Cuban and Domincan Immigration Experience
Cuban and Dominican Experience
- Compare and Contrast -
“The Cuban diaspora is perhaps the most complex of all Latino immigrant sagas” (Gonzalez, 109). In the 19th century, more than 100,000 Cubans (10% of their country’s population) migrated to America during Cuba’s independence wars. Most of them were tobacco workers looking for jobs American factories.
In 1959, the revolution of Fidel Castro caused emigration en masse, with 215,000 Cubans leaving the country in the space of 4 years. Four more waves of Cubans left since then – all different in composition and circumstances.
During the 1960s and 1970s, another wave of Cubans left for the States. These were upper and middle class immigrants and brought with them great skills. The government was also giving them federal aid, which together with their skills, made them “this country’s most prosperous Hispanic immigrants” (Gonzalez, 109). They were managers, officers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, who brought their families to America for a better life.
“Few immigrant groups have commenced their economic adaptation from a position of such relative advantage” (Alejandro Portes – Gonzalez, 110). US government gave assistance under the 1966 Cuban adjustment act. These were programs that no other immigrant groups were entitled to. They had access to medical care, education, professional development, equality with US citizens, and many of them even became citizens. Because of all this, Cubans in the states became highly successful. They also supported their own by hiring and helping Cubans succeed.
But the US welcome changed almost overnight with the 1980 Mariel boat wave, which brought poorer and darker skinned Cubans to Florida. They were not the elite anymore, they were the poor and even criminals that Castro was trying to get rid of. They “confronted a nativist backlash among white Americans and burgeoning class and racial conflicts within their own refugee community” (Gonzalez, 109) which made
- Compare and Contrast -
“The Cuban diaspora is perhaps the most complex of all Latino immigrant sagas” (Gonzalez, 109). In the 19th century, more than 100,000 Cubans (10% of their country’s population) migrated to America during Cuba’s independence wars. Most of them were tobacco workers looking for jobs American factories.
In 1959, the revolution of Fidel Castro caused emigration en masse, with 215,000 Cubans leaving the country in the space of 4 years. Four more waves of Cubans left since then – all different in composition and circumstances.
During the 1960s and 1970s, another wave of Cubans left for the States. These were upper and middle class immigrants and brought with them great skills. The government was also giving them federal aid, which together with their skills, made them “this country’s most prosperous Hispanic immigrants” (Gonzalez, 109). They were managers, officers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, who brought their families to America for a better life.
“Few immigrant groups have commenced their economic adaptation from a position of such relative advantage” (Alejandro Portes – Gonzalez, 110). US government gave assistance under the 1966 Cuban adjustment act. These were programs that no other immigrant groups were entitled to. They had access to medical care, education, professional development, equality with US citizens, and many of them even became citizens. Because of all this, Cubans in the states became highly successful. They also supported their own by hiring and helping Cubans succeed.
But the US welcome changed almost overnight with the 1980 Mariel boat wave, which brought poorer and darker skinned Cubans to Florida. They were not the elite anymore, they were the poor and even criminals that Castro was trying to get rid of. They “confronted a nativist backlash among white Americans and burgeoning class and racial conflicts within their own refugee community” (Gonzalez, 109) which made