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Cuban exodus sails into
U.S. history
25 years later, refugees
an integral part of fabric in U.S. cultural
tapestry
By Adrian Sainz, Associated
Press. The
Buffalo News, April 10, 2005.
MIAMI - Lourdes Hernandez was a short and
skinny 15-year-old, sitting down on a sunny
afternoon for lunch at her grandmother's
house, when she was forced to face her future.
Her grandmother called out, "You have
to go home. Officials just came over to
your house. You're leaving the country."
About a week later, Hernandez walked through
the mosquito-filled night in Mariel, Cuba,
toward a shrimp boat, the Lorraine, and
its American captain. Clutching her father's
hand, she stepped onto the vessel with about
200 other refugees joining the "freedom
flotilla" toward Key West.
"My dad said, "Let's risk it.
If not, we might never get a chance to leave,'
" she recalled. "My world was
totally crushed."
More than 125,000 Cubans arrived in Key
West by boat in the spring and summer of
1980, leaving their homes and braving a
treacherous sea to reach their new world.
Their arrival affected a cross-section of
America, from retirees on Miami Beach, to
residents of Jenny Lind, Ark., to then-President
Jimmy Carter in the White House.
About 85,000 of them ended up in Miami,
where the Cuban influence already had been
felt through previous migrations. The boatlift
also unleashed a relatively small but ruthless
cadre of criminals into refugee camps and
Miami streets, tainting America's image
of the "Marielito" for years.
"It was a demographic bomb,"
said sociologist Juan Clark 25 years after
the start of the exodus from the small Cuban
port.
It began when Cuban President Fidel Castro
sought to remove about 10,000 people who
were seeking to leave the island after crashing
through the gates of the Peruvian embassy
on April 1, 1980.
Castro allowed those who wanted to leave
the island to depart by boat. He also sent
about 2,000 of communist Cuba's most violent
criminals across the Florida Straits, along
with mental patients and about 23,000 others
identified by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service as "non-felonious criminals
and political prisoners," according
to Clark's 1980s research on Mariel's impact.
Hearing of a possible exodus, people flocked
to Key West. There, many paid American boat
captains to pick up their family members
from Cuba and bring them back to the United
States.
Carter, who had expressed a desire to ease
tensions between Havana and Washington,
accepted the new arrivals "with open
hearts and open arms" in a May 5, 1980,
speech. He lost his re-election bid later
that year.
The scene in Key West was surreal. Tourists
were water-skiing among the throng of boats.
Arrivals saw hundreds lining a fence on
the dock, screaming last names of relatives.
At least one refugee had a heart attack
on the wharf; a woman had a baby.
Many of the new arrivals were quickly claimed
by relatives and went to live in Miami to
begin their "resettlement."
However, thousands were forced to stay
in cramped Key West or in Miami's Orange
Bowl, waiting for family to eventually claim
them.
Others who were not immediately claimed
by sponsors or admitted being jailed in
Cuba or were identified as potential dangers
were sent to processing camps in Indiantown
Gap, Pa.; Fort Chaffee, Ark.; Fort McCoy,
Wis.; and Pensacola, Fla., and to the federal
penitentiary in Atlanta.
By the end of 1980, only those Mariel Cubans
deemed too dangerous to be released remained
in custody. The Orange Bowl holding area
had closed, as did camps in Fort Chaffee
and elsewhere.
Time passed, and most Mariel refugees found
jobs, finished school and blended into society.
And while the 85,000 spike in Miami's population
strained the city's social services, schools
and housing, the refugees eventually became
a part of the city's diverse mix.
"If that amount of people arrived
at one time in any other city, it would
have created chaos," said Miami historian
Arva Moore Parks. "It was a great American
story, because we proved that we could bring
in a group of people and they could fit
in."
Because of the influx, Parks said, Hispanics
became the majority in Miami-Dade County,
earning many positions of power.
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