CUBAN EXILE HISTORY, MARIELITO 'DEVIANCE,' AND CECILIA RODRIGUEZ MILANES’ MARIELITOS, BALSEROS AND OTHER EXILES

By ALEXA KATHLEEN PEREZ

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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

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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. Following the revolution, Cuban elites were limited to opposing the government at

6 high risk or leaving the country. As a result, many fled, seeking political asylum in the United

States. From the first day of the revolution, the Eisenhower administration faced the problem of mass migrations of political exiles, which amounted to 7,000 in 1959 alone (Masud-Piloto 33).

President Eisenhower’s decision to allow immigration from Cuba was motived by several factors including, humanitarian concern, the desire to overthrow the revolution with exile forces, the wish to embarrass the Cuban government, and the knowledge that many of the exiles could easily be assimilated because they had been linked by profession, business, education and culture to the United States (Masud-Piloto 33).

This first wave of Cuban exiles was significantly referred to in the United States as

“Golden Exiles” despite the fact that, like the Marielitos, Castro attributed to them the deviant label of gusanos (worms) because of their presumed rejection of the revolution (Aguirre 162).

However, unlike the Marielito’s deviant label, this label was not transplanted with their migration because the interests and perspectives of these Cuban elite and of their American counterparts in the government and other circles, such as the Catholic Church, coincided. At the time, the U.S. had much to gain and little to lose by welcoming the Cuban immigrants.

Politically, the exodus was viewed as positive propaganda for capitalism and democracy. A U.S. representative described the migration situation as “a vote for our [America] society and a vote against their [Cuban] society” (quoted in Masudo-Piloto 33). Thus, despite the deviant label

Castro attributed to them, the “Golden Exiles” were viewed as favorable both politically and socially. They represented the rejection and failure of communism and the success of American democracy while they also possessed skills that allowed them to be easily integrated into society.

Furthermore, many of these “Golden Exiles” were supporters and members of the Fulgencio

Batista’s regime, which the United States had supported (Rivera 2). The U.S. supported and

7 accepted ex-Batista men. It is important to note that their integration into society was greatly influenced by their political acceptance and status.

Offensive and defensive actions between the United States and Cuban governments eventually led to the official break of diplomatic relations between the two in 1961 and thus

Cubans who wished to emigrate to the U.S. had to do so through a third-country route (Masudo-

Piloto 34). However, plans formed in secrecy between Eisenhower, Congress and the CIA to organize and directly utilize Cuban exiles and ex-Batista men as pawns of the Cold War, later known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, influenced a change in the situation for Cuba immigrants

(Masudo-Piloto 34). The U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice began a visa- waiver procedure that allowed direct migration from Cuba to the United States; any Cuban who claimed to be “fleeing from communist oppression” qualified to enter (Masuso-Piloto 35). The visa-waivers even extended to Cuban children between the ages of six and sixteen in 1960 during operation “Pedro Pan” which was “designed to help Cuban parents send their children unaccompanied to the United States to avoid Communist indoctrination” (Maduso-Piloto 39).

The operation was first implemented based on rumor that Cuban students were sent to the

Soviet Union not simply “in the name of cultural exchange” but for the purpose of indoctrinating them “ with the ideals of the revolution” (Conde 29-31). In reaction, Operation

Peter Pan evolved into foster care funded by the U.S. government for Cuban refugee children sent unaccompanied, something the U.S. had never done before. When the operation was questioned due to a lack of evidence that the Cuban government was using children for communist indoctrination, the mass media was utilized to emphasize the urgency of the matter and the preferential status of these immigrants (Masud-Piloto 41). This preferential immigration policy stayed in place for the next twenty years, up until the Mariel Crisis.

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The open door immigration policy for Cuban refugees continued under Kennedy, who demonstrated a determination to pursue a hard-line Cuba policy. Less than three months after taking office in1961, Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs Invasion, planned by the Eisenhower administration, (Masudo-Piloto 46). However, the invasion proved futile in overthrowing

Castro’s regime and ironically further consolidated Castro’s political power and popularity on the island. According to Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Cuba’s finance minister, the invasion “had insured Castro’s hold on the country. It made him even more of a hero, as the man who had defended Cuba against the greatest power in the world” (quoted in Masudo –Piloto 47). The embarrassment of the defeat fueled determination among Kennedy’s administration to overthrow

Castro’s revolution. With the belief that the open-door policy for Cuban migration would “pay for itself by anti-Communist propaganda effects alone,” the Kennedy administration established the Cuban Refugee Program, which called for provision of all possible assistance to voluntary relief agencies, useful employment opportunities, financial assistance, health services, federal assistance for public schools, and surplus food distribution programs for Cuban refugees

(Masudo-Piloto 48-49).

The administration went to great lengths to ensure and encourage the steady flow of

Cuban migration. In fact, when Cuban refugees seeking to leave the island were stranded momentarily after the Cuban government required payment in dollars for flights to Miami, the

Kennedy administration responded by providing an airlift starting August 1961, at a cost of

$350,000 to the United States (Masudo-Piloto 52). By 1972, ten years after its implementation, the Cuban Refugee Program reached a yearly budget of $136 million (Masudo-Pilot 53).

Despite the financial burden of the CRP, the U.S. government remained steadfast in its belief that the program was a strategic political tool that would eventually undermine Castro’s revolution.

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Ironically however, the departure of these early immigrants, the “Golden Exiles,” made Castro’s political consolidation easier and faster, as his opposition was being swept from the island.

In addition to the implementation of new immigration programs and the failed Bay of

Pigs invasion to attack Castro’s regime, the Kennedy administration continued its goal of overthrowing Castro, which essentially resulted in heightening tensions not only with Cuba but with the Soviet Union as well. As U.S. relations with Cuba continued to deteriorate, Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union became stronger.. In 1962, after the United States’ imposition of a total trade embargo and its unsuccessful operation to assassinate Castro, , the Soviet Union utilized their alliance to Cuba to place nuclear missiles on the island which eventually led to the

Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest the Cold War ever got to actual nuclear confrontation (Garthoff

3). Many Cubans, fearing war with the United States, decided to migrate to the U.S. at this time.

Although the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was resolved, the U.S.-

Cuba relations continued to worsen. The United States eventually terminated commercial flights between the two countries, which put a stop to Kennedy’s airlift support for refugees (Rivera 3).

Consequently, the number of refugees dropped dramatically until President Johnson’s Freedom

Flights in 1965, although many continued to arrive in the U.S. after crossing the dangerous ninety mile ocean stretch between Cuba and the U.S. aboard makeshift boats.

Claiming that the United States was utilizing emigration as a political weapon and propaganda tool against his government, Fidel Castro, manipulated the U.S. open-door immigration policy to his advantage once more and in 1965 announced that exiled Cubans could pick up relatives wishing to leave the island at the Port of Camarioca (Masud-Piloto 3, 57).

Castro also utilized the Camarioca incident to defuse internal political and economic crises by eliminating Cubans he deemed unproductive. Significantly, men of military age 14-27 who were

10 essential to the state were not permitted to leave (Masudo-Piloto 59-60). Although at first skeptical of Castro’s opening of the Port of Camarioca, the Johnson administration nevertheless allowed the boatlift and admitted 5,000 to Miami (Lockwood 284). An agreement was eventually made between the two powers which resulted in the establishment of the “freedom flights” airlift which brought nearly 50,000 more refugees for a total of 270,000 by the time the airlift ended in 1973 (Lockwood 284). During this time, the Johnson administration continued the open arms policy of its predecessors and provided direct federal aid to Florida and the refugees (Masudo-Piloto 4).

The Cuban Adjustment Act was eventually signed in 1966 which allowed applicants for political asylum to first reach the U.S. then demonstrate a well-founded fear in persecution

(Harvard 906). Under the preferential treatment provisions of the Cuban Adjustment Act, however, Cubans were the only refugees not required to apply for political asylum or prove that they are in fact refugees (Harvard 906). Essentially, their refugee status was not questioned as it was with other immigrants; it was simply granted to them on a preferential basis congruent with the foreign policy goals of the growing anti-Castro sentiment and anti-communism.

The Camarioca incident challenged U.S. immigration policy in that it undermined the claim that Cuban immigrants’ were political refugees and victims of “Communist oppression”. A

CIA assessment of Cuba’s internal situation revealed obligatory military service, confiscation of private farms and standard wages for all nonagricultural workers as the leading causes for the growing antigovernment sentiments (Masudo-Piloto 60). If this assessment was accurate, most people wishing to immigrate to the United States were primarily motivated by economic situations and not political oppression. Nevertheless, the Johnson administration insisted on admitting and assisting thousands of Cubans during this time under political refugee status with

11 the justification that they were “escaping from Communism,” (Masudo-Piloto). Furthermore, by this time the demographic and socioeconomic profile of the refugees had changed since the era of the Golden Exiles. A greater proportion of the refugees from this wave were composed of persons of lower and middle income, and they had lower educational and job skill levels than the earlier Cubans exiles. . The changing demographics of this new wave of Cuban immigrants reveal contradictions in the basis of U.S. immigration policy of the time. In contrast to the

Golden Exiles who had been accepted because of their high socioeconomic and political status, these new waves of immigrants were judged as meeting these same criteria although evidence demonstrates that many did not.

Nevertheless, the support of the Cuban American community in Miami combined with the assistance of Federal Government and private voluntary and charitable agencies enabled the refugees to find nation-wide resettlement without restrictions of residence, employment, or movement. The existing Cuban American communities in the United States, which rejoiced and anxiously awaited family reunifications, were willing to help the new immigrants with jobs, housing, clothing, and food which likewise assisted the refugee’s resettlement. However, despite the government and media’s attempts to normalize these first two waves of Cuban immigrants in the 1960’s and 1970’s they were not always welcomed by all Americans.

The wide range of political and ideological changes that occurred in Cuba after the revolution created demographically different Cuban migratory groups with a variety of socioeconomic, racial, and political positions. Nevertheless, the U.S. perceived them monolithically as “political exiles” fleeing the oppression of communism whereas in actuality, their unity was created by their exile and not their demographic or migratory conditions. The

U.S. government along with the popular mass media engaged in a campaign to construct Cuban

12 refugees during the 1960’s and 1970’s as ideologically valuable immigrants through representations of them as universally anti-communist and possessing the socially and racially desirable qualities of “good immigrants” (Current 43). Who the government deemed a “good immigrant” was a direct reflection of the U.S. political, economic and social climate. The Cuban

Refugee Program played a large role in creating the Cuban’s idealized representation by modeling information for television films, coauthoring magazine articles, and controlling the scripts of radio programs (Current 53).

The U.S. constructed Cuban refugees under their definition of desirable immigrants who met a criterion of homogeneous heterosexuality, whiteness, and anti-communism (Current 48).

The social construction of the initial “Golden Exiles,” who were mostly white, middle and upper class elite, as desirable immigrants was a particularly easy task seeing as this group seemed to predominately meet the criteria and the deviations that did exist were ignored (Current 48).

However, even as the Cuban refugees became increasingly poorer, less educated and darker, with each wave of migration, the United States continued to utilize a monolithic representation of

Cubans as homogenously white and economically independent. The U.S. government and the media also stressed their supposed “anti-communist” stance to garner public support for the refugees although it was known that not all Cuban refugees were opposed to communism; many simply opposed the specific reforms and policies of Castro’s regime (Current 44).

Despite efforts to socially construct 1960’s and 1970’s Cuban refugees as desirable and

“good immigrants,” some exiles encountered discrimination and rejection because of racial and cultural difference, language discrepancies, dependence on welfare, and job competition.

Especially in Miami, where most of the Cubans were resettled, opposition arose from claims that the influx of Cubans was “altering Miami’s ethnic character and creating economic problems”

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(Masudo-Piloto 68). African Americans also opposed the migration, because they struggled for basic civil rights and economic opportunity as citizens, while Cubans were granted access to jobs, housing and education (Lockwood 284). It is also important to emphasize that the Cuban immigrant groups after the initial Golden Exiles were welcomed and helped by the already established groups of Cuban Americans, a reception that changed when the Marielitos arrived in the 1980’s.

Relations between the U.S. and Cuba improved steadily during Carter’s presidency beginning in 1977. The improvements began with the Antonio Maceo Brigade’s trip, in which

Cuban exiles returned to the island for voluntary housing construction projects, and visitations to schools, factories, historical sites and relatives (Masudo-Piloto 73). Welcomed by Castro, this trip demonstrated reconciling relations at least between Cuba and the exile community in the

United States. Then in 1978, Castro allowed dialogue between the Cuban government and the

Cuban exile community abroad concerning family reunification, the release of political prisoners, visits to and from Cuba, the return of older exiles, and exit permits for those who wished to emigrate to the United States (Masudo-Piloto 75). Although these negotiations did not involve the United States government directly and proved Castro’s control over U.S. immigration policy, they nevertheless improved relations between the two powers. During this time, Carter continued an open arms policy in regards to Cuban immigrants, which eventually posed a problem during the Mariel boatlift.

A month before the official opening of the port of Mariel, Castro raised the possibility of a second Camarioca in a speech in which he sought a means of once again alleviating the economic situation in Cuba (Aguirre 161). In the 1980’s Cuba entered a period of economic difficulty due to losses in the sugar and tobacco crops, drops in the fishing catch, reduction of pig

14 herd numbers. These losses resulted from the U.S. embargo on the island as well as from the overall deteriorating international economic environment (Aguirre 161). The acceleration in the population growth rate also created problems of increasing unemployment and a housing problem (Briquets 99,101). Furthermore, in spite of the agreements to accept freed political prisoners during 1978-1979 and the open arms policy, the U.S. denied these political prisoners entrance and their continued presence was a source of irritation to the Cuban government

(Masud-Piloto 75). Castro sought ways in which to alleviate these internal pressures by exporting individuals considered surplus, and eventually looked to the Mariel boatlift. Castro’s criticism of the United States for “illegal departures” of Cubans also formed the basis for the threat of the exodus and acted as a warning to the U.S. (Rivera 5). Despite such warnings, the United States failed to prepare adequately for the Mariel incident.

On April 1, 1980, in an attempt to leave Cuba, six Cubans crashed through the gate of the

Peruvian embassy in Havana; a riot ensued which resulted in the death of a Cuban guard (Rivera

5). After the Peruvian government granted them political asylum, Cuba demanded the Cubans be surrendered to be tried for the death of the Cuban guard (Rivera 5). When the Peruvian embassy refused however, Castro responded by withdrawing all guards and barricades from the embassy. Then on April 4, 1980, Castro announced that anyone who wanted to leave the country should do so through the Peruvian embassy, declaring that any “anti-social unwilling to participate in the voluntary task of socialism” was free to seek asylum there (Masudo-Piloto 78-

79). Ironically enough, the deliberate use of the word “anti-social” along with later strategic actions by the regime formed the basis of the reception of Marielitos in the U.S. On this same day, articles published in the Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, alleged that the majority of those seeking asylum were “scum criminals, lumpen, parasites, and

15 antisocial elements” and that “none of them were subject to persecution nor were they in need of the sacred right of diplomatic asylum,” (quoted in Masudo-Piloto 79).

When Cuban exiles organized a “freedom flotilla,” Castro officially announced the opening of the port of Mariel for all Cubans wishing to immigrate to the United States and within hours the sea lift began. Although apprehensive at first, Carter nevertheless agreed to continue to “provide an open heart and open arms for the tens of thousands of refugees seeking freedom from Communist domination” (Masudo-Piloto 83). It is important to note here that despite the labels Castro placed on these Cubans, the Cuban exile community in Miami initially demonstrated their support by actively participating in the “Freedom Flotilla” and that the Carter administration, despite Castro’s claims that the Cubans were not political refugees, initially accepted them as such. However this support from both the government and the Cuban community would change as the exodus went from a “flotilla” to a “crisis.”

Immediately after Castro’s announcement, Cubans in Miami with either rented or owned boats began the ninety mile voyage with the hopes of being reunited with friends and family.

The Marielitos who arrived within the first two weeks of the boatlift were processed, given support, and resettled in Miami with the help of government and private voluntary agencies

(Aguirre 159). Unfortunately, this initial receptive posture was tainted by the events surrounding the Mariel Boatlift and its aftermath which raised serious questions concerning the effectiveness of U.S. immigration laws and policy.

Soon after its commencement, Castro strategically utilized the incident and the world sympathy for those asylum-seekers, into an opportunity for “a purge of many Cubans considered socially or politically inimical to the regime” (Rivera, 6). This new wave of immigrants when

16 compared to the earlier waves, were “less well off, darker skinned and they had been socialized in Castro’s Cuba” (Barberia 804). They also included homosexuals, the mentally ill, criminals, political dissidents and anyone the government deemed undesirable (Barberia 805).

Significantly however, those wishing to emigrate could without proof, admit to “deviant” or

“antirevolutionary” behavior and permission would most likely be granted to them by the Cuban government (Taber 271-90). Thus, in many cases, Cubans lied about their personal integrity to obtain exit permits. In fact, evidence later revealed that actual “deviants” constituted less than

5% of the immigrants; nevertheless, the characteristics of this deviant minority were used to socially construct all Marielitos as such (Hufker, Cavender 321). The deviant social construction attributed to all Marielitos produced a change in their reception among both Anglo and Cuban Americans.

The economic climate of the United States also influenced the social reception of the

Marielitos among American citizens, not just Cuban Americans. The boatlift occurred during a time of recession and high unemployment, and Americans were sensitive about protecting the nation’s borders from the influx of illegal aliens and refugees (Rivera 191). President Reagan’s economic policies to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and control the money supply in order to reduce inflation, affected the implementation of immigration policies. The economic hardship diminished the resources that could be politically mobilized for immigrants thus creating a change in attitude not only toward Cuban refugees but all immigrants as well that affected the perception of Cubans from wanted to unwanted. Especially in Miami, the tax burden on the local citizens was a major irritant causing widespread resentment (Aguirre 169). Marielitos were rejected not only because Castro had labeled them “deviant” or “misfits,” but also because the

17 government assistance they received became an economic burden to communities in which they were placed and to the nation as a whole.

However, it is important to note that the negative attitude towards the new Cuban immigrants did not necessarily change because the migratory behavior of the Cuban people changed during Mariel. Rather the government criteria for acceptable refugee migration changed, transforming previously acceptable behaviors into “unacceptable and deviant behaviors.” These changes were a means of defense against Castro’s warfare (Aguirre 161). In fact, there exists no empirical data on which to base the claims that Marielitos were significantly more deviant than the Cubans who had arrived in the 1960’s and ‘70’s (Aguirre 163). While Marielitos may have been of lower economic and educational status than the “Golden Exiles,” they were comparable to those who arrived in the freedom flights; yet politically, they were treated very differently.

The use of vague terminology in immigration policy for the eligibility requirements of refugees obfuscated the issue of which aliens deserved refuge in the United States and caused the inconsistent treatment of immigrants facing similar kinds of persecution (Pirie 188).

Five months before the Mariel Crisis, in an attempt to eliminate the prior statutory requirement that a refugee be an individual fleeing from a communist-dominated area and to neutralize refugee definition, Congress enacted the Refugee Act of 1980, defining a refugee as

“any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality…and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear or persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” (Musalo 66).

However, the “uncertainties over the meaning of persecution” in the Refugee Act allowed the

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U.S. to use “claimants of persecution as political pawns” (Pirie 234). The ambiguous definition of “persecution” justified the incongruent treatment of Marielito Cuban refugees.

Under this act, the admission of certain refugees in response to an emergency refugee situation, such as the Mariel Crisis, was “justified by grave humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest” (Musalo 68). Consequently, as the national interests of the

U.S. changed, so did the definition of “persecution”. Despite the Refugee Act of 1980,

Marielitos were initially accepted by the U.S. as refugees. In fact, the first 4000 processed in

Miami were given refugee eligibility cards (Aguirre 165). However, when Castro manipulated the boatlift as political warfare, claiming to have sent Cuba’s “social misfits,” the dynamics of

Cuban immigration policy changed, and Marielitos were instead classified as “entrants,” permitting them to apply for permanent residency only after remaining for two years in the

United States. This waiting period was twice as long as that for immigrants designated

“refugees” and the benefits extended considerably lower than those afforded to earlier Cuban refugees (Rivera 13).

The Carter administration resisted granting refugee status to Marielitos by arguing that the new arrivals’ motivations for leaving Cuban were more economic than political, that their

“fear of persecution was derived from their own act of leaving Cuba, not necessarily that they had been persecuted by the government before leaving” (Masud-Piloto 86). However, Silvia

Pedraza-Baily, Cuban sociologist of immigration at the University of Michigan, argues that “in the perceptions of individuals, political and economic conditions are entangled; particularly in the attitudes that lead to the consequential decision to emigrate from the land of birth” (29). For

Pedraza-Bailey, when people grow politically disaffected, even for economic reasons, they are no longer economic refugees. Thus, “Cuban refugees are and have always been, fundamentally

19 political,” an argument which undermines the Carter administrations reasoning for classifying

Marielitos as “entrants” (Pedraza-Baily 30). The motives for immigration from Cuba to the

United States were not a new concern however. Before the Mariel Crisis, earlier waves of Cuban immigrants were also questioned on their motives; however, because it remained in the nation’s interest to continue to accept their arrival, they were granted refugee status nonetheless.

The Carter administration’s strategies to control the mass exodus of Marielitos entering the United States were based on politicized decision making; instead of handing the mass migration as a domestic issue, the administration continued to handle Cuban migration as a foreign policy issue in which the treatment of Marielitos corresponded to the national interest of retaliation against Castro’s regime. The policy determinant behind Congress giving Mariel

Cubans the special status of “entrant” “was the intolerability of Castro’s success in thrusting the

Mariel Cubans upon the U.S. Therefore, it was not the Cuban arrivals the Administration wished to avoid rewarding, but Castro” (Rivera 19).

This decision to grant earlier exiles refugee status but label Marielitos simply “entrants” demonstrates a contradiction in the administration’s policies. The administration claimed the

“entrant” status was a means of controlling the massive influx, yet the U.S. had granted Cubans refugee status for 20 years prior under the consensus that they were fleeing political persecution.

The label of “entrant” placed Marielitos in an anomalous legal status of political limbo; where they essentially lacked a legal status altogether. This label stripped them of the federal assistance available to earlier exiles that were given refugee status and thus impeded their integration. Had the Cubans been granted “refugee” status as originally anticipated, given the pattern followed in the previous Cuban influxes, there would have “existed a full-fledged domestic assistance effort, in accordance with the Refugee Act of 1980” (Rivera 44). However, the denial of full refugee-

20 level benefit “forced many Cubans into vagrancy and delayed the resettlement of thousands in the camps” (Rivera 17). The extension of refugee status to most of the Mariel entrants would have recognized their membership in a population toward which the United States had long maintained a significant commitment. Marielitos, under their pending status remained outsiders, and thus in an ironic self-fulfilling prophetic way were socially constructed as deviant. It is important to note, that this anomalous legal status did not just deny them membership in society or influence their deviant social construction, but it also literally rejected them from the nation.

Immigration reforms and policies not only control the movement of people from one nation or region to another, but also construct and constantly reaffirm the boundaries of nations.

In his Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson, professor of International Studies at Cornell

University, defines the concept of nation as “an imagined political community…because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (6). This imagined sense of communion is what creates national identity as well as the criteria for those who can be accepted and integrated into this identity.

In her article, “Homeland Insecurities: Transformations of Language and Space,” Amy

Kaplan, Professor of English with a focus on imperialism at the University of Pennsylvania, makes an important distinction when she argues that “a sense of the foreign is necessary to erect the boundaries that enclose the nation as home” (59). Thus, a nation, or the idea of a nation, cannot exist unless individuals which can be excluded from the nation also exist. Immigration often times calls into question the concept of the nation because the members of the “imagined political community” must constantly redefine their imagined sense of the nation. Those that were once foreign, through immigration processes, enter the nation, become legal members of

21 the nation and become a part of the “imagined community,” if they are able to assimilate.

Interestingly, Marielitos were denied a concrete legal status yet could not be returned to Cuba because Castro would not accept them and thus they had to remain in the nation. Their “entrant” status placed them in a legal and spatial limbo.

Milanes explores this spatial limbo in her short story, “La Buena Vida,” through the protagonist’s rejection from the home. “La Buena Vida” tells the story of Juan, a Marielito, who while living with his cousin Mario and Mario’s family, starts a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Miami. As the story develops, readers learn that although Mario supports and encourages Juan, Lupe, Mario’s wife, criticizes Marielitos, Juan included. Juan proves himself to be a hardworking and dedicated individual through his work ethic; within a month he is promoted in his new job. However, Juan’s life takes a dramatic turn when Mario suddenly dies,

Lupe kicks him out of the house and he is fired from his job for no apparent reason besides arguably, discrimination against Marielitos.

Juan’s rejection from Mario’s home in “La Buena Vida” symbolizes not only the displacement of Marielitos into a marginalized space but also the legal rejection of them from the nation. Juan’s rejection from the home, a domestic sphere, which forces him into homelessness, signifies his entrance into a foreign, marginalized sphere. After Mario’s sudden death, Lupe tells

Juan, “There will be no room for you here…” and throws him out of their home despite the fact that Juan contributed money for rent (Milanes 34). Juan’s exclusion from Mario’s home, consequently symbolizes the exclusion of Marielitos from the nation. Amy Kaplan argues that

“referring to the nation as a home, as a domestic space though familial metaphors, is commonplace, probably as old as the nation form itself” (Kaplan 58). Juan’s homelessness is not only literal, because now he does not have a home, but also metaphorically in that his Marielito

22 status denies him a legal place in the nation. Like the anomalous classification of “entrant,” Juan occupies an anomalous space in society, both legally and culturally. Significantly, homeless individuals occupy a marginalized sphere, surrounding a functioning society, from which they are excluded and ignored. This anomalous space parallels the anomalous national space

Marielitos occupied in that they were not accepted as Americans while at the same time they were no longer Cubans due to their exile.

Through Juan’s experience, Milanes also reveals that the issue of homelessness among

Marielitos is specific to each case. Juan happened to be kicked out of his home and fired from his job due to acts of discrimination against Marielitos. Milanes complicates the “deviant” stereotype attributed to these exiles by calling for an analysis of their homelessness, not as merely a product of their own actions but also a result of the discrimination. In such a way, she exposes Mairelito deviance as imposed upon them, arguably also due to their legal status which limited federal funding towards assistance such as housing. After Juan is thrown out of Mario’s home and shortly after his job loss, he boards a public bus with no clear destination, demonstrating the uprootedness of homelessness, which parallels the national uprootedness of

Marielitos as well.

The marginalized space preserved for homeless individuals and Marielitos alike, displaces them into a sphere invisible and ignored by society. While on the bus, Juan expresses the distress of his current situation to the two women sitting across from his and says, “They threw me out” (Milanes 37). However, “the women ignored him and continued their running commentary,” which illustrated the women’s rejection of him and again metaphorical, as well as literal, the Cuban community’s rejection of Marielitos (Milanes 37). The women do not so much as acknowledge Juan’s existence highlighting his outcast and invisible role in society.

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These women build an imaginary boundary that ignores and more importantly excludes

Juan, paralleling an “imagined” sense of community or nation from which Marielitos were excluded. Milanes also illustrates an imagined sense of community among the Miami population when Antonio Guerra, the Cuban American radio talk show host in “A Matter of Opinion,” repeatedly refers to the United States as “our shores” and “our beaches” (Milanes 18). Here, although an immigrant to the U.S. himself, Guerra redefines the imagined idea of nation to include Cubans, however only those who arrived before the Mariel boatlift, and to exclude

Marielitos. Guerra creates a distinction in which Marielitos become the “foreign” that affirms the presence of a nation, or more literally, an “imagined community.” This “imagined community,” dependent on the “foreign” or deviant Marielito, was in reality as well as in

Milanes’ fiction, reaffirmed through the constant repetition of stereotypes in the media.

Homi Bhabha, post-colonial critic, argues in The Location of Culture, that the stereotype

“is a form of knowledge and identification… that must be anxiously repeated” (66). With respect to colonialism, the center of Bhabha’s argument, these stereotypes, because they did not accurately represent reality, had to be constantly repeated so as to overwhelm the contradicting reality of the colonized subjects’ actual characteristics. In a similar manner as to the colonial model of order which, according to Bhabha, through the repetition of stereotypes seeks to

“construct the colonized as a population of degenerate types… in order to justify conquest,” the

United States’ unreceptive ideology subjected Marielitos as deviant to similarly legitimize the unjust immigration policies implemented to deny them legal status (70). As mentioned earlier, during the 1960’s and 1970’s waves of Cuban migration, the United States insisted on these exile’s “desirable” qualities as “good immigrants,” so as to justify the acceptance of so many immigrants, essentially a political tactic against Castro. However, because the stereotype is also

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“a complex, ambivalent, contradictory mode of representation,” the “desirable” element assigned to Cuban immigrants was instead replaced by an “undesirable” stereotype (Bhabha 70).

During the Mariel Crisis, there existed a campaign that through its repetition of stereotypes constructed Marielitos as undesirable and deviant. The “deviance” of Marielitos was anxiously repeated, especially by the media in an attempt to overwhelm the actual reality of this population. What’s more, like the colonial model of order which stereotypes the colonized as

“degenerate” to justify conquest,” the insistence of these deviant stereotypes functioned as a mechanism to justify their rejection from the nation. Significantly, Edward Said, Post-Colonial theorist, in Orientalism argues that “what is commonly circulated by it [a culture] is not ‘truth’ but representations” (5). In this sense, the deviant images portrayed by the media of Marielitos were not necessarily truth, but representations of at best a minimal truth.

In their study of the media’s coverage of the Mariel immigrant, “From Freedom Flotilla to America's Burden: The Social Construction of the Mariel Immigrants,” Hufker and Cavender argue that the “news is a frame through which reality is socially constructed” (322).Thus, when

“initially, the media framed coverage of the flotilla in a positive light,” society likewise viewed the Marielito events in a positive light (Hufker, Cavender 321). Initially, the media’s coverage of the Mariel Boatlift paralleled the administration’s support and acceptance of Marielitos, regarding them as “people suffering under Castro and deserving special treatment” and labeling the boatlift as a “freedom flotilla” (Leoscher 183). During this time, the media broadcasted

“scenes of families reuniting after years of separation” (Leoscher 183). However, as the administration’s immigration policies changed, so did the media’s coverage.

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This initial positive coverage of the Mariel boatlift was replaced with the anti-communist and anti-Castro political agenda of the U.S. According to Hufker and Cavender’s study, the first negative news frame coverage “focused on Castro, portrayed as a wily trickster who once again had outsmarted the U.S.” (328). In fact, the Washington Post in May 1980 opined that “Castro skillfully deflects seeming setbacks to his own political advantage. Castro knows how to take advantage of the weakness of his main enemy, the U.S.” (Hufker, Cavender 328). Mass media fuelled strong public sentiments in the USA that the mass exodus of Cuban nationals represented, on the one hand, the expulsion of undesirables, and on the other hand the violation of the territorial integrity of the United States of America by economic migrants and ex- prisoners, the mentally ill, and other “deviants.” The media concentrated mainly on three deviant themes: criminality, mental illness, and homosexuality, despite the fact that only 1,800 (1%) of

Cuban criminals were detained by the government, only 47 immigrants had been "certified as insane" by the Public Health Service (P.H.S.), and less than 1,000 Cubans had identified themselves as homosexual (Hufker 329,330,331). Nevertheless, criminality was the most prevalent deviant theme which eventually dubbed Miami “the crime and murder capital of the country” (Aguirre 176). However, much of the coverage lacked official figures about the

“criminals” among the immigrants, printing the subjective observations of captains and crews

(Hufker, Cavender 328). Nevertheless, these stereotypes were “anxiously repeated” to prove that

Marielitos were in fact deviant and undesirable.

Interestingly, while research and analysis revealed how the problems and breakdown in planning and implementation of resettlement programs during the Mariel Crisis affected the immigration process of Marielitos, the media failed to broadcast these problems, and instead concentrated on publicizing Marielitos as deviant because of their own actions. The media

26 portrayed the failures of the detention camps and resettlement programs as the work of troublesome and impatient Marielitos “ignorant of the difficulties faced by efficient public servants trying to comply with the law in processing them into the country” (Aguirre 177). The media's exacerbated negative frame in the Mariel story redefined the immigrants as a deviant and undesirable population and, ultimately, developed a public consensus that widespread

“criminality” was in fact occurring amongst Marielitos.

Although a fictional account of the plight of Marielitos in Miami, in the first story of

Marielitos, Balsero and Other Exiles, “A Matter of Opinion,” Milanes depicts the media’s repetition of the Marielito deviant stereotype as a justification for their rejection at the same time that she criticizes and undermines the paradoxes of the media’s representations of “truth” that ignore social reality. “A Matter of Opinion” tells the story of a Cuban woman, Carmen, who arrived in the United States prior to the Mariel boatlift, and whose Marielito nephew, Rafael, is incarcerated without a trial. The story mainly takes place in Carmen’s apartment, although there some scenes illustrating flashbacks to Cuba. Nevertheless, readers learn about Carmen’s nephew’s incarceration through her internal dialogue as she listens to a radio talk show popular among Cuban exiles and hosted by Antonio Guerra, a staunch hardliner who opposes the

Marielito influx. During this segment of the show, Guerra covers the topic of Mariel prisoners in

Atlanta, supporting their incarcerations without trial and advocating the return of Marielitos to

Cuba. In this story, Milanes depicts a fictionalized reality of the media’s portrayal of Marielitos through the dialogue of the show while at the same time undermining the media’s claim by giving voice to Marielitos.

In this story, Milanes illustrates how the Cuban exile media in particular, in its repetition of stereotypes, functioned as a mechanism to dehumanize Marielitos so as to justify and

27 reinforce their rejection from the nation. Sara Salih, Professor of English at the University of

Toronto, argues, in her essay, “Filling Up the Space Between Mankind and Ape: Racism,

Speciesism and the Androphilic Ape,” that “the dividing lines between humans and non-humans have been repeatedly redrafted to accommodate new systems of classification which in turn represent different political agendas” (98). With respect to colonialism, hegemonic power stemmed from indoctrinating a society organized around racial boundaries to emphasize

Eurocentric superiority so as to justify the political agenda at hand-that is, colonization. The introduction of the Linnaean taxonomic system in its classification of plants and animals, humans included, brought about the argument of subspecies division based on characteristics of different human races. Imperialists utilized this system to reaffirm their dominion over non-

European groups, specifically those of African descent, often times portraying these as a subhuman and inferior species. The Linnaean system essentially justified and reinforced the binary system of classification in which white Europeans were deemed superior when placed in comparison to the supposed physiognomic inferiority of non-Europeans.

Withrespect to Marielitos, it can be argued that the dehumanizing language attributed to these exiles represents the U.S.and Cuban American’s anti-Castro and anti-communist political agenda. It must also be noted that the change in racial demographics also greatly contributed to the unreceptive attitude towardsthese immigrants. In many ways, the Miami Cuban enclave, the setting for Milanes’ collection, was a place that replicated pre-Revolutionary Cuba, a period when nonwhites were segregated from more advantaged white Cubans (Skop 465). Thus, the higher proportion of blacks among Marielitos, approximately 40 percent, contributed to the resentment they received because a racist ideology prevailed in the predominantly white Cuban exile community in Miami.

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As stated earlier, the U.S. denied Marielitos legal status as retaliation against the “scum”

Castro sent to the U.S. Thus, the dehumanization of Marielitos, like the dehumanizing colonial process, helped justify their denial of legal status and rejection from the nation. Milanes demonstrates how the media during the Mariel Crisis utilized vocabulary to describe Marielitos that arguably contained underlying tones of the dehumanizing stereotypes of colonialism. In “A

Matter of Opinion,” Guerra repeatedly refers to Marielitos as “scum;” a recycling of the term first utilized by Castro to describe Marielitos and later repeated by the Cuban exile media.

Throughout the radio talk show, phrases such as “Castro conducted a thorough spring cleaning of all the scum,” “We do not want your scum,” “labeling sympathizers… also as scum” were repeated (Milanes 17, 18, 20). The attribution of this word to Marielitos, denotatively objectifies them as “extraneous matter,” thus not only dehumanizing them but also labeling them as superfluous and therefore unwanted (http://www.merriam-webster.com/). That Guerra also describes Marielitos in this storyas “beasts,” and “animals” reemphasizes the dehumanizing classification of Marielitos. Both the words “beasts” and “animals” resonates with vocabulary utilized during colonization to dehumanize and marginalize the colonized as a wild and unmanageable sub-species to humans. This construction of their identity denied them a right to space and agency during colonization. Similarly, these words when attributed to Marielitos, denied them space and agency in the U.S.

In his radio talk show, Guerra pairs this dehumanizing language with stylized rhetoric to justify the discrimination and treatment of Marielitos. Most notably, Guerra employs a variety of rhetorical questions to encourage and persuade listeners to consider his viewpoint on the subject of Marielito prisoners jailed without trial. Instead of simply stating his opinion, Guerra brings it in as the answer to a series of impassioned questions, including “Should the United States of

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America house hardcore criminals, assassins, drug addicts and psychopaths? Those beasts that

Castro dumped on our shores in 1980?... Is it necessary, I ask you, that our President must even pose the question?... should American money and time be spent convicting self-professed convicts?” (Milanes 18). He answers the questions himself: “I say the courts are right, correct in their decision to deny them trials,” “Send them back. Dump them on Cuban shores…” (Milanes

18). His use of the rhetorical questions renders his assertions and opinions. This colonial construct of the Marielitos is yet more persuasive because the “effectiveness of rhetorical questions in argument comes from their dramatic quality” (Gardiner 339). This dramatic quality in which “the speaker both asks and answers them himself, as if he were playing two parts on the stage,” imposes a viewpoint on listeners before they can even answer the questions for themselves (Gardiner 339). This rhetorical device emphasizes Guerra’s strong opinions against

Marielitos, which he utilizes to successfully and artfully persuade his audience to believe in his position that Marielitos are “not decent citizens” and “do not deserve protection” (Milanes 21).

Guerra employs other rhetorical devices such as brevitas when he states, “Send them back,” “No, Castro!,” “Have it yourself,” "which demonstrates a sense of decisiveness and urgency prompting his audience to likewise adopt decisive rejection of Marielitos (Milanes 18).

Guerra, through these stylized utterances, persuasively creates a social construction of the reality of the Marielito Crisis, influencing, promoting, and justifying his opinion to his listeners in the story to discriminate against Marielitos, much like the mass media during the 1980’s influenced

Anglo and Cuban Americans to do the same. The media effectively helped to socially construct

Marielitos as deviant so much that it became a reality partially as it caused the unreceptive attitude and lack of support from Americans and Cuban-Americans. Through this

30 storyespecially, Milanes criticizes the Cuban Americans and exposes the hypocrisy of their rejection of Marielitos.

While at first the Cuban-American community welcomed the Marielitos with support and aid, the events shown in the media resulted in “fanning a xenophobic reaction against immigration in general among many Americans” (Rivera, Introduction). In fact, Cuban exiles in the U.S. started the “Freedom Flotilla,” and they were the ones that provided continued access to the boats that brought the Marielitos to the United States. These earlier waves of Cuban immigrants, were influenced by the political, economic, social and climate and most notably the media, and changed their receptive attitude to that of resentment and rejection. The media’s portrayal of Marielitos extended the political rejection of them onto a social rejection as well.

Furthermore, the social and ideological differences that lay between the already established exiles and the Marielitos influenced their unreceptive attitude. Later arrivals of the

Mariel boatlift were darker, demographically different and had fewer social networks to rely upon. The early Mariel exiles had a “larger proportion of women (50%) and married persons

(50%) who had direct family ties in the United States (89%)” (Skop 458). By contrast, “later

Mariel arrivals included a larger share of singles (68.5%) and males (84.9%) with fewer family ties in the United States” (Skop 458). Thus, the change in the demographics of the Marielitos over the six month span of the boatlift, also contributed to a shift in attitude among Americans and earlier waves of Cuban immigrants. The change in racial demographics, as mentioned earlier, also greatly contributed to the unreceptive attitude of these immigrants which explains the dehumanizing language used to describe Marielitos discussed earlier. Furthermore, the earlier generations of Cuban exiles were unwelcoming of the Marielitos because they were afraid of losing their image as a model minority due to the negative label attributed to the newcomers.

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Also, the Cuban American communities compared to the Marielitos were exposed to different social models. The dynamics of Cuba’s social, political and economic environment had changed since the Revolution and consequently, so had its people. Thus, as a result in the differences in social environment, many established Cuban Americans thought the newcomers were lazy and possessed poor work ethic, a common misperception stemming from anti-communist ideology.

However, this stereotype must also be evaluated in the light of the decrease in federal employment assistance as well as the recession and high unemployment in the country at the time. Milanes makes sure to highlight these same problems throughout the collection.

Milanes’ stories concentrate mostly on the relationships and interactions between the

Cuban populations in Miami, essentially, earlier waves of Cuban exiles, Marielitos, balseros and other exiles, although some characters are not in fact Cuban. Many of the interactions Milanes highlights in these stories occur between Marielitos and earlier Cuban exiles. Most notably, these interactions display a high level of hostility and resentment from the earlier exiles.

Ironically however, the “Freedom Flotilla” was initiated by Cuban exiles already in the United

States, and immigration continued throughout the six months of the boatlift because of the efforts of Cuban exiles who provided boats for the voyage from Cuba to the United States. In “A

Matter of Opinion,” Milanes illustrates the initial receptive attitude, stating that “the Cuban-exile population was ecstatic; everyone with a boat hooked it up to their car and headed for Key West” and many requested their families when vessel companies began accepting “lists of family members left behind” (Milanes 13-14). Milanes exposes the other side of this exile experience through a Marielito’s point of view in “The Fresh Boys.” In “The Fresh Boys” Milanes tells the story of high school students, including Papo, a Marielito in high school, who arrived in the U.S. at the request of his family already in Miami. When asked to write an essay about his life for

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English class, Papo discloses his experience of leaving Cuba and arriving in the U.S. He writes,

“I didn’t want to leave at first but my mother’s family here in Miami gave our names to some people who had a boat” (Milanes 92). In the case of Papo, as with many other Marielitos, he was forced out of Cuba at the request of family, yet on arriving in the United States, was ironically rejected by Cuban Americans, including his own family.

Papo writes later on, “My mother’s cousin didn’t want anything to do with me because they said I was trouble” (Milanes 93). Papo’s family in Miami requests him and his parents, yet once they arrive, he is ostracized by them based on the assumption that he is “trouble.” Even more ironically, his mother’s cousin rejects Papo because he is “trouble,” despite the fact that their own daughter abuses drugs. Papo’s internal monologue reveals, “Ha, if only they knew that their angel Susanita was doing crack!” (Milanes 93). By calling into question Papo’s family’s assumption of his “deviance,” Milanes calls into question the social construction of Marielitos as deviant more generally. Milanes illustrates a Cuban American as deviant, demonstrating that deviance exists in all populations even among the “Golden” exiles, and it is thus unjust and hypocritical for the Cuban American population to judge the Marielito population as monolithically deviant. What’s more, this instance demonstrates how the imagined idea of

Marielito deviance became so engraved that Cuban American’s rejected not only any Marielitos, but their own family members. Exposing the Cuban community’s refusal to support and aid them in the U.S., Milanes’ stories complicate our ideas about Marielitos and their reception in the U.S.

“Puyas: [puya: a steel point; the spur of a rooster; a hint]” tells the story of Lidia, a

Marielita, who struggles to raise her new born baby boy, Jonathan, as a single mother. Lidia studied engineering in Cuba and longs to pursue her passion in Miami, and finally lands a part time job as an architect. Before she gets this job however, Lidia works at a textile factory then

33 quits this job to find higher paying employment in an effort to move from her narrow one bedroom apartment. However, after she quits her factory job, the narrator notes, “It was hard finding a job that would pay more than minimum wage… because such work was plentiful in that city glutted with the undocumented and because the earlier exiles had cut off their original tide of generosity and openness and replaced it with waves of paralyzing hardness,” (Milanes

118). Through this quote, Milanes presents two alternative explanations, and critiques, for the

“deviance” imposed upon Marielitos. First, Milanes makes a critique of the city of Miami as a whole for utilizing undocumented immigrants to their advantage, or more precisely, for “doing the dirty work.” Milanes’ “city glutted,” can be read denotatively and simply as a city with an excessive amount of undocumented workers. However, connotatively this evokes an image of a personified city voraciously consuming these undocumented workers for its satisfaction.

Milanes calls into question the limitations undocumented workers, specifically Marielitos, experienced. With respect to unemployment, Milanes limits her Marielito characters in these stories to minimum-wage jobs, those jobs “imagined” as unfit for Americans.

Later in another story, “Beasts of Burden,” the story of Frito, a Cuban construction worker, Milanes directly critiques American society on their immigration policies: “He [Frito] considered Americanos stupid for wanting them [immigrants] out of the country- who throws out the one who puts a roof over your head or food onto your table?,” (Milanes 175). Here, Milanes makes a statement about the hypocrisy of some Americans in hiring undocumented workers to perform difficult yet low wage jobs in areas such as construction and agriculture, buying products produced by such workers, yet advocating their expulsion from the country.

Milanes further blames the employment limitations in “Puyas” as a result of the earlier exiles cutting off their “original tide of generosity and openness” and replacing it with

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“paralyzing hardness” (Milanes 118). Milanes thus explicitly places blame for Marielitos’ employment limitations on the Cuban American community’s unreceptive attitude. The

“paralyzing” attitude of earlier exiles, not only impeded Marielito resettlement, but placed them in a position of helplessness and vulnerability with respect to employment. The Marielitos became sealed, or “paralyzed” in their deviance much in the same way that Franz Fanon, post- colonial theorist, describes the black man as sealed in his blackness (Fanon 9). Due to the influx of Cubans arriving in Miami during the first waves of Cuban exiles, “in the early 1960s, Cuban businesses quickly sprang up to cater to the particular needs and interests of the growing émigré community, including everything from flower shops to restaurants to funeral homes” (Manzar 3).

For the earlier waves of exiles, who were received with support by the already established Cuban

Americans, this meant employment in many of these businesses. Because, by 1980, “Miami had grown to 1,625,781 inhabitants, 70% of which were of Cuban descent,” many businesses were owned by established Cuban Americans (Manzar 3). Thus, when these Cubans rejected

Marielitos, they rejected them from their major source of employment opportunity.

Nevertheless, despite the rejection from the Cuban American population, Lidia lands a job as an architect, working at the restaurant in the mornings and the architect job in the afternoons. With the income from her new job, she buys a car and lives comfortably with her son. Lidia powerfully overcomes the barriers of discrimination and “the looks, the ones earlier

émigrés once saved for Marielitos like herself[Lidia] were still present, but Lidia perceived them to be worn out and tired as time walked on” (Milanes 132). In other words, without facts to base their discrimination on, stereotypes against Marielitos, in this story, began to fade, as Marielitos, like Lidia, undermined the Marielito “deviance.” As the title suggests, this story acts as a “hint”

35 that calls for a reevaluation of the criticism, discrimination and deviant social construction of

Marielitos.

Juan, on the other hand, enjoys less success than Lidia with his new job. After learning how to speak English and independently fill out job applications, Juan gets hired as night crew for a restaurant. The Cuban restaurant manager hands him a “blue and white striped, polyester uniform…the pants loosely danced on his thighs” (Milanes 44). Through the aesthetics of Juan’s uniform paired with the image of it fitting loosely around his legs Milanes makes an allusion to the uniform worn by malnourished Holocaust prisoners. Consequently, Milanes parallels the treatment of Cuban Americans towards Marielitos and the extermination of Jews during the

Holocaust. In a similarly unjustified way to Jewish individuals discriminated against merely because of their religion, Marielitos were discriminated against merely because they arrived to the United States by way of the Mariel boatlift. Although Juan is eventually murdered by another Marielito, Milanes makes a comparison between the discrimination against Marielitos during the 1980’s and anti-Semitic ideology during the Holocaust. Milanes suggests that the discrimination against Marielitos was “artillery,” and “venom” that “paralyzed” these exiles

(Milanes 17, 118). Milanes thus compares Marielito discrimination to a form of unjust and inhumane racism.

Milanes undermines the deviant stereotypes attributed to this group of exiles through the characterization of Marielitos in her stories to present them as a dynamic population. As noted earlier, according to Hufker and Cavender’s research, one of the most circulated characteristics of the Marielito population was their supposed criminality. The media both in actuality and in

Milanes’ “A Matter of Opinion” concentrated their broadcasts on Marielito prisoners, which consequently caused the public to view them as such. However, many Marielitos were

36 incarcerated without trial under false pretense. Upon arrival, the federal government classified many Marielitos as “excludable aliens” based upon their presumed mental or criminal behavior in Cuba (Masud-Piloto 100). This classification rendered them ineligible for release into the general population because they were deemed “unfit for American society,” further establishing their deviant construction (Masud-Piloto 100). These “excludable aliens” were detained indefinitely at maximum-security federal penitentiaries and under immigration law they were denied legal counsel and other constitutional rights afforded to American prisoners (Masud-

Piloto 100). Ironically however, as mentioned above, many Marielitos lied about their criminal behavior as a means of escaping Cuba, meaning “excludability” was based upon false pretense.

Furthermore, some Marielitos even spoke of being jailed in Cuba under a new law permitting the incarceration without trial of individuals merely considered suspect. The “Dangerousness Law,” or “ley de la peligrosidad,” was applied in an Orwellian premise to individuals thought to pose actual or potential threat to the Cuban regime, regardless of evidence (Rivera 133).

It would later be alleged by some detainees and their attorneys that the faulty Spanish of

INS or FBI officers or grudge denunciations were the reason for imprisonment (Rivera 133). In fact, “U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob, describing the detention as patently unfair, ordered the release of 322 of the 1,800 Cubans held in a maximum security facility in Atlanta” and again ordered the release of hundreds of others during the following year (Hufker, Cavender 331).

Nevertheless, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detained Cubans merely suspected of criminal background (Rivera 132). Despite this evidence, much of which was revealed years later, the media often ignored the fact that many Marielitos were often imprisoned under false pretense and hid the fact that only a minority of the Mariel population were in fact criminals. Thus, the media “restated the theme that Castro had dumped dangerous criminals on

37 our shores” (Hufker, Cavender 331). Quite ironically, on July 1, 1980, a New York Times article states the low percentage of criminals in the Mariel population, pointing out that “of the 115,091 immigrants who had arrived, 1,395 (1%) were in U.S. prisons for serious crimes committed in

Cuba,” (quoted in Hufker, Cavender 329-330). Nevertheless, figures such as these “did not negate stories about Cuban criminals who allegedly posed some threat to the U.S.” and the stereotype of their monolithic criminality continued to circulate despite quantitative evidence stating otherwise (Hufker, Cavender 329-330).

For instance, in “A Matter of Opinion,” Rafael, Carmen’s nephew, is incarcerated without a trial merely because the governor of Miami decided to “clean up the streets,” and started on Biscayne Boulevard, “where her nephew has been caught in the dragnet,” (Milanes

20). Here Milanes explicitly questions the incarceration of many Marielitos as well as their denial of trials. This instance emphasizes their rejection from the nation, seeing as this right to trial is a right of citizens. In this story, Carmen undermines Guerra’s rhetoric to justify Marielito imprisonment by posing another question, “What of those put in prison without trials in Cuba and now imprisoned here in America, the land of the free?” (Milanes 23). Here, Milanes calls on her audience to consider the fact that many Marielitos were incarcerated without trials both in

Cuba and the U.S., unable to defend themselves before their accusers.

More importantly, Carmen counters Guerra’s statement that Castro unleashed “criminals, addicts, and lunatics,” when she asks him, “I take it you trust Castro’s judgments?” (Milanes 23).

Here, Milanes does not allow for readers to see Guerra’s response but instead repeats the question through narration, “the radio whispered back,…’you trust Castro’s judgments?,’”

(Milanes 23). By doing so, Milanes poses the question instead to her readers, beckoning them to likewise question the rhetoric of U.S. foreign and immigration policy during the Mariel Crisis.

38

While, as a government leader, Castro might seem an obvious source for quotes, however “he is not usually recognized as a credible source by U.S. media” (Hufker, Cavender 327). By highlighting their reliance on statements made by Castro, the supposed “wily trickster,” Milanes calls into question the credibility of U.S. foreign and immigration policy decisions during the

Mariel CrisisHufker, Cavender 328).

Furthermore, in “A Matter of Opinion,” Milanes sets the stage to explore Marielitos as a dynamic population instead of a monolithically deviant one. When the unnamed Marielito caller on Guerra’s talk show asks, “why is it that you allow your callers to lump all the Mariel exiles together?” Milanes is also asking readers to consider and question the monolithic identity assigned to Marielitos, which she undermines through her very different and distinct Marielito characters (Milanes 19).

Milanes characterizes the Marielitos in her stories as hardworking individuals to undermine and critique the stereotyped assumption that the deviant social construction of

Marielitos was a result of their own laziness and unwillingness to work. In “La Buena Vida,” for instance, Juan while living with his cousin Mario and Lupe, “contributed money for the rent,” which characterizes him as a contributing member of society. Juan even “decided to help in whatever way he could” so that “maybe she[Lupe] would like him better,” (Milanes 34). Juan thus exemplifies a Marileito willing to work and contribute in order to be accepted by society.

Also, while at his job at the restaurant, Juan was even promoted within a month, which demonstrates his skill and dedication as a worker. Milanes characterizes Juan as someone who takes pride in his work, even if it is a minimum wage job. Although Mario didn’t think his job was important, “Juan insisted that working five ten-hour days was like a gift from God,”

(Milanes 27). Thus despite the evident financial limitations of Juan’s job, he demonstrates

39 gratitude to be employed and getting paid, even if it is minimal pay. After being kicked out of his home and fired from his job for no clear reason, Juan looks for a job “until his feet hurt,” indicating the extent of his dedication to look for employment and continue being a productive and contributing individual, contrary to the stereotypes. Despite his efforts to find a job, Juan remains unemployed.

However, Milanes makes sure to include the economic circumstances of the United

States in which the recession of the 1980’s saw an increase in unemployment, to illustrate that unemployment was affecting the nation as a whole, not just the Marielito population. Thus,

Milanes highlights that Marielitos’ inability to find jobs, which essentially would integrate them into society as useful and working individuals, was not necessarily their fault but instead a result of the economic situation as well as the lack of federal funding provided to Marielitos for employment integration. Milanes also undermines the criticism of the earlier exiles in Miami who claimed that the Marielitos were ruining their reputation as “good immigrants,” and “golden exiles.” In “A Matter of Opinion,” the author juxtaposes the opinion of a caller, presumably by his “elderly voice” a “Golden Exile,” who claimed that Marielitos “humiliated and degraded the first exiles and their reputation,” with Carmen’s internal dialogue, “Carmen thought of her landlord’s daughter who had married a Marielito, now a successful gallery owner on Flagler

Street… the fruit market at the corner run by a Marielito, a sweet boy” (Milanes 19). Through this juxtaposition, Milanes strategically counters the caller’s statement, which reflects the opinions of many of the earlier exiles, by giving examples of Marielitos who were successfully running businesses in Miami. Milanes provides similar examples in “Abuela Marielita.”

In “Abuela Marielita,” Soledad, a Marielta grandmother, lies about her way of arrival to the United States because her daughter, Gertrudes, doesn’t want people to know that Soledad

40 arrived in the U.S. through the Mariel Boatlift because it “was not popular to help Marielitos anymore” (Milanes 63). Soledad thus instead says she “came by way of Spain in January 1980,” before the Mariel began (Milanes 62). Throughout the story, Soledad faces discrimination from her own daughter as well as her grandchildren and finds company only in Yamile, a Marielita single mother, living in the efficiency behind their home. However, even Gertudes’ criticizes

Yamile for “being on welfare and only working part-time at the farmacia” despite the fact that

Yamile “always pays her rent on time and in full,” (Milanes 65). Milanes here again juxtaposes fallacious criticism about Yamile with the reality of her behavior to expose the paradox in criticism and discrimination of all Marielitos.

Through these various examples of Marielitos working to sustain and contribute to society, Milanes illustrates that the Marielito population was not monolithically lazy, but instead contained many productive individuals. Milanes also portrays Juan as dedicated and hard working towards contributing and integrating himself into American society when he learns

English without formal instruction. Even before he was forced into homelessness, Juan said to himself, “From now on… he would really make an effort to learn English, but it was so hard when almost everyone he knew spoke only his language,” (Milanes 28). This quote likewise undermines the assumptions and stereotypes that arose during the 1980’s about Marielitos.

Criticism such as their unwillingness to learn English helped construct Marielitos as deviant; however, Milanes through this quote demonstrates alternative reasons for the difficulty of

Marielitos to learn English. They arrived and most remained in a community in which Spanish was a widely used language and limited their contact with English, thus making the acquisition process difficult. Nevertheless, Juan demonstrates determination in learning English and although in the beginning of the story, most of his dialogue is in Spanish, by the end, he is able

41 to hold fluent conversations in English with Bill, his English-speaking homeless companion.

Through such scenarios, Milanes both questions and provides alternative explanations for

Marielito “deviance.”

Essentially, Milanes’ stories undermine the monolithic social construction of Marielitos in the United States. The circulation of the deviant stereotype attributed to these Cuban immigrants served as justification for their anomalous legal status which, as Milanes makes clear, affected the Marielitos resettlement process. In efforts to retaliate against Castro’s supposed dumping of Cubans deemed “undesirable” to the regime, the United States refused to grant Marielitos refugee status partly because they believed the immigrants to be in fact deviant.

Thus, a monolithic deviant construction began to despite evidence that only a very small percentage of this population was in fact deviant. In an interconnected, self-prophetic cycle,

Marielitos come to conform to these deviant stereotypes, including for example, as in the case of

Juan, homelessness.

Milanes however brings to light alternative explanations for Marielito deviance, demonstrating that this deviance was much more often the result of U.S. policy and Cuban

American’s actions than of their own “deviant” behaviorMilanes questions U.S. immigration policy and the stereotypes that emerged from such policies, by revealing not only that the United

States was naively entrusting the claims of Fidel Castro, their enemy, but also that the stereotypes became a social reality as a result of political ideology.

For the most part, the Marielitos in Milanes’ stories are functional and contributing members of society. Significantly, these characters are fictional yet based on Milanes’ experience with this population. Each short story tells a portion of the life of a different

42

Marielito: “A Matter of Opinion” tells the story of an incarcerated Marielito, while “La Buena

Vida” tells the story of a homeless Marielito, “Abuela Marielita” that of an ostracized Marielita,

“The Fresh Boys,” of high school Marielitos, and “Puyas” of a single mother who happens to also be a Marielita. Through these Marielitos, which evidently differ in gender, age, and circumstance, Milanes portrays the reality of this group of exiles- that they were a dynamic, not monolithic population. Thus each of these Milanes’ protagonists defies the stereotypes attributed to them. For instance, Rafael was unjustly incarcerated without trail, Juan was hardworking and dedicated, and Lidia was hardworking and skilled.

Milanes also attributes the deviant circumstances of many of these Marielitos to external situations of the time period in Miami including the economic situation of unemployment, language barriers, and the unreceptive attitude of Cuban Americans towards Marielitos. Thus,

Milanes undermines the deviant social construction attributed to Marileitos, by revealing alternative explanations to their deviance while at the same time, criticizing the U.S. and Cuban

American population during the Mariel Crisis.

43

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