Cuban Americans the Relationship Between

Cuban Americans

The relationship between Cuba and the U.S. involves a history of tension, and, in the recent decades, a history of Cubans struggling to leave their country for the states. The presence of a dictatorship in Cuba and the promise of a dream life in the U.S. are both reasons for Cubans wanting to leave their native country. While it had initially been difficult for Cubans to have financial success in the U.S. because of racial issues, discrimination has ameliorated in the last few years. Cubans gained thus more and more chances of achieving something in the American society.

People in Cuba did not express a passionate desire to immigrate into the U.S. previous to 1959, the time of the Cuban Revolution. The Basista regime, the one previously leading the country, had also been dictatorial. However, in spite of its corrupt character, it did not present a real threat to its citizens. Before 1959, the only reasons strong enough to lead to mass emigrations had been related to economic deficiencies, such as the ones experienced during the Great Depression.

Although the new regime seemed to be showing potential, its affiliation to the Soviets did not appear to be hopeful for the futures of Cubans. It is not that Cubans left because they were afraid of the flawed government of Fidel Castro, but because they were terrified of its power, and of the fact that it seemed certain that the new leader would not use his abilities and new gained power for the general good of his people.

At the half of the twentieth century, Cuba had been a rather rapidly developing country, as the number of people belonging to the middle class had been impressive for that time and place. It had been amazing how Cubans had developed a strong economy within a few decades. Some believe that its financial success had been owed to the fact that it had developed closer relations to the U.S. than it had to the rest of Latin America. The middle and the upper classes expressed a fondness for the American system and for the U.S. community in general.

Castro's regime appeared as the perfect solution for the lower-class and for those willing to make use of a fraudulent system for their own purposes. In contrast, the rest of the Cubans felt that they would not thrive in a communist system where they and their children would have to subject to the arbitrary and often subjective laws of a dictatorship. Castro took action immediately and ruthlessly murdered most of the country's former officials. "Photographs of the mutilated bodies of those executed were circulated throughout the island, with the dual purpose of satisfying the public's bloodlust and sending a veiled message to those who opposed -- or who might oppose -- the Castro government" (Victor Andres Triay, pp. xii). It had virtually been impossible for someone to express themselves freely in Cuba with Castro being the country's leader.

Given the strong connection that people had with the U.S. And the fact that their community had been a continuous source of stress for them, it becomes clear why they chose to go to the U.S.

Americans have initially had the tendency to identify Cuban immigrants with political exiles. The first waves of Cuban immigrants coming to the U.S. (during the 1959-1962 periods) are most likely to have been motivated by the fact that the new Cuban government did not favor them. The people coming after that had several reasons, mainly related to communism (poverty, absurd laws, etc.).

It had been complicated for Cubans to be assimilated by the American community right away, as the fact that they came in large numbers prevented them from socializing with U.S. citizens to a large degree. Determined to keep their cultural identity, the first people to immigrate into the U.S. did not want to learn English. Instead, they taught their children and grandchildren Spanish, so that they would take their family traditions further.

Americans have had the inclination to treat Cubans differently from other immigrants coming from Latin America because of the circumstances that lead to each ethnic group leaving their respective country. While most Latin Americans had been coming to the U.S. because they wanted to escape the poverty in their homeland, matters had been different when concerning the Cubans. They left their country because they could not survive there knowing that they were supporting a corrupt political ideology.

The U.S. did not express an aggressive attitude as a response to the waves of Cubans flowing into the country, regardless of the methods that they employed to do so, legally and illegally. As an alternative, the Americans came up with various programs intended to provide assistance to those having left Cuba. Operation Pedro Pan, lasting from 1960 and until 1962, and the Cuban Adjustment Act from 1966 are examples of the level to which the U.S. had gotten involved in supporting Cuban immigrants.

The bourgeoisie could no longer live at peace knowing that Castro's regime virtually meant that they would have to abandon their previous practices in order to embrace a future based on communist theories. Operation Pedro Pan involved a large scale movement, "as among those fleeing Cuba during the early 1960s were more than 14,000 unaccompanied children" (Victor Andres Triay, pp. xiv). The plan had been created by the U.S. government, religious institutions in Miami, and several Cubans that had already been in the U.S. At the time. Its main purpose had been for children coming from the upper class of the Cuban society to be saved from the totalitarian regime imposed by Castro.