevaluate strategy, and slowly they realized that if they wanted to evoke meaningful change in Cuba they had to work within the political machinery of their host country. The war against Castro took a new direction in the 1980s, and the election of Ronald Reagan facilitated that redirection.
CONCLUSION
Those intrigued by the community of Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans in south Florida frequently ask what will happen in Miami once there is a changing of the guard in Cuba. Will the emigrés return to their homeland? Or will thousands more Cubans immigrate to the United States? The answer is yes—to both questions. Once Fidel Castro is no longer in office (for whatever reason)—and assuming that democratic reforms are enacted—some percentage of the community will return to Cuba. The numbers are difficult to predict: a poll conducted in 1993 by Florida International University revealed that 29 percent of Cuban-born heads of households wanted to return to live permanently in Cuba, while a similar poll conducted in 1990 showed that only 14 percent would actually return.65 Among those born or raised in the United States the percentages are probably much lower. The emigrés talk a great deal about returning to their homeland, but few will actually pack up and leave when the opportunity arises. As several interviewees told me, "Why uproot yourself twice in one lifetime? The first time was hard enough." They have invested time and hard work in the United States. They have rebuilt their lives and careers; they bought homes and raised their children here. They have developed ties to the United States in spite of their original intentions. Most do not want to start all over again, especially in a society that will undoubtedly experience social, economic, and political turmoil in the post-Castro years.
The length of time spent in the United States and family ties in the two countries are the principal factors that will influence the decision to stay or to return, for Cubans who grew up in the U.S., "returning" to Cuba would be akin to moving to a foreign country, notwithstanding the culture they claim to share with those on the island. The emigrés most likely to return will be the elderly, eager to spend then remaining years in their homeland. Also likely to return are those who feel aliened in the U.S. and have found it impossible to adapt. The majority of emigrés, however, will want to stay close to their families. Many of the first generation are now grandparents and even great-grandparents; they will not want to move too far away from their children.
Nevertheless, Cubans in south Florida will always maintain an interest and play a role in the affairs of Cuba. Cuba is closer to Miami than Tampa, Orlando, or the
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state capital at Tallahassee, and the interest in Cuba is as much geopolitical as cultural. South Florida, like the rest of the Caribbean, has a stake in the political and economic stability of the island, and thus Cuba will play a role in public debate on the streets of Havana USA as well as in the corridors of Tallahassee and Washington.
Travel back and forth across the Florida Straits will be guaranteed. Emigrés who remain in the U.S. will want to travel to Cuba to visit relatives, or for a vacation, or for a variety of other reasons. In much the same way that former refugees from East-ern Europe and the Baltic states are presently investing in their homelands, the more entrepreneurial among the emigrés will want to invest in or establish businesses in Cuba—both to help their former country and to increase their own fortunes. In the early 1990s, U.S. airline and shipping companies were already plotting ways to corner this new travel market. According to the Miami Herald, some companies were even drafting models for hydrofoils that might transport people back and forth in a couple of hours. It is conceivable that some emigrés might divide their time between the two countries, working in one country and making their homes in another, much as many Americans commute between, say, New York and Connecticut, or as others commute back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border. The first generation's dual citizenship will facilitate this development.
Migration from Cuba will continue regardless of what happens in Cuba. In September 1994, in order to force the Cuban government to curtail the traffic of homemade rafts across the Florida Straits, the Clinton administration agreed to allow the immigration of a minimum of twenty thousand Cubans each year, not including the immediate relatives of United States citizens.66 Even with the installation of a more democratic government, migration from Cuba will continue. Some Cubans will choose to emigrate to be reunited with their families in the United States, while others, impatient with the sluggish Cuban economy, will want to try their luck in the U.S. The number of migrants in such a scenario will depend as much on U.S. immigration policy as on the political and economic conditions in Cuba; but whatever the number, the influx of immigrants will continually revitalize Cuban identity and culture in the United States. Cuban American culture in south Florida will continue to define itself in relation to two countries and two cultures.
The most difficult challenge in the post-Castro era, both on the island and in Florida, will be learning to forgive. The exile community remains divided thirty-five years after the revolution by political differences. Emigrés are unable to forgive each other for their role (or lack thereof) in the revolution and later the counterrevolution. From the comfort of exile, they criticize their compatriots on the island for allowing the government of Fidel Castro to endure, and while they applaud the bals-eros for taking to the seas to escape Castro's Cuba, many wonder suspiciously why they didn't do it sooner. Conversely, many Cubans on the island continue to regard the emigrés as gusanos and cannot forgive them for exploiting, and later abandoning, their country. A great deal of cooperation (and, perhaps, time) is needed before Cuban societies on opposite sides of the Florida Straits are tolerant, peaceful, and democratic.
The Cubans of south Florida will play a major role in the civic, cultural, and
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political life of the area in the years to come. Their principal challenge will be to share their power base with the many different groups that call south Florida home. Over the past three decades, a growing tension—even hostility—has emerged in south Florida, the product of rapid demographic transformation and the perceived dominance of Cubans in the local economy and local politics. The 1990 U.S. census revealed that Latinos comprised 49.2 percent of Dade County's total population of 1.9 million. In the city of Miami, 62.5 percent of the population was of Latino origin; in Hialeah, 88 percent.67 Despite a near-doubling in total population over the past thirty years, the percentage of non-Latino whites had fallen from 80 percent in 1960 to 37 percent in 1990. Such measures as the 1980 English Only amendment ultimately proved unsuccessful in controlling the Latino population (and in May 1993, voters overturned the 1980 ruling).68 Unable to compete in a bilingual economy and angered by the cultural changes in south Florida, many non-Latino whites have moved to the counties immediately north of Dade, where they can maintain their cultural and political dominance.
The non-Latino black population has remained more rooted to the area, but blacks, too, are resentful. For thirty-five years, they have watched Cubans grow wealthier and more powerful. They resent the federal government's early assistance to the refugees—the grants and loans that helped them go to school or start small businesses, the remedial education and job retraining programs, the health benefits. Blacks resent that these non-English-speaking foreigners could receive so much while the native-born were overlooked. These benefits helped the Cubans assert their economic and political power. By 1990, three of the five members of the Miami City Commission, including the mayor, were Cuban; by contrast, only one member was African American. Blacks in Dade County have fared better economically than their counterparts elsewhere around the state—in part because of the economic transformation brought on by Cuban immigration—but many feel that they have been shut out from the most important local institutions.65
This resentment was obvious as early as 1968, when blacks rioted during the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Riots took place again in 1980, 1982, and 1989, each spurred by a specific incident involving police brutality, but each also an expression of the deep-seated resentment towards whites and Latinos.70 In the wake of the riots the city created an antidiscrimination coalition entitled Greater Miami United to address the concerns of the various racial and ethnic communities. There are many ill feelings, however, and groups from the Nation of Islam to the Ku Klux Klan have tried to capitalize on the tension in the community.
The class, racial, ethnic, and national diversity within the Latino community is also the source of much tension. While the Cubans helped produce the economic: prosperity that attracted large-scale immigration from the Caribbean and Latin America, the newer immigrants resent the Cubans' dominance in local institutions, from the Spanish-language media to city hall. Latinos complain of Cuban powerbrokers who refuse to allow others into their inner circle, of the neverending anti-Castro diatribes on the radio, and of the media's lack of sensitivity to issues that are important to them. "They think they're the only Hispanics in Miami," said one
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disgruntled Puerto Rican. Many of the complaints filed with the FCC in the past decade have been filed by Latinos who perceive the Cuban radio shows to be bigoted.71 At times, Latino resentment has been expressed through violence—as in December 1990, when Puerto Ricans in the Wynwood neighborhood rioted. Like the black riots of the 1980s, the episode was a reaction to a specific case of police brutality; but it too was a manifestation of the larger ethnic and racial tensions in south Florida.72 Latinos also express concern about the climate of censorship in Miami, a concern shared by whites and blacks as well. Individuals who support Fidel Castro or the Sandinistas or who favor tolerance and dialogue are branded comunistas and suffer discrimination, and sometimes even verbal or physical abuse. In past years, Latin American entertainers who have performed in Cuba have been banned from appearing at the annual Festival de la Calle Ocho because the organizers claim that to allow them to perform would be to risk a confrontation, endangering the two million people who attend the weeklong festivities. In December 1990, under pressure from the Cuban community, the city of Miami withdrew its official welcoming of Nelson Mandela because of his support of Fidel Castro. In January 1991, Miami city commissioners told members of the local Haitian community that they could celebrate the inauguration of their country's new president at Bayfront Park only if Fidel Castro was not invited to the inauguration in Haiti.73 For Latinos, Haitians, and others, these incidents are just the most recent examples of the censorship in south Florida that violates their civil rights. Miami, they argue, has become a city where the needs and interests of the dominant group outweigh the needs and interests of the rest of the population.
The Cubans, however, will be forced to make concessions. While they are the largest immigrant group in south Florida, others are growing rapidly. In the early 1990s Central and South Americans, and in particular immigrants from Nicaragua and Colombia, had replaced Cubans as the fastest-growing Latino groups. Emigrés are slowly realizing that it is to their benefit to try to foster a more inclusive vision of community. Just as others accommodated them, they must now accommodate others. Hopefully, the Cuban Americans—particularly the second generation—will play a mediating and conciliatory role in community relations. As the children of emigrés, they can relate to the immigration experience of others; as Americans, they are bound to the local community and to the country that offered them safe haven. They do not share the exile generation's obsession with Cuba; rather, their energies are invested in the hybrid borderland society that produced them. It is the Cuban Americans who will ultimately help determine south Florida's future.
NOTES
1. Among the first to write about the Cuban economic enclave were sociologists Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach. They defined the economic enclave as "a distinctive economic formation, characterized by the spatial concentration of immigrants who organize a variety of enterprises to serve their own ethnic market and the general population." According to Portes
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and Bach, the enclave economy allowed Cubans to avoid the economic disadvantages that usually accompany segregation. See Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach, Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), and Alejandro Portes, "The Social Origins of the Cuban Enclave Economy of Miami," Sociological Perspectives 30 (October 1987): 340-71. A study by Portes and Jensen found that ethnic enterprises were effective avenues for economic mobility, particularly for men; although few women were self-employed, they earned higher incomes working within the enclave economy. See Alejandro Portes and Leif Jensen, "The Enclave and the Entrants: Patterns of Ethnic Enterprise in Miami before and after Mariel," American Sociological Review 54 (December 1989): 929-49.
For another interpretation of the enclave economy, and more specifically the role of Cubans in the U.S. labor movement, see Guillermo J. Grenier, "The Cuban American Labor Movement in Dade County: An Emerging Immigrant Working Class," in Grenier and Stepick, eds., Miami Now! 133-59. Grenier explores the role class-based organizations such as labor unions have played in fostering group solidarity and group consciousness.
2. "Cuban and Haitian Arrivals: Crisis and Response," June 30, 1980, 6, in File "ND16/ C038 1/20/77-1/20/81" Box ND-42, White House Central File, Subject File: National Security-Defense, Carter Library. See also Carlos Arboleya, The Cuban Community, 1980: Coming of Age as History Repeats Itself (Miami, 1980).
3. Carlos Arboleya, El impacto cubana en la Florida (Miami, 1985). Arboleya, former president and CEO of Barnett Bank, Miami, periodically published reports on the Cuban community in south Florida. Arboleya's report also included the following statistics for Dade County: over 4,500 Cuban doctors, 500 lawyers, 17 bank presidents and 390 vice presidents, and 25,000 garment workers. See also "Dade Latin Businesses Top U.S.," Miami Herald, October 23, 1986, 1A.
4. In 1990, the median family income for Cubans was $33,504, which was higher than the median family income for Latinos in the U.S. ($27,972) but lower than the median national income ($37,403). 18.5 percent of Cubans had four or more years of college education, as compared to 9.7 percent for Latinos and 23.7 percent for the nation as a whole. 21.6 percent of Cuban males and 20 percent of Cuban females were professionals or executives (as compared to the national averages of 26.3 and 27.2 percent). See Alejandro Portes, "¿Quienes somos? ¿Que pensamos? Los cubanos en Estados Unidos en la década de los noventas," Cuban Affairs/Asuntos Cubanos 1, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 5.
For an analysis of the 1980 census, see Lisandro Pérez, "The Cuban Population of the United States: The Results of the 1980 U.S. Census of Population,"Cuban Studies/Estudies Cubanos 15 (Summer 1985): 1-18; Joan Moore and Harry Pachón, Hispanics in the United States (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 69-78. The 1980 census did not include the Cubans who arrived during the Mariel boatlift.
5. Lisandro Pérez, "Immigrant Economic Adjustment and Family Organization: The
Cuban Success Story Re-Examined," International Migration Review 20 (Spring 1986): 4-20.
See also Perez, "The Cuban Population of the United States," 8-9. The 1980 census revealed
that more Cuban women worked outside the home than any other group, 55.4 percent as
compared to the national average of 49.9 percent. For an analysis of Cuban women's roles in
the economic, political, and cultural affairs of the community, see Garcia, "Adapting to
Exile." For an economic analysis see Myra Marx Ferree, "Employment without Liberation:
Cuban Women in the U.S.," Social Science Quarterly 60 (January 1979): 35-50. See also
Dorita Roca Mariňa, "A Theoretical Discussion of What Changes and What Stays the Same
in Cuban Immigrant Families," in José Szapocznik and Maria Cristina Herrera, eds., Cuban
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Americans: Acculturation, Adjustment, and the Family (Washington: The National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health and Human Services Organization, 1978).
6. Pérez, "Immigrant Economic Adjustment." See also Portes and Jensen, "The Enclave and the Entrants."
7. Portes and Jensen found that 34 percent of their Mariel respondents (excluding the self-employed) were working for Cuban-owned firms. See Portes and Jensen, "The Enclave and the Entrants."
8. Arboleya, The Cuban Community, 1980. See also Raymond A. Mohl, "An Ethnic 'Boiling Pot': Cubans and Haitians in Miami," Journal of Ethnic Studies 13 (Summer 1985): 51-74.
9. "To Miami, Refugees Spell P-R-O-S-P-E-R-I-T-Y," Business Week, November 3, 1962, 92; "Cuban Refugees Write a U.S. Success Story," Business Week, January 11, 1969, 84.
10. In his article "Immigrant Economic Adjustment and Family Organization," Lisandro Pérez challenges the "myth of the golden exile." He concludes that comparisons of economic achievements between Hispanic groups are inconclusive because they ignore the differences in the structural conditions within which economic adjustment takes place. See also Alejandro Portes, "Dilemmas of a Golden Exile: Integration of Cuban Refugee Families in Milwaukee," American Sociological Review 34 (August 1969): 505-18.
11. In 1990, 16.9 percent of Cuban Americans lived in poverty, as compared to 13-5 percent of the general population; Portes, "¿Quienes somos?" 5. See also note 60.
12. Alfonso Chardy, "'Invisible Exiles': Black Cubans Don't Find Their Niche in Miami," Houston Chronicle, September 12, 1993, 24A.
13. "Temas," Impacto, March 11, 1972. Translation mine. The concerns of the Cuban working class are articulated in the exile newspapers El Trabajador, Trabajo, and Impacto.
14. "Editorial," Cubanacan: Asociacion de Villaclarenos en el Exilio, 9, no. 106 (January 1975), 1- Translation mine.
15. Editorial, Martiano, November 1972, 2. Translation mine.
16. "Temas," Impacto, May 20, 1973, 2. Translation mine.
17. "Are We to Become Citizens?" Antorcha, January 1968, 5.
18. Founded in 1967, Abdala took its name from a fable by the nineteenth-century independence leader Jose Marti. Abdala, a prince from the imaginary land of Nuvia, renounces all material comforts and pleasures in order to defend his nation. Prince Abdala ultimately dies for his beliefs.
19. "Entre dos banderas," Antorcha, April 1973, 2. Translation mine.
20. Editorial, Antorcha, October 1969, 1. Translation mine.
21. Editorial, Antorcha, December 1969, 1. Translation mine.
22. Roberto Fabricio, "The Cuban Americans: Fifteen Years Later," Tropic Magazine (Miami Herald), July 14, 1974, 30-36.
23. Miguel Pérez, "10,000 New Americans Is Exile Group's Goal," Miami Herald, November 24, 1975, 8B; George Volsky, "Cuban Exiles Now Seek U.S. Citizenship," New York Times, July 4, 1976, 19; Helga Silva, "The Cuban Exiles: Landmarks of an Era," Miami Herald, April 8, 1979, 22A.
24. Arboleya, The Cuban Community, 1980, 3.
25. Roberto Fabricio, "Cubans at Home, but Homesick," Miami Herald, October 29, 1972, IB.
26. Humberto Cruz, "Dade Cubans Won't Return, Study Shows," Miami Herald, June 10, 1974. The Herald published part of a study by sociologists Juan Clark and Manuel Mendoza of Miami-Dade Community College. Clark and Mendoza conducted interviews with
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September 1973 issue of Abdala, in which the editors pay tribute to a young Cuban who died while putting together a bomb in his Paris hotel room: "From a very young age he was attracted by his patriotic duty. . . ."
57. Gaston Baquero, "No hay mas alternativa que la violencia," reprinted in Impacto, October 14, 1972, 5. Translation mine.
58. El Impartial, May 7, 1981.
59. Internal Security Hearings (1976), 636-37.
60. U Cronica, October 10, 1978, 18.
61. Federatión de Organizaciones Cubanas de Illinois, "Petition to the United States Department of Justice," Box 17, Staff Offices, Papers of Esteban Torres, Carter Library.
62. Merrill Coilett, "Absuelto Bosch en Venezuela," El Herald, July 22, 1986, 1A.
63. Reinaldo Ramos, "Exiliados reflexionan sobre Orlando Bosch," El Herald, July 27,
1986, 1, 3. Translation mine.
64. Letter to the editor, Miami Herald, April 2, 1983, 16A.
65. Deborah Sontag, "The Lasting Exile of Cuban Spirits," New York Times, September 11, 1994, IE.
66. "U.S.-Cuba Joint Communique on Migration," U.S. Department of State Dispatch 5, no. 37 (September 12, 1994), 603.
67. Richard Wallace, "South Florida Grows to Latin Beat," Miami Herald, March 6, 1991, 1A; Sandra Dibble, "New Exiles Flocking to Dade." Miami Herald April 11, 1987, ID; Celia W. Dugger, "Latin Influx, Crime Prompt 'Flight' North," Miami Herald, May 3,
1987, IB.
68. "Dade County Commission Repeals English-Only Law," New York Times, May 19, 1993.
69. Sergio López-Miró, ".. . While Hispanics Become the Area's Scapegoats," Miami Herald, October II, 1990, 27A.
70. Jeffrey Schmalz, "Disorder Erupts Again in Miami on Second Night after Fatal Shooting," New York Times, January 18, 1989, 1; Jeffrey Schmalz, "Miami Mayor Apologizes to Police for Actions at Scene of Disorder," New York Times, January 19, 1989, 1.
71. Jay Ducassi, "Stations Seldom Face Libel Suits or FCC Action," Miami Herald, June 22, 1986, 2B.
72. Steven A. Holmes, "Miami Melting Pot Proves Explosive," New York Times, December 9, 1990, E4.
73. Nancy San Martín, "Castro Clause on Inaugural Upsets City's Haitian Leaders," Miami Herald, January 31, 1991, 3B.
QUESTIONS
1. To what extent con the status of Cuban Americans as a model latino minority be attributed to individual drive to succeed and to what extent con it be attributed to (be institutional support and material resources provided by the U.S. government?
2. Under what circumstances might we expect other minority groups to become as successful as Cuban Americans if they received the same level of material support? What ore the implications for future policy and the nature of social change?
3. Cuba produces the New Men and New Women. The United States produces the Cuban American "golden
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immigrants." Given the evidence provided by García, can we say that one system produces 0 "better" citizen in terms of critical thinking, diversity, and self-motivation?
4. Keeping in mind that during the Revolutionary War English American patriots terrorized their fellow colonists who remained loyal to the king, under what circumstances can we assign Cuban and Puerto Rican "terrorists"' the subjectivity of "patriots" or "freedom fighters"?
5. Anglos move out of the area, African American and non-Cuban Latinos riot to protest Cuban-American domination, censorship, and intolerance. To what extent does this situation have to do with the nature of Cuban culture and to what extent does it have to do with the nature of power relations? What are the implications for a pluralistic society?
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