UNIVERSITY of MIAMI CUBAN EXILE NATIONALISM by Orlando
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UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI CUBAN EXILE NATIONALISM By Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the University of Miami in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Coral Gables, Florida June 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3177070 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3177070 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, M148106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy CUBAN EXILE NATIONALISM Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat Approved: 7 ~ Dr. Jaime Suchlicki Dr. Steven G. Ullmann Dean of the Graduate School ~~ert'anet 2.~.j- Committee Member Professor of Education Prof~ssor of Int.ernational / ~tud[es) !\ rll \ aciella Cruz Taura ~~~~ Outside Member Committee Member Professor of History Professor of International Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GUTIERREZ-BORONAT, ORLANDO (Ph.D., International Relations) Cuban exile nationalism (June 2005) Abstract of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Dr. Jaime Suchlicki. No. of pages in text. (254) How did the experience of exile, particularly in the Miami and New Jersey communities, affect the tenets of traditional Cuban nationalism? How does the resulting emergence of a "Cuban exile nationalism" affect the relationship between Cuba and the United States, Cuba and Latin America and among Cubans inside and outside the island? And lastly, what does the existence of this Cuban exile nationalism say with regards to the current debates within political science and international studies about the nature of nations and nationalism? How will the struggle among different nationalist strains affect Cuba's post-Castro transition? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION "The key is to reclaim power and interest from materialism by showing how their content and meaning are constituted by ideas and culture. Having stripped power and interest explanations of their implicit ideational content we see that relatively little of interna/ionallife is a function of material forces as such. " Alexander Wendt The Social Theory ofInternational Politics "Thus I am driven to the conclusion that no 'scientific definition' ofthe nation can be devised; yet the phenomenon has existed and exists." Hugh Seton-Watson Nation and States For Librado Linares and his civic hope. 1ll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction and Methodology 1 Chapter Two: What is nationalism 13 Chapter Three: The Rise and fall of the Cuban Republic 31 Chapter Four: The Anti Political Revolution 73 Chapter Five: The Resistance 93 Chapter Six: The Exile Republic: Nationalism without a Nation 109 Chapter Seven: The Civic Movement in the island 192 Chapter Eight: Analysis and Conclusion 211 Bibliography 234 Chronology 239 Appendix 244 IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter One - Introduction and Methodology This dissertation addresses the shared ideological consensus of a community whose political and economic power far transcends its numbers. It examines the internal mechanics and ideological worldview of Cuban exiles, specifically those in the United States, hoping to identify the key components of the shared views of nation, nationalism and national identity that shape the opinions of this community, particularly in the Miami and New Jersey areas. In order to present the fundamental values and beliefs of Cuban exile nationalism it will be necessary to dissect the components of the community's core political beliefs and relate them to Cuban history as a whole, to examine the historical reasons that produced these values (mythification of the pre-1959 republic; both allegiance to and suspicion of, the United States; radical anti-Communism, etc.) as well as describe their effects on the generational and socio-economic changes in the leadership of the Cuban American community between 1960 and now. These core beliefs have evolved in many different ways over time, their ultimate development affected by the different waves of refugees who have arrived in Florida over the different periods of the over four decades of Castro's rule. This dissertation seeks to establish an outline for the history and evolution of ideas that led to the unique phenomenon of the Cuban-American identity in the United States. To do so, it will be necessary to layout and penetrate the core principles of what I propose to call a nationalism without a nation-state, making visible in the process the ideological pillars of what seems to be, the invisible republic of el exilio. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 On a personal note, living and growing up in Miami or New Jersey's Cuban community, the two largest and most important Cuban communities in the u.s. in the 1970s and 80s provides a fascinating challenge for anyone interested in the nature of nations, nationalism and national identity. On the one hand, the Cuban immigrant communities provided a great example of economic integration and assimilation into the American body politic. In sociological and economic terms and later also politically, Cuban Americans came to be perceived as the most successful of the Hispanic groups living within u.s. borders. On the other hand, in contrast to their high degree of economic assimilation, the Cuban communities have been entrenched in their cultural traditions and language, and the focus of their attention has tended to center, not on the issues and themes of interest to the rest of the Hispanic groups in the United States such as poverty, discrimination and inner city social ills, but rather on political affairs in or related to, Cuba. Growing up in these Cuban communities in Miami and New Jersey signified a strange experience of living simultaneously within two nations: one the United States, with its dominant democratic laws, civil institutions, language and mass media in a specific, demarcated territory and the other the Cuban exiled nation, a phantom or invisible republic, where the social, cultural and religious institutions of pre-Castro Cuba still hold sway, and where a broad array of political organizations centered on "fa libertad de Cuba, " vied for an invisible sovereignty over an invisible republic devoid of its own national territory, but existing within an uncharted spiritual territory of memory, myth and aspirations that seem to flow continuously from the living rooms of exiled families to the offices of anti-Castro groups and the municipalities in exile through the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 meeting halls of Masons and Odd fellows, the basements and pews of Catholic and Protestant churches, and the backyard rituals of Santeria followers. The exiled communities of Miami and New Jersey' seemed to be engaged in a mystical dialogue with the history of Cuba. The territory had been lost, exiled pundits from all sides of the political spectrum would concede, but the essence of what Cubans call true cubanidad 2 or Cuban ness lived on in exile, as it had done many other times throughout Cuban history. On the other side of the Straits of Florida however, the Castro regime also lay claim to embodying the essence of cubanidad, and has dismissed the exile opposition as a mere extension of US imperialist designs over Cuba. Time, both the Cuban government and other observers argued, would settle the Issue. The immigrant communities it was agreed would inexorably blend into the American milieu, as so many other immigrant groups had in the past. Power, the Cuban government believed, would determine identity. But final judgment has proven elusive of both history and time. Castro has managed to hold on to power for over four decades. And the exiled nation has not disappeared. In April 2000 I watched as thousands of youths took to the streets of Miami to demonstrate against the Clinton administration's handover of child rafter Elian Gonzalez to the Cuban government. I remembered how experts had predicted that my generation, the children of the first wave of Cuban exiles, would quickly assimilate into mainstream America, leaving behind the Cuban identity of their parents. Now I watched as the grandchildren of the first exiles joined recently arrived