Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 PDF Download

Author: Kathleen Dupes Hawk
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817318372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 recounts first-hand the drama and political intrigue that erupted when more than thirty thousand Cuban refugees fled to Florida and the stories of the first responders who aided them.

Author: Victor Andres Triay
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 1683400992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
American Association for State and Local History Leadership in History Award in Local History - Honorable Mention Florida Book Awards, Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction Set against the sweeping backdrop of one of the most dramatic refugee crises of the twentieth century, The Mariel Boatlift presents the stories of Cuban immigrants to the United States who overcame frightening circumstances to build new lives for themselves and flourish in their adopted country. Award-winning historian Victor Triay portrays the repressive climate in Cuba as the democratic promises of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution gave way to a communist dictatorship under which the people of the island became virtually cut off from the outside world. He illustrates how escalating internal tensions during the regime’s second decade in power culminated in an exodus of over 125,000 Cuban refugees across the Straits of Florida during the spring and summer of 1980. Alongside a fast-paced narrative offering a brief history of the Mariel Boatlift, Triay presents testimonies from former Mariel refugees who recall their lives in Cuba before the boatlift and how they longed to reunite with family members who lived in exile in the United States. Their captivating stories detail the physical and psychological abuse they endured in Cuba at the hands of pro-government mobs and the mistreatment many experienced at processing centers there before reaching the port of Mariel. They recall treacherous journeys to Key West aboard vessels that were deliberately overcrowded to life-threatening levels by Cuban authorities, as well as their experiences settling in Miami and beyond. Called the scum—escoria—of society by the Cuban government, a false portrayal accepted and spread by some in the American media, Mariel refugees faced extraordinary challenges upon entering U.S. society. Yet, despite the obstacles placed before them, the overwhelming majority of these immigrants successfully transitioned to their new lives as Americans and many have emerged as leading professionals, scholars, writers, artists, and businesspeople. This book shares their hardships and successes while profoundly illustrating the human impact of international power struggles.

Author: David Edward Card
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cuba
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effect of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami labor market, focusing on the wages and unemployment rates of less-skilled workers. The Mariel immigrants increased the population and labor force of the Miami metropolitan area by 7 percent. Most of the immigrants were relatively unskilled: as a result, the proportional increase in labor supply to less-skilled occupations and industries was much greater. Nevertheless, an analysis of wages of non-Cuban workers over the 1979-85 period reveals virtually no effect of the Mariel influx. Likewise, there is no indication that the Boatlift lead to an increase in the unemployment rates of less-skilled blacks or other non-Cuban workers. Even among the Cuban population wages and unemployment rates of earlier immigrants were not substantially effected by the arrival of the Mariels.

Author: Mario A. Rivera
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780819183897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The 1980 Cuban influx represented a unique challenge to federal refugee policy mechanisms and to prevalent concepts of policy analysis and evaluation. The persistence of unworkable policies across two Presidential administrations suggests that organizational, structural, and decisional rather than personality or motivational factors were principally determinative of policy failure. This work suggests elements of a causal theory based on these factors, and a mode of normative evaluation based on mixed analytical strategies that attend to both decisional process and institutional structure.

Author: Susana Peña
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816686688
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
During only a few months in 1980, 125,000 Cubans entered the United States as part of a massive migration known as the Mariel boatlift. The images of boats of all sizes, in various conditions, filled with Cubans of all colors and ages, triggered a media storm. Fleeing Cuba’s repressive government, many homosexual men and women arrived in the United States only to face further obstacles. Deemed “undesirables” by the U.S. media, the Cuban state, and Cuban Americans already living in Miami, these new entrants marked a turning point in Miami’s Cuban American and gay histories. In Oye Loca, Susana Peña investigates a moment of cultural collision. Drawing from first-person stories of Cuban Americans as well as government documents and cultural texts from both the United States and Cuba, Peña reveals how these discussions both sensationalized and silenced the gay presence, giving way to a Cuban American gay culture. Through an examination of the diverse lives of Cuban and Cuban American gay men, we learn that Miami’s gay culture was far from homogeneous. By way of in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis, Peña shows that the men who crowded into small apartments together, bleached their hair with peroxide, wore housedresses in the street, and endured ruthless insults challenged what it meant to be Cuban in Miami. Making a critical incision through the study of heteronormativity, homosexualities, and racialization, ultimately Oye Loca illustrates how a single historical event helped shape the formation of an entire ethnic and sexual landscape.

Author: Norman L. Zucker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315480956
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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This work provides an examination of US refugee policy since the 1960s, particularly as it has been applied to Cuba, Haiti and Central America. The authors also address world-wide refugee problems, proposing ideas for the 21st century.

Author: José Szapocznik
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Adolescent Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Author: David Wells Engstrom
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847684144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The subject of refugee policy has generated considerable public debate during the past decade. In this case study of presidential decision-making, David W. Engstrom analyzes the Carter Administration's response to the Mariel boatlift from Cuba in 1979. Engstrom argues that a faulty decision making structure and ignorance of the historic dynamics of Cuban immigration contributed to the government's mishandling of the refugee crisis. More generally, he explores the ways in which refugee policy is shaped by foreign policy concerns, domestic politics, and economic circumstances. This important book will be of interest to students and scholars of Latin American studies, foreign policy, and immigration and refugee policy.

Author: José Manuel García
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813063396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Between April and September 1980, more than 125,000 Cuban refugees fled their homeland, seeking freedom from Fidel Castro's dictatorship. They departed in boats from the port of Mariel and braved the dangerous 90-mile journey across the Straits of Florida. Told in the words of the immigrants themselves, the stories in Voices from Mariel offer an up-close view of this international crisis, the largest oversea mass migration in Latin American history. Former refugees describe what it was like to gather among thousands of dissidents on the grounds of the Peruvian embassy in Cuba, where the movement first began. They were abused by the masses who protested them as they made their way to the Mariel harbor, before they were finally permitted to leave the country by Castro in an attempt to disperse the civil unrest. They waited interminably for boats in oppressive heat, squalor, and desperation at the crowded tent camp known as "El Mosquito." They embarked on vessels overloaded with too many passengers and battled harrowing storms on their journeys across the open ocean. Author Jose Manuel Garcia, who emigrated on the Mariel boatlift as a teenager, describes the events that led to the exodus and explains why so many Cubans wanted to leave the island. The shockingly high numbers of refugees who came through immigration centers in Key West, Miami, and other parts of the United States was a message--loud and clear--to the world of the people's discontent with Castro’s government and the unfulfilled promises of the Cuban Revolution. Based on the award-winning documentary of the same name, Voices from Mariel features the experiences of marielitos from all walks of life. These are stories of disappointed dreams, love for family and country, and hope for a better future. This book illuminates a powerful moment in history that will continue to be felt in Cuba and the United States for generations to come.

Author: Kathleen Dupes Hawk
Publisher: University Alabama Press
ISBN: 9780817318376
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Winner of the Florida Historical Society's 2015 Stetson Kennedy Award The 1980 Mariel Boatlift was a profound episode in twentieth-century American history, impacting not just Florida, but the entire country. During the first twenty days of the boatlift, with little support from the federal government, the state of Florida coordinated and responded to the sudden arrival in Key West of more than thirty thousand Cuban refugees, the first wave of immigrants who became known as “Marielitos.” Kathleen Dupes Hawk, Ron Villella, Adolfo Leyva de Varona, and Kristen Cifers combine the insights of expert observers with the experiences of actual participants. The authors organize and present a wealth of primary sources, first-hand accounts, archival research, government records, and interviews with policy-makers, volunteers, and refugees that bring into focus the many far-reaching human, political, and cultural outcomes of the Mariel Boatlift that continue to influence Florida, the United States, and Cuba today. Emerging from these key records and accounts is a grand narrative of high human drama. Castro’s haphazard and temporary opening of Cuba spurred many thousands of Cubans to depart in calamitously rushed, unprepared, and dangerous conditions. The book tells the stories of these Cuban citizens, most legitimately seeking political asylum but also including subversive agents, convicted criminals, and the mentally ill, who began arriving in the US beginning in April 1980. It also recounts how local and state agencies and private volunteers with few directives or resources were left to improvise ways to provide the Marielitos food, shelter, and security as well as transportation away from Key West. The book provides a definitive account of the political, legal, and administrative twists on the local, state, and federal levels in response to the crisis as well as of the often-dysfunctional attempts at collaboration between governmental and private institutions. Vivid and readable, Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 presents the significant details that illuminate and humanize this complex humanitarian, political, and logistical crisis.