Cuban Exile History, Marielito 'Deviance,' and Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes’ Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles
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CUBAN EXILE HISTORY, MARIELITO 'DEVIANCE,' AND CECILIA RODRIGUEZ MILANES’ MARIELITOS, BALSEROS AND OTHER EXILES By ALEXA KATHLEEN PEREZ 1 There exists scholarship which explores the differential treatment of migrant groups within U.S. immigration policy based on political, legal, social, and economic dimensions. However, there exists only limited scholarship on the differential treatment of the different waves within migrant groups, such as for instance, the differential treatment within Cuban migrant groups. Cuban immigration to the United States has been a long, reoccurring phenomenon due to the island’s geographical proximity and the political, social and economic relationship between the two nations. The United States experienced mass migrations from Cuba after the success of Castro’s revolution in 1959which caused disillusion, social unrest and opposition among many Cuban citizens, especially after Castro announced that his government would be communist. In the midst of the Cold War, the first wave of Cuban immigrants to arrive to the United States, were considered “Golden Exiles,” welcomed, and granted refugee status on the presumption that they were “fleeing communist oppression.” The second wave of Cuban immigrants that arrived in the United States during the 1970’s received similar welcoming treatment and were likewise granted refugee status. However, the wave of Cubans popularly called Marielitos who came to the U.S. in 1980, were not welcomed warmly and were labeled as “entrants” instead of refugees. This anomalous legal status of “entrants,” placed Marielitos in a sort of legal limbo; they were no longer considered Cuban citizens yet, were not considered potential American citizens either. In an attempt to justify their rejection of this exile population, the U.S. constructed the Marielitos as social deviants—criminals, the mentally ill, and homosexuals In this thesis, I will be looking at the history, responses and literature about Marielitos in order to deconstruct the social construction of Marielitos as “deviant.” A historical and factual introduction will be provided, in order to understand the events surrounding the Mariel boatlift, 2 especially the political decisions made by the United States and Cuba which both marginalized the Marielito population on the grounds that they were criminal and mentally unstable members of society. The United States’ government and especially local media played an important role in circulating these stereotypes about the Marielito population and thus inestablishing their deviant social construction. The media’s negative portrayal, the unreceptive attitude of Americans- especially Cuban Americans- and their anomalous legal status hindered the Marielito resettlement effort and more importantly their sense of belonging within the U.S. Through this thesis, I wish to explore and shed new light on how these three influences were all interconnected in such a way that the Marielitos’ legal status eventually became their social status. In the case of Marielitos, and arguably other immigrants in the U.S., there exists a relationship between the immigrants’ political status and social status in such a way that the former regulates the latter. Historical context is necessary to understand the literature’s response to the Marielito experience. In specific, I will analyze Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes’ response to the Marielito experience in Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles, in which she adds a new dimension to writing about and viewing Marielitos. Cuban American author Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes explores the Marielito experience in Miami in her collection of short stories Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles. Born in the U.S. to Cuban parents and “moved by the plight of the Marielitos” after witnessing how Miami “changed and adapted” because of their presence, Milanes felt that “someone had to write about these people, preferably someone who was one of them” (Milanes 191). It is important that Milanes writes from a first-hand experience, as a member of the Marielitos, because the limited literature on Marielitos was written by, as Milanes puts it: “mainly North American Anglos.” (Milanes 191). .She describes her story “The Fresh Boys,” as “a tribute to my[her] former 3 Miami high school students,” demonstrating that these stories come not from an objective historical or political standpoint but from a standpoint of real life experiences that complicate and call for a reassessment of Marielito experience (Milanes 192). Milanes’ work is not merely fiction, but work that produces and brings to life more dynamic stories which go beyond the demagoguery and the politics to add a new dimension to writing about Marielitos. In a way which is similar to George Lamming’s assertion, that the West Indian writer must write about the West Indian reality, Milanes utilizes these stories “as a way of investigating and projecting the inner experiences” of Marielitos, especially those in Miami (37). More specifically, Milanes attempts to deconstruct the monolithically-constructed deviant identity attributed to Marielitos by exposing and criticizing the paradoxes of reception and decision making policies which surrounded the Mariel Crisis. In separate and unconnected stories she depicts the lives of very different Marielitos while at the time uniting them through their shared struggle for an individual identity distinct from their social construction as “deviants.” Milanes captures the struggles and experiences of the Marielito population in Miami not as a monolithic experience but as a multifaceted one. However, Milanes does not illustrate Marielitos as a flawless population. Instead, she illustrates the reality of the Marielito experience in the United States, both good and bad. For instance, in “La Buena Vida” Juan is stabbed, “for no reason, by another boatlift exile,” despite his hard work and dedication towards finding employment (Milanes 46). While at first this may seem to prove rather than disprove the criminal and deviant stereotypes, this event demonstrates the reality of the Marielito population. Some were in fact criminals, like Juan’s murderer, but the majority was not as in most societies. Some, but not the majority, were criminals, many were simply unemployed. Some were labeled “criminals” in Cuba, such as homosexuals; some were 4 simply mentally ill. Milanes also exposes the social, political and economic factors that helped establish much of the Marielitos deviance as seemingly concrete fact. Milanes deconstructs the monolithic identity attributed to Marielitos through these stories and at the same time portrays the reality of their experience through an insider’s viewpoint. In order to understand the legal status of the so-called Marielitos and its effect on their social construction in the United States, the U.S. -Cuba relations and their impact on Cuban immigration to the U.S. must be addressed. The United States and Cuban governments’ manipulation of the Mariel Crisis of 1980 was political warfare in the context of the Cold War and resulted in a deviant label being attributed to the immigrants of the boatlift that greatly differed from the social construction of previous Cuban immigrants. Cuban migration to the United States pre-1980 was supported and welcomed as a rejection of communism, specifically after the success of Castro’s revolution on the island in 1959, which marked the first massive wave of immigration (Rivera 2). In contrast, however, the mass influx of 125,000 Cubans that arrived in the United States during the Mariel boatlift confronted an unreceptive attitude both politically and socially that essentially threatened their identity and their ability to make their way in the U.S. To begin with, Castro manipulated the boatlift by sending individuals deemed “misfits” and “antisocials” by the regime; these labels were, ironically, transplanted and likewise utilized by the U.S. as strategic retaliation in the midst of the heightened, if late, political tensions of the Cold War. Cuban migration to the United States from 1959 to the Mariel Crisis since 1959 cannot be understood outside its political context. The rules for Cuban migration were dictated mainly by 5 political and not humanitarian considerations; the refugees became a useful and powerful weapon in the long-running political war between the United States and Cuba. U.S. political relations with Cuba since Cuba’s independence from Spain in 1902 can be described as both altruistic and imperialistic. After intervening in the Cuban war of independence from Spain, which led to the 1898 Spanish-American War, the U.S reserved the right to intervene in Cuba and established a relationship of political domination, in order to maintain their economic investments, which were an estimated $220 million by 1913 (Masud- Piloto 13). By the late 1950’s, American capital controlled “90 percent of Cuba’s mines, 80 percent of its public utilities, 50 percent of its railways, 40 percent of its sugar production, and 25 percent of its bank deposits” (Masud-Piloto 20). However, when Castro assumed power and nationalized all U.S. industry in Cuba in 1960, the U.S. was stripped of its economic power on the island (Masud-Piloto 34). In response, the U.S. cut its Cuban sugar quota, which had supported the Cuban economy; however, the Soviet Union, Cuba’s political ally after 1960, added the quantity to its existing purchases (Musad-Piloto 27). Castro’s economic and social reforms and his alliance with the Soviet Union raised political tensions in the relationship between the United States and Cuba. For more than 60 years, the United States had dominated Cuba’s political and economic life; however, when Castro’s revolution challenged American hegemony at the height of the Cold war, the U.S. government became determined to destroy it, even if that meant manipulating the social construction of Cuban immigrants. The political and economic programs of Castro’s regime came into conflict with those most negatively affected by the reforms- the political and economic Cuban elites as well as supporters of the former Batista regime, which the United States had supported until the revolution.