Cuban Americans

SIGNIFICANCE: Large numbers of Cuban refugees entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the 1960s and 1980s. Their tightly knit, prosperous communities, and later, their sheer numbers, caused racial tension and conflict, particularly with African American communities in Miami.

In 1959, Fidel Castro led a popular revolt that toppled the government of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar in Cuba. A small number of Cubans who had sympathized with the Batista government fled to the United States. This tiny trickle of wealthy Cubans grew to torrential proportions as more and more people became dissatisfied with the new regime. The immigrants who came in this migratory wave, like those who came in the two that preceded it, met with discrimination and racial tensions in their new home.

Early Immigrants

Twice before, large numbers of Cubans had sought refuge from war by traveling to the United States and various Latin American nations. The first group left Cuba between 1868 and 1878 during the battle for independence known in Cuba as the Ten Years’ War. Most of the Cubans went to the Florida cities of Key West and Tampa, although some relocated to New York City and New Orleans. After the peace accord was signed in 1878, many Cubans returned to the island, although quite a large number remained in both Key West and Tampa (actually Ybor City) to work in the newly established tobacco factories.

These early immigrants—whose descendants still live in the area—formed tightly knit communities that revolved around the Catholic Church and Spanish culture. Because the principal reason for the migration had been political, not economic, most Cubans viewed their time in the United States as temporary. Perhaps for this reason, they assimilated to a lesser extent than most immigrant groups and did not adopt many American norms or much of the culture. This was a major cause of tension between Cubans and the established population.

YearEvent1492Explorer Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba.1514Settlement of Cuba begins.1868-1878The Ten Years’ War is fought in Cuba, causing a large Cuban migration to the United States.1895-1898The Cuban War of Independence/Spanish-American War occurs. Many Cubans seek refuge in the United States.1959Fidel Castro takes control of Cuba through a revolution. Many supporters of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar leave.1960In January, the United States and Cuba sever diplomatic relations. A large migration of Cubans to Florida begins.1961The Bay of Pigs invasion takes place in April.1962The Missile Crisis occurs in October.1964President Johnson authorizes Freedom Flights from Cuba. Many more Cubans flee the island.1980The Mariel boatlift occurs. More than 125,000 Cubans leave the island on makeshift rafts and in boats rented by their relatives. Many criminals are included in these groups.1989The Soviet Union collapses.1994A smaller boatlift occurs, but President Bill Clinton puts an end to it by not granting the preferred status of refugee to future arrivals.

The end of the nineteenth century brought another large influx of Cubans. When the Cuban War of Independence started in February, 1895, and as conditions on the island deteriorated, large numbers of Cubans migrated to the United States and Latin America. As in the previous migration, Cubans settled mostly in Florida and other large eastern American cities. This time, the immigrants did not suffer as much culture shock because the Cubans who remained behind after the end of the Ten Years’ War provided a ready-made Cuban American community where they could locate.

Twentieth Century

The Cuban War of Independence, which in the United States became known as the Spanish-American War (1898), lasted three years, during which Cuban exiles lived in communities separated in many ways from the local population. Then, in 1953, Fidel Castro began a revolt against the corrupt government of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar that resulted in the Cuban Revolution and Castro’s socialization of the economy under a communist-allied government. By the early 1960s, when the wave of Cubans fleeing the Castro regime arrived, many of the Cuban Americans were second- or third-generation Americans and did not have a lot in common with the newer arrivals. Therefore, the post-Castro Cubans had to contend with the criticisms of the older, established Cuban Americans.

The first wave of post-Castro Cubans arrived immediately after Castro took over. Shortly after the United States and Cuba broke diplomatic relations in January, 1960, the next migratory wave began. In this wave were more than fifty thousand children without their parents, who were brought to the United States by a former president of Cuba and other Cubans, the US Catholic Welfare Bureau, and Senator George A. Smathers of Florida.

The next large wave was made up of refugees who arrived on the Freedom Flights initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid-1960s. Two daily flights brought thousands of Cubans, straining the economy of Florida, where most of them settled. Working-class Americans, especially African Americans in Miami, suffered when jobs were lost to workers willing to work for any wage simply to have employment. During this time, many Cubans, formerly professionals, worked menial jobs while they attended night school in order to perfect their English and perhaps return to their chosen professions.

In the 1970s, the number of Cuban refugees fell, and many earlier arrivals began to move away from Miami’s Little Havana to its suburbs or to other southern cities. By the time the Mariel boatlift of 1980 started, the early refugees were enjoying a high standard of living and were able to help the new arrivals establish themselves. However, the boatlift strained the public resources of southern Florida and created racial tensions. A riot broke out in the African American community in Miami after the acquittal of a Hispanic police officer who shot an African American. After much destruction, order was restored although the underlying tension did not go away. Congress passed the 1980 Refugee Act, which substantially lowered the number of Cuban refugees that could be admitted each year.

Twenty-First Century

In 1995, the United States implemented the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, in which Cuban refugees caught in the waters between the two countries would be sent back to Cuba, whereas those who reached US soil would be permitted to stay. Following this policy change, Cuban refugees changed their methods, sailing to Mexico and then entering the United States via the Mexico-Texas border, rather than going by boat to Florida. As a result, the Cuban American population in Texas grew significantly between 1995 and 2008. In 2008, Mexico and Cuba created an agreement preventing the emigration of Cubans via Mexico; in the 2010s, Puerto Rico became a common point of entry for Cubans attempting to enter the United States.

Cuban Americans constitute the third largest Hispanic group in the United States, after Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. Because the earlier waves of Cuban refugees were composed of middle- to upper-class Cubans, the south Florida area has experienced tremendous growth. Studies suggest that significant differences exist between refugees—like the Cubans—who migrate for political reasons and those who migrate for economic reasons. Cuban Americans have a higher median household income and a higher percentage of college-educated individuals than any other Hispanic American group, though these figures are still lower than those for non-Hispanic white Americans.

The Cuban American community is very tightly knit, although its members vary greatly in their cultural affiliations: Some members follow Cuban customs and traditions; others tend to live more or less typical American lifestyles. There is, however, some tension between Cubans of Spanish descent, who form the vast majority of the Cuban population in the United States, and Afro-Cubans. Afro-Cubans make up approximately 20 percent of the Cuban population, but only 2.9 percent of the Cuban American population (as of 2010); they tend to be of a lower socioeconomic status and may lack the resources to immigrate. Those Afro-Cubans who do come to the United States are still often disadvantaged compared to their white Cuban American counterparts, and may experience racism within the immigrant community.

One attribute that separates Cuban Americans from other immigrant groups is their staunchly anti-communist stance. Although other immigrant groups have softened their stance on communists in China or Vietnam, the Cuban American community, especially in Miami, has tended to view this change in stance as a weakness. This attitude is likely to prevail until the community is predominantly second- and third-generation Cuban Americans. Cuban Americans also tend to be more conservative than other Latino groups in the United States; conservative presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have enjoyed great popularity and support within the Cuban American community, and there have been many Cuban American Republican politicians at both the state and federal levels. However, in the twenty-first century this has begun to shift: in the 2008 presidential election, 55 percent of Miami Cuban Americans under the age of twenty-nine voted for Barack Obama, and a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of Cuban American voters age eighteen to forty-nine supported Democratic candidates, compared to just 39 percent of Cuban Americans age fifty and over. This, however, changed again in the 2016 presidential elections. According to the Pew Research Center, 54 percent of Cuban Americans supported Donald Trump in the state of Florida. Nonetheless, a significant portion of Cuban Americans—41 percent—voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Pew Research found a shift in voter registrations, with 58 percent of registered Cubans voters leaning Republican. In the 2020 election, 52 percent of Cuban voters in Florida voted for Donald Trump. Cuban support in the 2020 election helped Donald Trump secure the electoral votes of Florida, though he lost the national election.

Bibliography

Firmat, Gustavo Pérez. Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way. Rev. ed., U of Texas P, 2012.

González Maestrey, Rodney A. “Trumpism, Cuban Americans, and the Fetishism of Politics.” International Journal of Cuban Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, Dec. 2023, pp. 152–74, EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.15.2.0152. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel. "After Decades of GOP Support, Cubans Shifting toward the Democratic Party." Pew Research Center, 24 June 2014, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/06/24/after-decades-of-gop-support-cubans-shifting-toward-the-democratic-party/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel. “Most Cuban American Voters Identify as Republican in 2020.” Pew Research Center, 2 Oct. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/02/most-cuban-american-voters-identify-as-republican-in-2020/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel. "Unlike Other Latinos, about Half of Cuban Voters in Florida Backed Trump." Pew Research Center, 15 Nov. 2016, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/15/unlike-other-latinos-about-half-of-cuban-voters-in-florida-backed-trump. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Lohmeier, Christine. Cuban Americans and the Miami Media. McFarland, 2014.

López, Antonio M. Unbecoming Blackness: The Diaspora Cultures of Afro-Cuban America. New York UP, 2012.

Vinopal, Courtney. “Trump Takes Florida with Support from White and Cuban American Voters.” PBS News, 4 Nov. 2020, www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-took-florida-despite-biden-lead-with-hispanic-voters. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.