H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-LatAm@h-net.msu.edu (August 1998)


Garcia, Maria Cristina. _Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in
South Florida, 1959-1994_ . Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1996. Xii + 290 pages.  Notes, bibliography, index.  $35.00 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-520-20131-0; $16.95 (paper) ISBN: 0-520-21117-0.


Reviewed for H-LatAm by Robert G. Brito <rbrito@icanect.net>, Hallandale
High School.


_Havana USA_:  Border Town in Search of Identity


Maria Cristina Garcia has undertaken a much needed historical investigation:
the Cuban presence in South Florida since the triumph of Fidel Castro and
the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. Garcia, a Cuban emigre herself, has
dug deeply into several archives seeking to explain the players, the reasons
for their actions, and the outcomes. She offers a very accurate and
dispassionate analysis of the Cuban emigre community's struggles, hopes, and
destination.

_Havana USA_, following an introductory analysis, is divided into two parts.
Part One, "The Emigration" is subdivided as 1) "Exiles, Not Immigrants,
Cuban Immigration to the United States,1959-1973," and 2) "The Mariel
Boatlift of 1980, Origins and Consequences."  Part Two, "The Emigres" is
subdivided thusly: 3) "Defining an Identity in the United States," 4) "The
Evolution of Cuban Exile Politics," and 5) "Cuban Writers and Scholars in
Exile." The book ends with Maria Cristina Garcia's Conclusion.  There are
forty-five pages of notes, a twenty-one page bibliography, and an index.

Garcia's purpose is to provide historians and sociologists with a
fascinating case study in American immigration and ethnic history from the
perspective of the immigrants' response to life in the United States.
Professor Garcia asserts that Cuban exiles have developed a dual identity as
both Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans. She refers to this phenomenon as
cultural negotiation.

Nonetheless, Garcia's  _Havana USA_  barely scratches the surface of the
real motives of one of the largest, most complex contemporary immigrations
into the United States.  _Havana USA_,  while trying to explain a
controversial and very fluid environment,  leaves us with more questions
than it answers. New and oftentimes unexpected elements may, in some cases,
alter or tweak the definition being attempted.

The sections on the emigrations is straightforward historical reporting
utilizing newspaper articles, journal studies, private interviews, oral
histories, archival documents, and government sources.  It is disappointing,
however, how Garcia glosses over that first major wave of immigration that
took place under the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration.  The section from
early 1961 to the beginning of the massive refugee airlift ordered by Lyndon
Johnson, occupies most of her attention.  There are no references to
archival materials from the Eisenhower administration. (1)

It is now a well established fact that Cubans came to the United States in
several waves. The defeat of the Batista regime on January 1, 1959 initiated
a mass exodus with South Florida, specifically the Miami area, as its
destination.  Local residents began to resent the influx of these Caribbean
refugees.  Cuban exile politics and culture began to permeate the sultry,
rather quiet, South Florida environment.  That neighborhoods began to fill
with the aromas and sounds of a very dynamic people was not appreciated by
everyone.

Cuban politics, motivated from Washington, spilled daily onto the first
pages of Miami newspapers. As the refugee influx grew, more complications
arose that affected civil and political life in Dade County, Florida. The
local government was reeling from unemployment and a mild recession. Exiles
were vocal opponents of the Castro regime and they saw fit to demonstrate
their anger in public places. This was new to an area that prized itself for
its calm and tourist flavor.

A considerable number of refugees arrived following the Bay of Pigs defeat.
The administration of John F. Kennedy, while seeking to destroy Castro and
his regime in a secret war, decided to help the  refugees by relocating and
retraining them to obtain gainful employment in the United States.

The October 1962 crisis stopped the massive refugee influx for several
months.  Private and official rescue efforts to bring back to the United
States the captured Bay of Pig "brigadista" invaders, included a decision to
bring the "brigadista" families as well.  Many more Cubans saw in this an
opportunity to seek asylum in the United States, creating a crisis situation
for the Castro regime.

On September 28, 1965, Fidel Castro announced that Cubans with relatives in
the United States could leave the island.  Professor Garcia does not provide
us with a definite answer as to whether Castro's pronouncement was either a
calculated or a spontaneous act to control dissent by allowing massive
emigration to take place.  Exiles sailed to Cuba, without permission from
U.S. authorities, starting the Camarioca Boatlift, precursor of the Mariel
Boatlift.  Lyndon Johnson's administration decided to accept these Cuban
refugees and more, but in an orderly manner.  The Freedom Flights commenced
in 1965 and the Immigration Act of 1952 was amended to take in these
newcomers.

Most of the Cubans settled again in South Florida, although resettlement to
northern cities  was in keeping with the Eisenhower-Kennedy policies between
1960 to 1962.  The Freedom Flights ended in 1973 during the Richard Nixon
administration.

Garcia indicates that the Johnson administration already was molding Cuban
desires and attitudes.  She states, "even though the Johnson administration
articulated its 'strong desire' that Cuba should 'be freed from Communist
domination,' the administration hoped to encourage emigres to establish
psychological ties to the United States rather than to cling to the hope
that they would soon return to their homeland." (p. 42)

The duality of this policy, to publicly encourage Cubans to seek freedom for
their homeland, but at the same time, pressing them to work within the
system and become Americans is not fully analyzed in  _Havana USA_.  The
1960s brought a number of exile operations against the Castro regime -- some
apparently sanctioned by government officials, some endorsed by the Central
Intelligence Agency, and others without US support.  If Professor Garcia had
discussed in more detail the various administrations' roles in encouraging
the exiles to seek a free Cuba, one might better understand the motivations
for patently illegal activities by some exiles.

On the other hand, precious little is said about Presidents Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford with regards to Cuban refugee policy.  Both presidents were
very popular among the Cuban exiles.  Were they providing false hopes while
seeking political support?  Professor Garcia's discussion instead centers
around several isolated, but highly publicized, incidents of outrage
perpetrated by some exile groups or individuals.  A more ample discussion of
the administrations' activities among exiles would have shed more light on
the events that took place in the mid to late seventies, which exploded with
the 1980 massive Mariel exodus.  Very few archival references are made of
this period.  This reviewer finds this well researched book deficient in
this area.

By September 1977, 665,043 Cubans had arrived in the United States. Garcia
affirms that "the Castro government's official policy of externalizing
dissent ceased." (p. 45)  This externalization of dissent was hinted at, but
not previously discussed in her book.

This reviewer cannot fathom whether it was the recency or the massive media
play of the event which caused Professor Garcia to dedicate an entire
chapter to the Mariel Boatlift of 1980.  She does report accurately the
sequence of events that led to that massive refugee wave.  Migratory waves
from Cuba have been associated with a great deal of upheaval within the
island.

Between 1969 and 1970, Castro committed the entire nation's resources to a
gigantic sugar harvest to free Cuba from economic distress.  The 10 Million
Ton Harvest -- la zafra de los 10 millones -- was officially touted as
Cuba's salvation or cure-all for the nation's stagnant economy.  The harvest
was a dismal failure.  Not only had Castro exacted an extremely high price
from the Cuban people, but also from the industrial and economic
infrastructures of the island nation.  A sense of frustration and defeat
permeated the Cuban society.  Castro even suggested publicly on his 26 July,
1970, speech that he would resign if the people willed it.

As a result, Cuba in the 1970s underwent tremendous change in both its
government and economic structures spurred by the Soviet Union.  The Soviets
demanded more discipline from their Caribbean ally.  Sugar prices were high
and Cuba made some progress in her development programs.  A new constitution
was adopted, modeled after that of the Soviet Union.  But Cuba was becoming
drawn militarily into African conflicts as her leaders proclaimed
internationalism as an objective of their socialist society.  This
tremendous manpower and resource drain began to fray the fragile island
economy and its society.

Professor Garcia discusses the controversial "dialogo" overtures to dialog
between the Cuban government and approved sectors of the Cuban community
living abroad.  This idea of "dialogo" was, and still is, extremely
controversial and sensitive among the greater majority of exiles.

Resulting from this new rapprochement, in 1979 the Jimmy Carter
administration allowed exiles to travel to Cuba for short family visits and
return to the United States.  Exiled Cubans saw this as an opportunity to be
reunited with their families after many years of separation.  Much to their
chagrin, the Castro authorities allowed these seemingly unsupervised visits
to take place for about one year.

Cubans on the island could appreciate first hand the prosperity -- real or
imagined -- of those who had emigrated.  Visitors carried dollars, food
stuffs, clothes, appliances, electronic gadgets, and tales of income earning
and buying power.  These visitors also carried their unswerving dislike for
the Cuban regime and made it patently obvious that exile life was not all
that bad.  Disaffection permeated the air.  A wave of embassy invasions by
Cubans seeking political asylum followed.  The events at the Peruvian
Embassy are well documented by Garcia.  This was the catalyst for the Mariel
Boatlift.

In April 1980, over 10,000 Cubans invaded the Peruvian embassy in Havana,
creating a potentially explosive situation for the Castro government.  It
was a public relations fiasco for Castro and the regime.  Castro spoke  to
the Cuban nation in April 1980 and stated that anyone not wanting to live in
a revolutionary Cuba could leave.  He followed the exact same strategy
devised back on his September 28, 1965 speech that resulted in the Camarioca
boatlift, which was followed by the Freedom Flights.  This speech started
one of the most massive and dangerous boatlifts of all times.  Over 124,000
Cubans arrived in the United States over about thirty days onboard a
flotilla of exile vessels.  Nearly 1,500 hard core criminals and
undesirables had been placed onboard and banished to the United States by
the Cuban authorities.

The Carter administration, faced with massive uncontrolled immigration from
Haiti and Cuba, determined to grant a new migratory status to both groups of
refugees.  The new term, "entrant," spelled, for all practical purposes, a
radical change in the historical migratory policy towards Cubans.  Most
exile Cuban commentators realized that American emotions towards refugees
would never be the same and that Cubans would be treated just as any other
foreign national seeking refuge in the United States.

A newly elected President Ronald Reagan warned Castro that another
uncontrolled, massive emigration to the United States would not be tolerated
and that it would be considered a serious act against the United States.  A
restructuring of the migratory accords between the United States and Cuba
resulted in setting immigration quotas for Cubans.

In the early 1990s, a new wave of uncontrolled immigration from Cuba
occurred under William Clinton's administration.  Over 17,000 Cuban rafters
tried to enter the United States illegally.  Rafts were makeshift floating
vessels made with old inner tubes, styrofoam, wood, or empty gasoline drums.
Sometimes these rafters ñ "balseris" -- came in old, unseaworthy, fishing
boats.

After a controversial and bitter debate that pitted segments of the exile
community against one another, the Clinton administration and Cuba
subscribed a 20,000 Cubans per year quota in 1994.  That same number had
been agreed upon by the Reagan administration in 1984.

The Clinton administration practically rescinded the liberal Cuban
Adjustment Act, whose intention had been to help refugees from a communist
regime become US residents.  The Act was replaced by the New York,
Washington, and Havana Immigration Accords of 1994 whereby the term
"refugee" was supplanted by that of "illegal immigrant."  An era had closed.
Clinton had effectively reversed a thirty-year old American Cuban refugee
policy.

Garcia's Chapter 3, "Defining an Identity in the United States," reviews the
cultural and political considerations of the Cuban exiles.  She speaks of
the imperative of preserving "cubanidad."  She states that this feat was
easier in Miami than in any other place in the United States.

Cubans pride themselves of believing that modern Miami is their creation.
Cuban entrepreneurial spirit and dynamism opened untold possibilities for
other arrivals -- not exclusively Cubans -- to South Florida.  Cuban food
and restaurants, businesses, associations, theater, newspapers, schools,
bookstores and publishing houses, "tertulias" (conversation and discussion
groups), workshops, university courses, educational curricula, fairs, and
carnivals mushroomed.  These outward symbols of a transplanted culture
indicate, as Professor Garcia points out, a desire to maintain Cuban roots
intact at all costs.  However, Cubans have never likened their exile to a
permanent one.

Garcia's attempt to find answers to this phenomenon makes her concentrate on
the more obvious economic power, followed by political power.  The
psychological engine has been the realization that maintaining Cuban
identity was a top priority for the rescue and survival of "la Cuba
tradicional."  Exiles have gauged daily Castro's onslaught against Cuban
republican ideals and structures.  Their preeminent role has been to
maintain alive the idea of the Cuban nation, "independiente y soberana," --
independent and unfettered.

Professor Garcia's discussion of the "municipios" -- associations that group
exiles by their places of regional origin -- exemplifies how active this
cultural mission has been.  Garcia does not, however, investigate whether
this concept of maintaining national links through the immigrants'
municipalities, townships, or counties, was ever applied by other exile
groups.

The Cubans' links to "la patria" -- motherland -- were obviously, and have
been necessarily, beneficial.  These links were provided also by an
extremely active exile media.  Not only have the fires of freedom been
stoked daily, but the concept of nationhood was kept alive.  Professor
Garcia's investigation and exposition of the differing media available to
exiles, such as tabloids, is extremely accurate.  Very little is known
outside the Cuban community about the work carried out by the editors and
writers of these seemingly insignificant newspapers.

It is unfortunate, however,  that  _Havana USA_  does not dedicate a more
detailed description and analysis to the role of radio, and even television,
in perpetuating exile views and generating public opinion.  Exile Cuban
radio is an extension of one of Cuba's most dynamic national media.  Radio
has been effectively utilized in maintaining Cuban cultural awareness and,
most importantly, in creating unswerving public opinion against the Castro
government.  Exile Cuban radio has also been instrumental in keeping a very
strong link between the exile community and the people on the island.

Garcia's discussion of this medium could have been more extensive.  She
fails to highlight the movers and shakers, the true opinion makers, of Cuban
exile politics.  She fails to explain ownership of the radio stations, their
goals and objectives, and, above all, she does not delve into any of the
frequent radio wars to capture exile audience points.

Historians are trained to follow the printed record, the official extant
documents.  An ephemeral medium, such as radio programming, is much harder
to study, investigate, and analyze. Nonetheless, in the case of the Cuban
exile community, it is critical to deal with this phenomenon.  A more
extensive study is required.  Professor Garcia deserves credit for pointing
to a controversial radio program, "Transicion," where a less conservative,
more centrist, political exile line is followed.  Those studying the Cuban
exile phenomenon can attest to a community where differing points of view
can be expressed without fear of retaliation.

Garcia points to the 1970s as the time when Cubans perceived themselves as
permanent residents of the US rather than refugees.  This is a very
controversial statement, albeit apparently accurate.  There was a pragmatic
move within many exile sectors to take political control of the community.
Exiles did it consciously, without forgetting neither the reasons for their
being in the United States nor their ultimate, primordial, objective:  to
see Cuba free of the current dictatorship. (See page 113)

Garcia attributes the Cubans' (economic) success to the high rate of female
participation in the labor force, the structure of the Cuban household, a
low fertility rate, and high rates of school completion.  Professor Garcia
is absolutely correct in making these affirmations.

In this reviewer's estimation, there is still another factor for the Cuban
economic success story:  Cubans have historically reinvested all earned
capital within the community instead of expatriating hard earned dollars.
This is a most important factor of economic power and growth.  This trend,
however, is being reversed and should be investigated.  There have been
reports that nearly $1 billion a year is being sent to relatives in Cuba.
The dollar drain, if kept unchecked, could create potential economic
problems in this immigrant society.  One must be reminded that although
there is a limit to the numbers of Cubans entering the United States, it
remains an impressive 20,000 persons a year.

The Cubans identity in exile is safe, according to Garcia.  She affirms that
during the "1980s and 1990s, the emigres learned to view their experience
within a broader historical context." (p. 118)  She closes this chapter with
a beautiful statement:  the emigres "no longer had to rely on dead heroes
from the nineteenth-century wars of independence. They had their own story
to tell." (p. 119)

_Havana USA_  dedicates an entire chapter to exile politics.  The chapter
reflects on the many points found in previous sections, but examines them
from a political angle.  To Garcia's credit, she does touch on painful
subjects within the community.  Professor Garcia investigates US government
dealings with Cuban exile leaders, the CIA's role in paramilitary and covert
activities, plots, exile raids on the island, and terrorism. (2)

Garcia's analysis of the Cuban American National Foundation and its leader,
the late Jorge Mas Canosa, is written in an extremely well balanced manner.
She explains Cuba Independiente y Democratica and its leader, Major Huber
Matos.  Her discussion of these two exile groups illustrates how divergent
and similar exile organizations can be.  These two organizations are
representative of a vertical, historical, anti-Castro opposition.

Garcia also discusses some of the most obvious exile opposition groups.
Some of these are clearly pro-Castro, yet others promote a less
confrontational or hostile position towards the Cuban regime.  These groups
do not represent a large segment of the Cuban exile population.  Upon
reading Professor Garcia's analysis, the careful observer cannot fail but
grasp that this degree of tolerance towards these groups is an indication
that a belief in democratic principles, such a freedom of speech, is
operating among Cuban exiles.  This fact should discredit, or prove false,
many accusations hurled at the Cuban exile community for its perceived
intolerance.

Maria Cristina Garcia's _Havana USA_  closes with a discussion on Cuban
writers and scholars in exile.  Her analysis of Cuban exile literature is an
accurate reporting of so many talents of contemporary Cuban literature.
This group of writers, while motivated by very strong Cuban cultural roots,
are dealing with the reality of their dual lives, an unresolved existential
problem.

Garcia's critiques stem from a mere sociological perspective of the works
and the writers:  satire of the hybrid culture, questioning the duality of
the existential experience, failing to comprehend the new Cuban American
identity, the sense of confusion stemming from the fact of living in two
worlds, and the theme of return or inability to return to the homeland.
Absent from her critique are two greats of Cuban exile letters, Hilda Perera
and Matias Montes Huidobro.  There are many more Cuban exile writers,
including novelists, short story writers, historians, poets, literary
critics, playwrights, and essayists, who have dealt with the problems of
being Cuban in borrowed time and space.

Maria Cristina Garcia's  _Havana USA_  is a must-read for anyone seeking to
understand a vibrant, dynamic, and complex community.  The Cuban experience
in the United States well deserves thorough analysis.  This book should be
considered a seminal work.

Notes:

1.  A more detailed analysis of the first wave of Cuban exile immigrants,
from January 1, 1959 to the commencement of the Kennedy administration, and
the role the U.S. government may have had in opening the refugee floodgates
would have shed much light into later behavior, attitudes, and actions of a
great number of Cuban exiles.

Cuban immigration to the United States began in the early hours of January
1, 1959 and has continued practically uninterrupted until today.  There have
been few books describing the various migratory waves from Cuba to the
United States.  One of the earliest, using surveying and interviewing
techniques, was Richard R. Fagen, Richard A. Brody and Thomas J. O'Leary's
_Cubans in Exile.  Disaffection and the Revolution_. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1968.

Garcia's perfunctory review of the Eisenhower administration shows the risks
historians face when dealing with sensitive and controversial (and possibly
very embarrassing) government actions.  The records are often not made
available.

A review of indexed extant archival materials at the Dwight D. Eisenhower
Presidential Library, obtained via the internet by this reviewer,  indicates
that there are still a great number of classified documents and specifically
that Cuban files are extremely limited.  In view of the degree of
discussions and actions taken by the likes of C.D. Jackson, Tracy Voorhees,
Allen Dulles, Christian Herter, Richard Nixon, and Eisenhower himself, to
name just a few, on the Cuban problem, it may be surmised that those records
are not available to researchers for reasons beyond our comprehension.

Recent revelations discredit the view that Eisenhower was not involved in
the Cuban problem.  The record, however, strongly points to such agencies as
the Central Intelligence Agency and a great many Cold War warriors as having
a plan or program to politically destroy Castro's fledgling revolution.  A
recent study by Peter Grose on the life of Allen Dulles,  _Gentleman Spy:
The Life of Allen Dulles_, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, dedicates a great
number of pages to the administration's  preoccupation with the Castro
problem.

The fact that President Eisenhower approved a program to topple the Castro
regime in March 1960 must be an indication that a greater number of people
than we have been led to believe were actively engaged.  Mr. Tracy Voorhees,
a longtime aide of the President, in November 1960, presented the President
with a report on Cuban refugees.  He was given charge of the Cuban refugee
office in Miami by the end of 1960, just before John F. Kennedy assumed the
presidency.

Totally missing from Garcia's discussion is Vice President Richard Nixon's
role in the Cuban refugee problem and destabilizing program.  He was in
charge of the secret program, although Allen Dulles and his operations
deputy, Richard Bissell, were developing and implementing the plan.  One of
the key points of the plan devised by the Central Intelligence Agency was
the recruitment of political exiles.  Without a pool of able bodied men
there could not have been an invasion.  What was the role of big U.S.
corporations, the American Embassy in Havana, and other engaged individuals,
both in the United States, Cuba, and possibly other countries, in promoting
the massive exodus?  Garcia's book fails to make these connections.

It is obvious that the Castro government was a source of embarrassment and
frustration for the U.S. government.  There are strong indications that
early on, beginning in 1959 and continuing through 1960, a campaign of
disinformation, propaganda, and psychological warfare was already taking
place.  This campaign was aimed at the general population and, as a result,
a great number of Cubans sought asylum in the United States.  These facts
could have been analyzed by Garcia in her sections on exile politics.  It is
in the scope of the study to offer such a discussion.

Garcia refers to Operation Peter Pan which in 1960 was referred to as
Operation Exodus.  Revelations about this secret operation to rescue Cuban
children, mainly in their teens, did not appear in the press until 1962.
The Catholic hierarchy and Eisenhower advisors saw Cuba as another Hungary.
Little of the record, however, is shared in this book.  She does reveal
previously secret details about several key players of this underground
railroad and their actions.  The _Miami Herald_ printed a story out of
Chicago on January 12, 1997 revealing that De Paul University professor,
Maria de los Angeles Torres, was suing the Central Intelligence Agency under
the Freedom of Information Act for the release of any documents relating to
the airlift of Cuban children to the United States after Fidel Castro seized
power.  However, there are allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency
was promoting this evacuation.  This operation and its aftermath are still
felt in the Cuban exile community.

One particular aspect of the Cuban immigration that could enlighten future
readers is a discussion or analysis of the formulation of Cuban refugee
policy.  The Kennedy administration was instrumental in setting up the
necessary mechanisms to implement the policy:  financial aid, resettlement,
educational programs, work related training, and other welfare programs.  We
can see that two very defining moments occurred on the aftermath of the Bay
of Pigs invasion and right after the October 1962 missile crisis.

In spite of these setbacks, the Kennedy administration, after wrestling
operational control away from the CIA, decided to go ahead with a secret war
against Castro which included the possibility of a second invasion.  Robert
Kennedy was in charge of this operation.  By April 1963, the war against
Fidel Castro was, for all practical purposes, an American endeavor and the
Cubans were left out.  It is not too difficult to understand why Cubans felt
betrayed by the Kennedys.  These aspects are not discussed in _Havana USA_.

2.  This chapter does not mention any of the exiles' accusations against the
U.S. administrations, specifically the Johnson administration, of betrayal
of a number of anti-Castro fighters.  Garcia apparently did not feel the
need to dig deep into these allegations.  Her references do not reflect work
with documents from the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, or Reagan administrations.
This reviewer recommends that a more thorough and comprehensive
investigation, utilizing archival and newly declassified documents be
undertaken to better explain this topic.

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