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Face to Face: Introduction to the People and History of Cuba. LIRS Manual for Sponsors of Refugees

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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 202 931 OD 021 295 AUTHOR Mangum, Margaret TITLE Face to Face: Introduction to the People and History of Cuba. LIRS Manual for Sponsors of Refugees. INSTITUTION Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, New York, N.Y. SPONS AGENCY Department of State, Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 80 NOTE 16p.: Photographs may not reproduce clearly. Not available in paper copy due to institution's restriction. For related documents, see UD 021 293-294. AVAILABLE FROMLutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010 (S1.00). EDRS PRICE HF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Cubans; *Cultural Background; Cultural Pluralism; Economic Factors; Hispanic Americans; Immigrants; Latin American Culture; *Latin American History; Political Influences; *Refugees; Religion; Social Influences IDENTIFIERS Castro (Fidel); *Cuba ABSTRACT This manual, prepared for sponsors of Cuban refugees, describes the background of the newest refugees by explaining their history, culture, ethnic diversity, religion, customs, and the current Cuban social, political, and economic climate. (Author/MR) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** lita5 11511 a U.S. Demarnann commove. NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of EDUCATION -PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS . TONAL NESOUACES 11114DANATION MATERIAL IN MICROFICHE ONLY CENTER IOUCI HAS BEEN GRANTED BY The document -Ass Owl nonalocoal as 7elciared Mom Wwo omen og opanita onrnating d Lti4 R, (ANL, U 1aNoe Wore Aim* Wen maal so improve fecroducoon *mill. Li RS LiAll11446., CrOwr aiIs M,_ Palms ot vMw o soinioao awed in Muldoon moo clo not noce1 official NE TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (MC)." 0 tgalOCO. .r --"k; F ;."1. _;;;' ill following Fidel Castro's takeover in 1959 was still FOREWORD in place in Miami to give immediate help to the new- "There go the ships..." is a phrase from comers. Psalm 104. LIRS was among the voluntary agencies For all who live in the United States the which swung into action. It opened offices to inter- phrase should be. "Here come the ships.- They have view and process the refugees in Miami and sub- been coming since this continent was discovered. sequently at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Fort some large, some mere cockleshells. Our harbors Chaffee in Arkansas, Indiantown Gap Military Re- remain open, and the land stretches to receive the servation in Pennsylvania and Fort McCoy in Wis- newcomers. consin. The Florida centers also began processing For all of us who are Christian. the ships refugees from Haiti already here. must always come, and we must stand on the shores In May 1980 at the 14th annual meeting to welcome the strangers. of the Lutheran Council in the USA, parent agency We have been doing that since 1975 for of LIR& representatives of the American Lutheran the many Indochinese refugees who have sought Church, Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran new lives in our society. Many still wait in crowded Church-Missouri Synod and Association of Evan- camps overseas, and we must continue to welcome gelical Lutheran Churches authorized the spending them to our shores. of up to $75,000 to get the new refugee program The arrival in 1980 of approximately going. The four churches later gave $275,000 for 130.000 refugees from Cuba plus the presence of ongoing support, since the usual government fund- 15.000 Haitian refugees once again called upon the ing to help with the initial resettlement of refugees combined resources of Lutheran congregations. was not readily available. The Lutheran World Fed- LIRS and other voluntary resettlement agencies. and eration sent $70,000. our government. The council's annual meeting voted to When the "freedom flotilla- began to ar- "urge the judicatory units and congregations of the rive at Key West. Fla., nuclei of experience emerged participating church bodies to respond expedi- and proliferated. An organizational structure put to- tiously to the need of sponsorships ...for the Cuban gether to help the 800.000 Cubans who came here and Haitian refugees with the same compassion as they have traditionally displayed for other op- pressed groups." Your receiving this manual, one of a se- ries prepared by LIRS to introduce sponsors to var- ious refugee groups. means you have agreed to help one or more Cubans or are seriously consid- ering doing so. Sponsorship involves a moral commit- ment to provide housing and jobs for the refugees and to reach out in friendship to give them the needed emotional support and orientation to life in the United States. "Introduction to the People and History of Cuba" is intended to help you understand the Cuban refugees you sponsor. The text was written by Margaret "Peg" Mangum. a free-lance writer and editor from New York City. Photos are by the follow- ing: Megan Mangum of Paradise Falls, Pa.: George Cohen and Sandra Levinson, courtesy of the Center for Cuban Studies: and Fred Ward, from the New York City agency Black Star. This manual was produced in coopera- tion with the Lutheran Council's Office of Commu- nication and Interpretation. Costs were paid by a grant from the federal government. Cuba's Sierra Maestri, mountains -- CONTENTS With New Eyes 1 The Way Life Was 2 The Way Life Is 3 Pearl of the Antilles 4 The Indigenous Heritage 5 Spanish Conquistadores 6 Britain's Brief Rule 8 Sugar and Slavery 9 "Free" at Last 10 Fidel! Fidel! 1 4 sionals and people with intellectual training. With New Eyes The refugees who arrived in the recent A refugee resettlement ministry offers a "freedom flotilla" are the product of a different so- unique challenge and opportunity. Sponsors are ciety. They are used to a government which has told able to reach out to newcomers in friendship and them what to do and when to do It and which stifled support across the barriers of language and the their individualism. They have no real comprehen- unconscious. ingrained mores and habits of differ- sion of free enterprise. private ownership, the at- ing cultures. The refugees who come as your re- tainability of goods, freedom of speech and other sponsibility, if you remain open to them as the per- guarantees embodied in our nation's Bill of Rights. sons they are. may possibly teach you more about They have come from a land in which religion is yourself and your own culture than any book you officially abolished. read. course you take or other situation in which you The new refugees include those who find yourself. were branded by Fidel Castro's regime as "unde- You will begin to look with new eyes at sirables" and were forced into the flotilla's boats by all kinds of things you have heretofore taken for the Cuban military. Many of them have no trust be- granted. You will discover that you use idiomatic cause they have experienced promises by their phrases that mean one thing in the dictionary and government which were not fulfilled. Some are another in common usage. Both you and your ref- weary of political persecution and even afraid for ugee friends will enjoy hearty laughs at the singular their lives. Some have spent time in jail for what our peculiarities of "Americanese" and at the newcom- legal system would consider misdemeanors. They ersers' attempts to gain proficiency in conversation. were held past their period of servitude, and once You may find yourself up against an un- released they were branded as unemployable. conscious stereotype or personal prejudice that you The plight of one family which would not had-hidden from yourself, despite all the goodwill support the Castro government was described by and love that you want to project. This can be a the wife and mother, now starting a new life in North shocker, but it can also lead you to a whole new Carolina: "First they took away my husband's job as way of looking at life and listening to other people. a hospital administrator. Then they took away our By the same token, your refugee friends probably ration cards so we couldn't get food. Then my hus- have many preconceptions of you and the United band was thrown into jail as a political prisoner." States that they may have to discard. When some of the first boats arrived at Cuban refugees present their own spe- Key West in April 1980. a LIRS staff person, herself cial challenge and opportunity. They arrived during a Cuban refugee from the 1960's. went to the harbc r a time of anxiety and uptightness intensified by a to witness what was happening and help process presidential election and economic probe .ns. The the newcomers. Knowing the temperament of her political campaign hardened loyalties and aroused own people, she was surprised by the quietness of emotions. The job market was tight, and prices were the arrivals. She learned that they were paralyzed soaring. The "doomsday prophets." hard at work in by fear, unable to move or speak. The sight of U.S. conversations and the media, added to the general Marines in uniform had caused them to conclude malaise. that they had been lied to "once again," that their Your sponsorship of the Cuban people boats had run in circles, and that they had been can be your personal answer to the forces of pes- returned to Cuba to be taken to prison. simism. Those forces believe that locking the doors The following sections of this manual of our country will somehow preserve the peace and sketch the factors that have contributed to who and plenty they claim is our right. Christians know that what the new Cuban refugees aretheir history.
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