![Census Bureau 2000, Cubans in the United States](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Census_Bureau_2000%2C_Cubans_in_the_United_States.png)
Cuban immigration has greatly influenced modern
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
, creating what is known as "Cuban Miami." However, Miami reflects global trends as well, such as the growing trends of
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
and
multiracialism
Multiracialism is a conceptual framework used to theorize and interpret identity formation in global multiracial populations. Multiracialism explores the tendency for multiracial individuals to identify with a third category of 'mixed-ness' as op ...
; this reflects the way in which international politics shape local communities.
About 500,000 Cubans, most of them business people and professionals, arrived in Miami during a 15-year period after the
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...
. Some figures in
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
's administration were among those who arrived in Miami. The Miami Cubans received assimilation aid from the federal government. The Cubans established businesses in Miami. The Cubans arriving after 1980 did so primarily because of economic reasons.
[
Essentially, the coexistence of growth and internationalization within Miami has perpetuated an ethnically driven social polarization.] The growing number of Cubans
Cubans ( es, Cubanos) are people born in Cuba and people with Cuban citizenship. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic, religious and national backgrounds.
Racial and ethnic groups
Census
The population of Cuba wa ...
in Miami have remained loyal to their cultural norms, mores, customs, language, and religious affiliations. The transnational force of immigration defines Miami as a growing metropolis
A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications.
A big c ...
, and the 20th century Cuban influx has greatly affected Miami's growth.[
As of 2012, there were 1.2 million people of Cuban heritage in ]Greater Miami
The Miami metropolitan area (also known as Greater Miami, the Tri-County Area, South Florida, or the Gold Coast) is the ninth largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the 34th largest metropolitan area in the world with a ...
. As of that year, about 400,000 had arrived after 1980.[Cuban-Americans The Miami mirror]
" ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
''. March 24, 2012. Retrieved on February 8, 2014.
History
Early migration (1800s - 1958)
Due to Miami's geographic proximity to Cuba it served as an easy location to migrate to for Cubans who were dissatisfied with poverty, or the various military dictatorships in Cuba. Many affluent Cuban families also sent their children to school in the United States, usually in Miami. Various Cuban political leaders used Miami as a base of operations to organize against the Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
regime.
By 1958 only about 10,000 Cubans lived in Miami, while various affluent Cubans would often visit Miami, even just for the day. The tourist industry in Miami heavily catered to Cuban visitors and tried to offer as many services in Spanish as possible.
First Cuban exiles (1959 - 1973)
After the Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...
of 1959 various Cubans began to leave the country. Cubans settled in various places around the United States but many settled in Miami due to its proximity to Cuba and Cuban culture already in the city. Many would live in the neighborhoods of Little Havana
Little Havana ( es, Pequeña Habana) is a neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. Home to many Cuban exiles, as well as many immigrants from Central and South America, Little Havana is named after Havana, the Capital (political), capita ...
or Hialeah, Florida
Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 census, Hialeah is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in the Miami metropolitan area
...
in Miami due to their cheap housing, new jobs, and sometimes their access to Spanish speaking businesses.
As Cubans became more settled in Miami more businesses and media outlets began catering to Spanish speaking audiences. Many non-Hispanic locals began moving out of Miami in a white flight
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
.
Cuban immigration greatly affected Miami's future demographics. For example, the net immigration of African Americans into Miami was reduced during the 1960s in comparison to previous years.[ This was the result of Cuban immigrants competing for jobs that had often been afforded to African Americans living in Miami. This reduction of immigration of non-Hispanics displayed the growing presence of Cubans in Miami. Miami "posts a low ]emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
rate-43.6 per 1,000. This, of course, stems from the huge Cuban presence in Dade County and is testimony to the holding power of the Cuban enclave in Miami".
Later exiles and migrants (1974 - )
By 1980 many Cubans arrived in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
due to the Mariel boatlift
The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between 15 April and 31 October 1980. The term "" (plural "Marielitos") is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and En ...
. But other Cubans already in the United States began to enter south Florida. Miami posted an in-migration of 35,776 Cubans from elsewhere in the United States between 1985 and 1990 and an emigration of 21,231, mostly to elsewhere in Florida. Flows to and from Miami account for 52 percent of all interregional migration in the Cuban settlement system".[
Cubans continued to come to the United States and specifically Miami, especially during the ]1994 Cuban rafter crisis
The 1994 Cuban rafter crisis which is also known as the 1994 Cuban raft exodus or the Balsero crisis was the emigration of more than 35,000 Cubans to the United States via makeshift rafts. The exodus occurred over five weeks following rioting in ...
and beyond. As Cubans continued to immigrate and become more settled in American society, many Cuban owned businesses began to prosper in the Miami area.
Culture
Language
With the emerging importance of ethnicity and the increased effects of segregation, Cubans within Miami attempted to reassert the Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
. In Miami, the Spanish language was spoken to a larger extent than in other cities with large Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
populations; also it was spoken in more diverse settings in Miami than any other city.[ The 1970 census revealed that Spanish speakers made up 24 percent of Miami's population.][Winsberg, Morton D. (1979), "Housing Segregation of a Predominantly Middle Class Population: Residential Patterns Developed by the Cuban Immigration into Miami, 1950-74", American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 38. 403-418] The Spanish language was becoming a norm in Miami as it was more extensively spoken by Miami's Cuban elite.[ Language became increasingly important in 20th-century Miami as a result of the Cuban influx and this had impacts on other non-Latin communities.
Non-Hispanic communities began to oppose the rise of the Spanish language as a growing force within Miami. This can be seen in the anti-bilingualism/English Only movement. This movement came about in 1980, after a long period of vast Cuban immigration and social reform. Language was becoming a pressing issue as "Miami had the first ]bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
public school program in the modern period (1963) and the first English Only referendum (1980)".[Castro, Max, J. (1992), "The Politics of Language in Miami", Miami Now: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change (University Press of Florida): 109-133] In fact the debates of English as Dade County's official language led to violent and dangerous riots in the 1980s.[Croucher, Sheila, L. (1999), "Ethnic Inventions: Constructing and Deconstructing Miami's Culture Clash", The Pacific Historical Review, 68: 233-251] Cubans felt that by preserving their language, they were preserving a fundamental component of their culture. In the 2000 census, 59.2% of people in Miami-Dade County
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...
said that they spoke Spanish at home.
Media
Although the media in Miami allows a certain amount of cultural labeling to flourish within the community, it also portrays the growing importance and domination of Cuban immigrants. For example, the Miami Herald's June 14, 1996 headline reads "Vanishing Spanish".[ The headline refers to, and deplores the fact that, only a small percentage of recent high school graduates were fluent in Spanish; whereas the majority of second-generation Cuban immigrants spoke broken Spanish, and only spoke it in the home.][ "This was described as an alarming trend since it erodes Miami's advantage as a bilingual community and diminishes its economic competitiveness".][
During the 20th century, many Spanish-language newspapers were founded in Miami. "The ]Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
created a Spanish-language insert, ''el Nuevo Herald
''El Nuevo Herald'' is a newspaper published daily in Spanish in Southeast Florida, United States. Its headquarters is in Doral. ''El Nuevo Heralds sister paper is the '' Miami Herald'', also produced by the McClatchy Company.
About ''el Nuevo ...
'', in 1976".[Huntz, Maura E. (1996), "Spanish-Language Newspapers in the United States", Geographical Review, 86: 446-456] This addition received a vast amount of support and "by 1981 circulation reached 83,000 on weekdays and 94,000 for weekend editions. ''el Nuevo Herald'' is now published as an independent newspaper and reports a weekday circulation of about 100,000. It too is accessible on the World Wide Web (http://www.elnuevoherald.com). As the Hispanic population has grown and achieved considerable economic success, it has also moved beyond Miami's city limits: Spanish-language newspapers are now published in adjacent Hialeah
Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Hialeah is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in the Mi ...
and Fort Lauderdale
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
. This expansion can be seen at a statewide level as well, for Tampa
Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...
, Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
, and Immokalee
(your home)
, nickname =
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, motto =
, image_skyline = File:Immokalee-Zocalo Plaza 2018.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption ...
each have Spanish-language newspapers".[
Essentially, through the founding and growth of distinctly Hispanic newspapers, Cuban immigrants established a distinctly Latin American media.
]
Politics
The Cubans arriving after 1980 have closer ties to those remaining in Cuba. They tend to take charter flights to and from Miami to Cuba.[
In 2016 Hillary Clinton performed better than Obama in several heavily Cuban American neighborhoods.
In Miami-Dade County, in the 2020 election, Cuban Americans tended to vote for ]Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
. Residents of Cuban descent often had an antagonism against leftist movements due to associations with Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
. Trump sought to attract these voters by implementing anti-Cuba policies. The courting of Miami Cubans, including those who had recently arrived in the U.S. and those who are of younger demographics, contributed to Trump taking Florida's electoral votes. Miami-Dade County as a whole normally leans Democrat, but Trump's performance among Cubans overall eroded that.
Parks and recreation
As common meeting places, several parks in the greater Miami area reflect the influence of Cuban migration to the community and nod to Cuban culture.
Starting in the early 1970s, community leader and urban planner Jesus Permuy
Jesús A. Permuy (born 1935) is a Cuban-American architect, urban planner, human rights activist, art collector, and businessman. He is known for an extensive career of community projects and initiatives in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Latin A ...
spearheaded the effort to designate a park for the Cuban exile community. The sometimes controversial proposed park was known for much of the almost ten-year effort simply as the "Latin Park," and faced some pushback from non-Cuban residents. The park was unanimously approved by the Miami City Commission, however, and finally opened in 1980 a
José Martí Park
in honor of Cuban icon José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...
.
Another noteworthy park named after a popular Cuban figure i
Máximo Gómez Park
named after Máximo Gómez
Máximo Gómez y Báez (November 18, 1836 – June 17, 1905) was a Dominican Generalissimo in Cuban War of Independence, Cuba's War of Independence (1895–1898). He was known for his controversial Scorched earth, scorched-earth policy, whic ...
.[ Additionally, other parks feature monuments and landmarks in honor of Cuban figures, such as the "MINOSO" sculpture in ]Miami Lakes
Miami Lakes is a suburb of Miami, an incorporated town and former census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. US Census, 31,628 people live in Miami Lakes.
History
The development was constructed by Sengra (now the ...
' Optimist Park by Cuban artist Rafael Consuegra
Rafael Consuegra (September 16, 1941 – September 17, 2021) was a Cuban-born American sculptor and ceramist who worked in the United States and Europe.
Consuegra was born in Havana, Cuba. He left the island in 1960 and established residence ...
that was erected in honor of Cuban baseball player Minnie Minoso
As a first name, Minnie is a feminine given name. It can be a diminutive (hypocorism) of Minerva, Winifred, Wilhelmina, Hermione, Mary, Miriam, Maria, Marie, Naomi, Miranda, Clementine or Amelia. It may refer to:
People with the given name
...
.
See also
* Operation Peter Pan
Operation Peter Pan (or Operación Pedro Pan) was a clandestine exodus of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors ages 6 to 18 to the United States over a two-year span from 1960 to 1962. They were sent after parents feared that Fidel Castro and ...
, 1960-1962
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in Florida
* Immigration to the United States
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and Culture of the United States, cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than a ...
* ''El Nuevo Herald'', a Spanish-language supplement to ''The Miami Herald''
*Wet feet, dry feet policy
The wet feet, dry feet policy or wet foot, dry foot policy was the name given to a former interpretation of the 1995 revision of the application of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 that essentially says that anyone who emigrated from Cuba and en ...
*Cuban-American lobby
Cuban Americans ( es, cubanoestadounidenses or ''cubanoamericanos'') are Americans who trace their cultural heritage to Cuba regardless of phenotype or ethnic origin. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Cubans, Cuban desc ...
References
Further reading
* Arboleya, Jesús. ''Havana-Miami: The U.S.-Cuba Migration Conflict''. Ocean Press, 1996. , 9781875284917.
* De La Torre, Miguel A. ''La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami''. University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, 2003. , 9780520930100.
* Levine, Robert M. and Moisés Asís. ''Cuban Miami''. Rutgers University Press
Rutgers University Press (RUP) is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in New Brunswick, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University.
History
Rutgers University Press, a nonprofit academic publishing house operating in New B ...
, 2000. , 9780813527802.
* Rieff, David. ''Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami''. Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
, February 19, 2013. , 9781439143704.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuban Migration To Miami
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
Hispanic and Latino American culture in Miami
History of Miami
Cuban-American history
Cuban refugees