Cuban Immigration History

Thirty-seven years to the date April 20th, 2017, Fidel Castro enacted the policy of the Mariel boatlift, in which he’d allow Cubans seeking to emigrate to the United States to do so by departing at Mariel. This number would eventually eclipse 125,000 people seeking asylum and refuge from Cuba, and the regime in which at one point they felt represented or directly opposed their own viewpoints. The first wave of Cuban exiles being the extremely wealthy, in direct opposition to Fidel Castro’s regime for a race-less society, and a single-class economy, government, and social order. The ultimatum being set at you’re with the revolution or you’re not, this encouraged former supporters of the now ousted Batista, to seek refuge in the United States.

Even though Cuba is a little under 100 miles away from the United States, the relationship between the two countries has created an atmosphere full of tension and perpetual mistrust. When Fidel Castro decided to align Cuba with the U.S.S.R. and become a communist country, the United States of America was stunned and highly insulted. Because of their relationship, both countries have played a back and forth game of trying to outdo the other. This game and state of affairs in Cuba has created a large influx of Cuban immigrants looking for better opportunities and trying to escape poverty and persecution. This paper will be focusing on Cuban immigrants and examining different Cuban immigration laws, which allowed them to easily become United States citizens, including; the Cuban Adjustment Act, The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976 and the Wet Foot, Dry Foot Policy. It will also discuss whether the Cuban immigration laws are unfair to other foreign immigrants and whether the laws are relevant today. Finally, we will be considering the future and try to predict how the laws will change with the changing diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States and the imminent removal of the Embargo Act.

It has long been a pattern in the United States that immigrants will assimilate into the culture when they live close to white neighborhoods. Latin American immigrants move throughout the country in different ways. Cubans are an anomaly due to the fact that they live very separated from White Americans even when they have been here for generations (Chaves et al, 2005: 511). Even though they are assimilated into American culture, Cubans still prefer to live in their own communities. This

The assimilation of Cuban Americans has come rather slowly due to the discrimination that this group has faced. Like most other immigrating groups, Cubans have seen themselves rejected and discriminated by the dominant group, making them embrace their own culture and straying away from the dominant expectations for several years. In order to maintain their culture, and as an effort to reject discrimination, Cuban Americans have opened various organizations and enclaves that help promote their heritage. The stratification between Cubans and white Americans is quite high in places like Florida. In fact, affluent Anglos are usually placed in elite private schools that are populated by little to none Latinos. Due to the fact that many Cuban Americans consider themselves to be exiles, their assimilation has come rather slowly. According to Gordon’s assimilation theory, cultural and identification assimilation have come at a slow pace. To elaborate, Cuban American immigrants have faced much discrimination and stereotyping that has led them to stay away from assimilating to the dominant culture. In fact, their cultural patterns have been kept sturdy by promoting their heritage in organizations, clubs and enclaves. With new U.S. born generations, there can be a sense of cultural assimilation, but for the most part, Cuban Americans have not completely assimilated culturally. In the same sense, identification assimilation has not come hastily. As mentioned, Cuban

The study of race relations in contemporary Cuba indelibly requires an understanding of the dynamic history of race relations in this ethnically pervasive island of the Caribbean. Cuban society, due to its historical antecedents of European colonialism and American imperialism, has traditionally experienced anguished and even tumultuous race relations. Racial disharmony has plagued Cuban society ever since the advent of the Colonial institution of the plantation system. Thus, in order to acquire some understanding of Cuba’s dynamic race relations one must study and investigate the evolution of racial tensions and the quintessential

In the 1950’s, tourists visited the island of Cuba for its warm beaches, culture and Spanish colonial architecture. But underneath the surface, was a revolution ready to burst through the Cuban people they just needed the right person to lead them. Cuba at this time was run by a Political Dictator named Fulgencio Batista.

The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a new era of refugee and immigration policy toward Cubans. The collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the cessation of aid to its satellites. Without Soviet aid, conditions in Cuba steadily deteriorated, and the people of Cuba took to the streets in protest. In 1994, Castro answered the uprising by allowing Cubans to leave the country unmolested, and about thirty thousand obliged by taking boats to the United States. However, prior to the mass exodus, the United States policy towards Cuba was beginning to: "First, with the end of the Cold War, there was less need to embarrass the communist regime in Cuba, although the U.S. maintained its embargo against the island. Second, there was continuing public pressure to limit immigration. Finally, it became apparent to some U.S. officials

The United States embargo of Cuba has its roots planted in 1960, 53 years ago, when “the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to cut off the yearly quota of sugar to be imported from Cuba under the Sugar act of 1948… by 95 percent” (Hass 1998, 37). This was done in response to a growing

The "wet feet, dry feet" policy that allowed escapes fromCommunist Cuba to come to the United States without a visa ended in 2017 and put a stop to Cubans immigrating to seek their freedom. The "wet feet, dry feet" policy permitted Cubans to come to U.S. lawfully as refugees and obtain their green card within a year. However, this law brought many problems to the U.S. because Cuban refugees benefited from welfare, cash, medical care, and food stamps which were given to them upon entering the U.S. and which were subsidized by U.S. government.

My initial reaction is shock, I had no idea about the Cuban immigration policy. Irritation sets in at the injustice of it, immigrants of all races leave their countries to pursue better lives. The process that any immigrant is subjected too should be equal to Cubans as well, equal opportunity for entry is fair. However, this policy allows Cubans to bypass the entire process, regardless of race its unfair to allow one race and not the other. By granting automatic legal amnesty within hours of them entering the U.S. can lead to resentment from other races. Segregated immigration is an issue that affects the general public of the U.S., but its not discussed. Why?

To understand current U.S. laws pertaining to Cuban Immigration, one must first understand the origins of this laws and the social history behind these laws. Consequently, in this essay, I trace the origins of the immigration of Cubans from the 1800s to our days and how this immigration influenced the creation of current laws pertaining to Cuban immigration. I have also analyzed the socioeconomic factors that have influenced the immigration of Cubans to the U.S., and the historic events that have shape the U.S. laws pertaining to immigration. For this, I have extensively research the major Cuban Event that, one way or the other, influenced the Cuban Immigration, and promoted changes in the laws pertinent to the Cuban immigration. Some of these

On a seemingly secluded island around the northern rim of the Caribbean Sea, Cuba’s immigration patterns differ exceedingly from those of the United States, but still show slight similarities making these very divergent countries interconnected in some ways. Immigration has been a prevalent problem in our changing society not only in American life, but regions across the world. In much more recent history, terrorism on a global scale has tightened national security and has made it near impossible to emigrate in numerous regions around the globe. Within the last decade, Cuba has been a safe ground for other poor regions affected by natural disasters due to the nearby oceans.

From the early 16th century to the mid 1900s, the nations of Europe scrambled to colonize the untouched places of the world. Enamored by the promises of the Americas and the New World, the European powers established settlements in unknown lands, transplanting their cultures and beliefs with the hopes of securing precious resources and further expanding their empires. With colonization often comes the displacement of a native people as well the utilization of slave populations to provide manual labor and domestic servitude. The interaction between these groups, some native, most implanted, effected new, uniquely blended cultures— a process of transculturation. Cuba (colonized by the Spanish in the early 16th century) became the birthplace

He had always despised the Cuban government and the lack of opportunities he had there. In 1996, he applied for the Cuban visa lottery program, a program created by the U.S. government in collaboration with the Cuban government to reduce the illegal immigration of Cubans throughout the Florida Strait. He got his visa in ‘98 and was finally able to migrate to the United States in ‘99. My father came directly to the United States via airplane.

citizenship, and got naturalized in 1975. The second time that his grandfather immigrated to the U.S. in 1962, he did it illegally, so he was detained, and under the risk of deportation. At the end, Senator Rubio’s grandfather was able to stay in the U.S. His grandfather was given legal status. According to McClain & Johnson Carew, “Cubans entering the United States after Castro’s rise to power in 1959 generally enjoyed handsome financial support from the US government and were encourage to seek US citizenship” (17). His grandfather ended up applying for a permanent resident status in 1966, which got approved, right after the Cuban Adjustment Act, which is a federal law that gives Cuban refugees permanent resident status under certain circumstances. There were other relatives of Senator Rubio, who immigrated to the U.S. as refugees as