CUBANS
IN
MIAMI:
AN HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE
[NOTE:
Permission
to reprint granted April 7, 1998 by Dr. Sicius. This
article has been revised and updated. The new
version appeared
in Tequesta* December 1998. For copies of the new
version,
contact
HASF.]
*Tequesta
is
published annually by the Historical Association of
Southern
Florida.
http://www.historical-museum.org/history/tequesta.htm
By
land:
The Historical Museum of Southern Florida,
101
West
Flagler Street,
Miami,
Florida
33130
Email:
hasf@historical-museum.org
Telephone:
305-375-1492
CUBANS IN MIAMI: AN HISTORIC
PERSPECTIVE
by Francis J. Sicius
Division of Humanities
St. Thomas University Miami, Florida
Prepared
for
delivery at the annual meeting of the Florida Historical
Society,
Miami, Florida, May 13, 1988.
Those
who
have written about Cubans in Miami have always placed the
story
in the context of the last thirty years. But this
perspective
denies
geographic and cultural links that can only be measured in
centuries
not
decades. True, Miami itself has a short history, but
that does
not
believe what preceded Miami nor does it deny a relationship
that Miami
inherited
when a group of optimistic characters chose to call this
tented,
buildingless
train terminus a city in 1896.
In
1507,
when Europeans printed the first map of the new world, they
recorded
only two major pieces of land that are still recognizable
today: South
Florida
and Cuba. Even these earliest of explorers saw the
indisputable
fact
of the relationship that these two places had to one
another, and in
the
ensuing years the story of Cuba's relationship to South
Florida filled
chapters
of Spanish American history.
Most
of
this history was written long before Miami was founded, but
it did
not take long after its creation for the city to discover
its
heritage.
In the 1890's the decade of its founding, Miami was home to
less than
twenty
native born Cubans. This number hardly serves as a
portent for
the
dramatic transformation that Miami would undergo in sixty
short years,
but
events were already unfolding which would draw Cuba and
Miami together.
When
the
decade of the nineties began, Cuba was entering into the
final
phase
of its long struggle for independence from Spain. As
this was
escalated,
Cuban patriots began to look north to the Cuban exile
communities of
Florida
and New York for help. When the revolutionary leader
Jose Marti
visited
the United States in 1891 he found support and enthusiasm in
New York
and
formed the Cuban revolutionary Junta there, but when he
arrived in
Tampa,
by special invitation, he discovered a hotbed of
revolutionary
fervor
among the Cubans that far surpassed anything he had seen in
any other
part
of the country. So inspired was he by the reception he
received
in
Tampa, that during the evenings in his hotel room, he wrote
the "Tampa
Resolutions"
which would become the basis for the Cuban Revolutionary
Party.
Key
West where thousands of his compatriots lived also heartened
Marti and
when
he returned to Cub frequently referred to Key West and Tampa
as the
"civilian
camps of the revolution."
Between
these
two hotbeds of revolutionary fervor lay the newly planned
city
of Miami. But in the mid nineties, as the revolution
escalated,
other
events occupied the minds of the citizens of Florida's
newest
city.
In April of 1896, Henry Flagler's train had reached the city
and the
plans
were already being made for construction of the finest and
biggest
hotel
on the east coast. Within a month of the train's
arrival
came
the first newspaper and within two months, the 343 voters in
Miami
decided
overwhelmingly to incorporate as a city. There
was barely
room
in the new newspaper for all the events occurring in Dade
county much
less
elsewhere. The space that was not given to
enthusiastic
boosterism
was taken with advertising for land and construction.
The
population
soon exploded to almost a thousand souls, and the town
of Miami
was
alive with the sound of hammers cracking on boards.
Initially
Miamians
learned of the disturbance to the south of them in Cuba the
same way
most
of America learned about it; through the New York newspapers
which
arrived
in Miami only two days after they were printed. But
their
proximity
to the revolution could not be denied, and soon Miamians
were learning
about
the was more directly.
After
a
busy day's work of turning campsites into houses and large
lots near the river into a grand hotel, men would
retire at night
to
play billiards or drink beer which they had smuggled into
their "Dry"
town
from places such s Woods and Company just north of the
city. Of
course
there were always stories to tell and by mid-summer the
tales began
centering
on filibusters in the Caribbean. Two names that often
came up in
these
stories were Dynamite Johnny O'Brien and Napoleon Bonaparte
Broward.
With their coastal running ships these men were providing
the final
link
in a supply line of ammunition and weapons that
stretched from
New
York to Cuba via South Florida. News of these exploits
came to
Miami
either through word of mouth, or telegraph dispatches posted
outside
the
Metropolis. Every day men would run down to the huge
board
outside
the weekly paper's office to hear of the latest filibuster.
One
excursion
that received a considerable amount of attention that
summer was the attempt by Broward's boat "The Three Friends"
to
rendezvous
with Captain Tuttle's Miami boat, "The City of Key West".
The latter
had
been making regular runs between Key West and Miami for
months, but in
early
July a group of Cubans, in an attempt to elude Federal
agents
patrolling
the waters off Key West, hired the boat. Since
everything
going
South out of Key West was being stopped, these Cubans
decided to book
passage
north to Miami on a regularly schedule boat.
They planned
to
meet Broward's boat the "Three Friends" off the coast of
Miami and
double
back to Cuba with arms and ammunition.
But
the
plan failed. Captain Tuttle brought attention to his
ship by
departing hours ahead of schedule and leaving several
passengers,
including
a Metropolis reporter, stranded in Key West. According
to
observers,
the stranded passengers caused such a stir, and the
Cuban
passengers
became so jubilant on the prospect of escaping customs
agents that they
drew
the attention of a government ship which then trailed
the boat
all
the way to Miami and finally seized it in Florid Bay.
Once on
board,
government agents found thirteen Cuban passengers as well
"as a very
large
freight which appear to be ammunition." The government
agents
also
caught up with Broward who was waiting off the coast
with a load
of
ammunition he apparently had taken on board at New
River.
Particularly
nervous and distressed over the capture, reported the
Metropolis were
A.
W. Barrs of Jacksonville and a "swarthy looking Cuban of
short stature"
who
had checked into the Hotel Miami the day before. The
Metropolis
pointed
out that Barrs had been engaged in numerous filibustering
expeditions
in
the past and probably had something to do with the current
one.
Together
Captain Broward of "The Three Friends" and Captain Tuttle of
"The City
of
Key West" were towed back to Key West, the site of the
District court
and
the Federal revenue office. Around the gathering spots
of Miami
and
the watering holes to the north of the city, where the story
was told
over
and over, a consensus on the incident emerged: "If the City
of Key West
had
left at its scheduled hour and the exultant Cubans had been
able to
restrain
themselves, the affair would have succeeded unnoticed."
It
did
not take too many of these stories to convince some im Miami
of the
advantages that their fledgling city had in The business of
illegal
commerce
with Cuban revolutionaries. Soon, all the dynamite
that the new
phosphorous
plants around Bartow Florida could produce was being shipped
to Miami
by
train and then by boat to Cuban revolutionaries. Following
the
contraband
shipments were government agents, representing not only
Washington but
also
Madrid. Even the newspaper knew about the shipments
and reported
them
(without names, of course) but the same paper expressed
shock and anger
when
it reported that a ship was seized in South Florida waters
by a
Pinkerton
detective who had been hired by the Spanish
government. Miamians
were
indignant that international agents in their waters had
seized men and
munitions
that were going to assist "downtrodden Cubans in the fair
isle just
beyond
the range of our vision". Spain had better leave
Florida alone
warned
the Metropolis, "She does not own her as she used to, and
Florida is a
very
recreant child" With foreign agents off its coast,
illegal goods
in
its harbor, and arms merchants checking into her hotels,
Miami within
months
of its incorporation was already realizing a part of its
destiny.
Along
with
much of the rest of the nation, Miamians soon picked up the
rhythm
of the war beat resonating from Washington and New
York.
But they did so with skepticism. Perhaps they felt that
filibustering
provided
as much a profit as could be extracted from the war, or
perhaps they
feared
the potential competition if the war ended with the
annexation of
Cuba.
For many reasons, Miamians demure on the subject of war and
their
misgivings
probably emanated a realization of Cuba's proximity.
Despite
the
reservations about the war, Miamians did join the call for a
"Cuba Libre" and the local paper contributed to the
country's
collection
of yellow journalism. One story, written for the paper
by Walter
Scot,
could not have had a better audience than the one Miami
provided.
The
article combined sympathy for the revolution, Victorian
values with a
Spanish
flavor and the ever present (in the nineteenth century)
subtle
Anglo-Saxon
racism. Only in South Florida could all these
ingredients come
together
so easily.
Margarita
is
the central figure in the story. She is the bicultural
daughter of a wealthy Cuban, exiled to Key West for his
politics, and a
deceased
"American girl from the South". In describing her as
rather dark,
with
features "which in a blond would have been rendered
insipid", Scot
wrote
that her "American characteristics had softened the harsher
lines of
her
Spanish beauty." Margarita falls in love with Emmanuel
Morales,
another
exile. The father realizes she is in love and
objects. This
young
man should be fighting for a "Cuba Libre", he declared, not
wasting his
life
in "idle courting." He demanded that she tell her
lover that "if
he
were to win her love, "he must do it with rifle and
machete--and at
once".
He
waited
for his daughter to counter assault "with a wild outbreak of
feminine
expostulation in defense of her lover. . ." But she
didn't,
rather
she wept in her father arms and sobbed in silent agreement
with
him.
"God bless your heart girl, the true blood runs in your
veins.
You'll
love him better for it." He consoles her. She
convinces
poor
Emmanuel to go off to the war and of course he dies.
In Key West,
Margarita
receives word of the tragedy. Running to the sea she
feels the
cold
night and stars and thinks how cold Emmanuel must be
too. The
story
takes six full page columns of pathos to tell, and the
message is
clear.
What is the purpose of all this tragedy? A Cuba Libre!
Soon
America
did go to war against Spain for reasons of honor, and of
course,
for a Cuba Libre. Miamians, who had already been
making profits
on
the illegal shipment of arms, began to dream about the
windfall that
would
occur now that the whole operation would be legalized.
The Miami
Metropolis
printed some of these dreams, and enumerated the advantages
that Miami
would
have as the principle point of embarkation to Cuba.
The newspaper
reasoned
that since Miami had a safe land locked harbor, a direct
rail line to
the
coal fields of Alabama and was the city closest to the seat
of war,
that
it should be the obvious choice as the military's main point
of contact
with
Cuba. Despite the newspaper's arguments, Tampa was
chosen over
Miami.
Perhaps the American military knew what the Spanish
Conquistadores had
learned
four centuries before, that is, the journey by ship between
Tampa and
Cuba
is longer but much less treacherous than the journey between
South
Florida
and Cuba.
Despite
this
rejection, war fever did strike the Miamians. When
rumors
spread that the great Spanish Armada was on its way across
the
Atlantic,
Miamians were certain that it was headed straight for them,
and they
began
to see their own vital interests connected very directly to
American
foreign
policy. Although a major Spanish force might not be
able to land
on
the shores of Miami, many feared the damage that a well
placed Spanish
gun
boat might do. Sitting safely off the coast, it could
batter the
beautiful
new Royal Palm hotel or worse, destroy the great new water
tower which
was
not only a source of civic pride but a promise of the city's
potential.
Miamians also feared damage by sorties of Spanish soldiers
sneaking
into
the city at night, raiding houses and stores for
supplies. It was
probably
an inflated sense of self importance which caused these
fears but, the
government
relented and did authorize the construction of battery works
on the bay
about
a mile and a half south of the river at Brickell
Point. The
defense
included two eight inch and two ten inch guns. Judge
Ashton
organized
a calvary of sixty-four men to represent Miami and when he
presented
himself
to the governor he learned that enthusiasm for the war had
run rampant
throughout
Florida. Governor Bloxham received responses for over
twenty
companies
of men when all he had asked for was the state quota of
twelve.
In
June,
Miami learned that its wish for troops was being fulfilled
and
late
that month, 7,500 troops arrived. Despite careful
preparations
made
by the East Coast Railway to provide a comfortable camp, the
city was
in
no way capable of supporting such a large and rapid influx
of
people.
A sanitation sewer was built but it did not function
correctly so the
men
dug latrines which were placed very closed to shallow water
wells.
The artesian well which was begun was never completed, and
despite
warnings
many of the men drank from the shallow water well with dire
consequences.
The morale of the troops was also bad. Miami in July
is
uncomfortable
in the best of circumstances, in 1898 it was
unbearable. The
general
consensus of the troops was that Miami was nothing more than
a
wilderness
wrapped around a grand hotel. A month later, when the
troops were
ordered
to pull out under the threat of a typhoid epidemic they were
very happy
to
say good by to the magic city.
Of
course
it would have been impossible for 7,500 single men with
weapons
to remain in a place such a Miami without creating some
incidents, and
this
caused many to question the enthusiasm with which they were
initially
received.
Julia Tuttle for example, had wanted the troops to come, she
had even
entertained
officers in her house. But she also became disturbed
by the
disorderly
conduct of the soldiers. One particularly disturbing
night two
civilians
were shot by stray rifle bullets as they were sleeping
in their
tent
at 12th Street and Avenue G. James T. Williams
received a deep
flesh
wound and E.W. Ramage took a shot in the wrist which
shattered
the
bone and made amputation necessary. Another day Mrs.
Tuttle was
shocked
to see that a young soldier had the indecency to commit
suicide right
in
her garden.
When
the
troops pulled out there must have been a collective sigh of
relief
in the city, but even the departure did not occur without
incident.
As the troops were leaving a violent summer storm drenched
the
area.
A number of soldiers were getting a cold drink and trying to
stay at
Fred
Rutter's place just south of the terminal when the
lightening which had
been
flashing all around finally found its mark killing two young
soldiers.
One of them, Charles Gill, of Louisiana was buried in the
city cemetery
with
military honors.
Despite
the
tumultuous experience the Miami Metropolis saw the entire
episode
as a good thing. After all, as a result of the Army's
presence,
one
hundred acres of land had been cleared, one mile of railroad
side track
had
been constructed, business had been stimulated, a street was
paved and
an
artesian well had been started. The paper also pointed
out that
there
were now 7,500 people who knew about the richness and beauty
of
Miami.
Never was there a word in the paper of the problems the
troops had nor
was
there mention of the threatened typhoid outbreak. And
the
Metropolis
never suggested that many of those seven thousand troops
actually did
not
leave Miami with fond memories.
The
war
ended as abruptly as it had started, completed in fact,
within the
ending of one tourist season and the beginning of
another.
Besides
providing some diversion and income during the slow season
of summer,
the
Cuban Revolution and Spanish-American was established the
Miami-Cuban
connection,
and midst the excitement of developing a new city, Miamians
discovered
much
about the relationship with their southern neighbors.
They
learned
that their proximity made them a natural commercial partner
(be it for
legal
or illegal commerce) and they learned also, because of this
proximity,
they
could not remain indifferent or unaffected by upheavals on
the
island.
Finally, they realized their strategic significance in
foreign
relations
with Havana, even if it took Washington a few more years to
understand
it.
America's
defeat
of the Spanish in 1898 marked the beginning of a new era
of leadership in the Caribbean. The final termination
of four
hundred
years of history however, did not occur without consequence,
and for
the
first quarter of this century, political and economic
convulsions
erupted
throughout the Caribbean causing the United States to send
troops into
the
area twenty times. This show of military strength was
accompanied
by
investments of over a billion and a half dollars.
Finally, by the
end
of the twenties, the Caribbean was relatively peaceful and
through an
extraordinary
display of guns and money the United States had established
hegemony
over
the area.
Cuba,
being
so close to the United States, felt this new force most
directly.
During their early years of independence, Cuba experienced
American
military
or political intervention on at least five different
occasions.
They
also received about 18% of the total dollars invested in the
region.
As the Cuba patriot and poet Martinez Villena wrote:
Nuestra
Cuba
bien sabe cuan propicia a la caza
De
Naciones
y como soporta la amenaza
Permanente
del
Norte que su ambicion incuba
La
Florida
en una indice que senale hacia Cuba.
Our
Cuba
knows well when the hunt
for
nations
begins.
And
how
the threat which comes from
the
north
continues,
Even
when
ambition lies dormant,
Florida
is
the finger
That
points
to Cuba. (Translation by author)
The
significance
of this new area of exploitation was not lost on
Miamians.
Immediately following the war a group of Miamians joined
other pioneers
in
an attempt to settle and annex the isle of Pines off the
coast of
Cuba.
For twenty years this island remained an American settlement
until
finally
in 1926 the Supreme Court decided that it belonged to Cuba.
Reporting
on
the increasing investments and the relative stability which
seemed to be emerging in the Caribbean, The Miami Herald
noted that
this
news was more significant to Miami than any other city in
the
country.
The Herald predicted (correctly as it turned out) that when
air service
was
eventually established Miami would become the gateway to the
Caribbean
and
Latin America. Hence, the Herald concluded, although
the peaceful
progress
of Latin America concerns all the United States, it concerns
Miami in
particular.
The Herald spoke to Miamians who had already experienced the
benefits
of
the economic boom in the Caribbean. Ever since 1925,
when Geraldo
Machado
had become president American businessmen had been bullish
on
Cuban.
When Machado took office he did so on a great wave of good
will both at
home
and abroad. His promise of judicial, economic and
educational
reforms
along with his denunciation of the Platt amendment gave
optimistic
Cubans
hope that democracy would finally flourish on their
island. The
United
States was equally enthusiastic over the rise of
Machado. While
visiting
the United States he promised that after four years of his
government,
"the
capacity of Cubans to govern themselves would be
assured". At a
banquet
in his honor given by Charles E. Mitchell the president of
National
City
Bank, he promised that in his administration "there will be
absolutely
guarantees
for all businesses". Thomas Lamont of the house of
Morgan said he
hoped
the Cubans would find a way to keep Machado in power
indefinitely.
And after another visit to the United States by Machado, the
State
Department
informed the House of Morgan that they had no objections to
a further
$9
million loan to Cuba.
There
were
large amounts of money being funneled into Cuba in the
twenties,
and Miamians hoped that much of it would go through and then
back to
their
city. In January, 1930, Curtiss Wright announced that
they were
inaugurating
flights to Havana and this spurred further economic
speculation.
"Cubans
are willing and anxious to trade with Miami firms", reported
the
Herald,
and to prove it they cited the success that Miami Airplane
and Supply
Company
had after placing just one ad in a Havana newspaper.
Carl
Fisher
and Glen Curtiss also hoped than Havana would provide a
ready
market for their automobile which they planned to mass
produce in Opa
Locka.
After sending a prototype to President Machado, they
received his
endorsement
and promise that the car would be well received in
Havana. This
was
one more example he said of Miami's "very special"
relationship with
Cuba.
In
1930
Machado authorized a massive promotion of Cuba in
Miami. The
focal point of this campaign was a weekly five page
report on
Cuba
which appeared in the Miami Herald. Of course this
report
contained
nothing of the political turmoil which was beginning to
brew.
Rather
it contained articles on hotels, how to obtain Cuban
citizenship, and
where
to get information on setting up an import business.
It also
contained
stories which would make Americans in Miami feel comfortable
about
their
neighbors. For example, they reported the
establishment by
Machado
of English language schools within four Cuban High
Schools. This
was
done, the article reported because "the government realized
the urgent
necessity
for Cuban youth to learn English."
This
promotion
was not without benefits. During the Machado regime
investments in Cuba skyrocketed to over $1.5 Billion or an
amount equal
to
the entire investment in all of South America just after
World War 1.
14
Of course this was still during the era of prohibition and
illegal
trade
with the island also flourished, as canals in Coral Gables
frequently
provided
pathways for contraband rum and liquor from Cuba.
On
January
1, 1931 Pan Am launched regular service between Miami and
Havana.
Now with Havana only 2 ˝ hours away on a regularly scheduled
major
airline, the relationship between the cities
solidified. This
promise
of a flourishing economic alliance with Cuba caused a group
of
developers
in Miami led by real estate magnate, Clifford Reeder to
begin promoting
the
idea that would become known as Interama. This dream
of creating
a
permanent Caribbean trade fair was never realized, but it
remained
significant
as a Miami symbol from 1929 when it was first conceived by
Reeder until
the
early 70's when the only remains of the idea were a few
signs along
N.E.
163rd Street. The failed entrepreneurial dream defined
two
dominant
characteristics of Miami: the incessant boosterism of many
of its
citizens
and also the undeniable influence of its Caribbean
roots. In the
thirties
it was the burgeoning relationship with Cuba that gave
substance to
these
characteristics.
In
1933,
Miami's economic ties with Cuba drew it into the island's
political
turmoil. In the early thirties Cubans were growing
increasingly
disillusioned
by the failure of Machado to fulfill most of his promises,
and in 1931
when
this man who promised no reelections declared that he was
extending his
term
of office by six years, revolutionary fever broke out.
When two
former
rivals, Carlos Mendietta and General Menocal joined forces
in an
unsuccessful
coup, it became clear that the days of the Machado regime
were
numbered.
The question on everybody's mind was when would the U.S.
Army
arrive.
There was even a revolutionary party in Cuba (ABC) whose
avowed purpose
was
to create chaos so that Americans would be forced to come in
to restore
order.
But the troops did not arrive.
U.S.
policy
on intervention had changed in the 1920's. An
important
turning point had occurred when in 1926 American
intervention in
Nicaragua
turned into a full scale guerilla war against the folk hero
General
Agustino
Sandino. The significance of the event was not lost on
the State
Department
and from then on they determined to develop a policy of
influence in
Latin
America which did not include a first step the direct
intervention of
American
troops. The opportunity for State Department
experimentation with
this
new policy occurred when Machado lost his mandate to rule in
Cuba.
The
new
American policy utilized economic and diplomatic pressure
along
with
support for exiled leaders. It was this latter group
that most
affected
Miami during the Spring and long Summer of 1933 when the
Machado regime
fell.
The
new
American policy utilized economic and diplomatic pressure
along
with
support for exiled leaders. It was this latter group
that most
affected
Miami during the Spring and long Summer of 1933 when the
Machado regime
fell.
There
were
two groups of exiles settled in Miami during this
period.
First, there were those who had followed the
multimillionaire
ex-president
Menocal to Miami Beach. This group of followers formed
a colony
on
the beach near Menocal's stone mansion with a tiled roof on
Collins
Avenue
at Lincoln. During the early thirties, reporters kept
a vigil
outside
this estate, noting the arrival and departure of former
Cuban ministers
and
political leaders. The second exile group in Miami
lived at the
other
end of the economic and political spectrum. They were
radical
students
headed by Carlos Prio Soccaras. This group which
called itself
the
DEU (Directory of University Students) fled to Miami in 1932
when their
leaders
Soccaras, Manuel De Varona Loredo and Rubio Padilla also
left. The DEU
has
been described as the "purest and most cohesive of all the
revolutionary
groups" in Cuba at that time. They formed a cell in
Miami which
had
broken away from a similar group in New York over the issue
of American
intervention.
Dependency on American intervention, the Miami group
maintained, was a
fatal
flaw in the policy of every Cuban leader since
independence. This
group
of separatists became known in Cuba and throughout the
American exile
community
as the "Miami Cell". They published a four point
program which
they
circulated both in the United States and Cuba. The
plan condemned
intervention
and advocated not merely the overthrow of Machado, but the
development
of
a true democracy completely free from American
domination. To
accept
American mediation, they protested, ‘was to accept the
participation of
a
government that is responsible for oppressing us as a
people."
The
radical
views of the DEU kept it outside the mainstream exile
community.
They were not the recipients of large donations and actually
became a
burden
to the city of Miami, living not as distinguished exiles but
rather a
poor
refugees. These students arrived in leaky boats and
huddled in
army
camp barracks near the center of town, or cheap apartments
like the one
at
138 N.E. 11th Terrace.
There
had
only been a few hundred Cubans in Miami in 1932, but by the
following
Spring there were over a thousand poor exiles huddled within
a few
blocks
of downtown Miami, and like the peasants in the French
revolution they
gave
force to the revolutionary leadership. This group
could be
depended
on to provide hundreds of demonstrations whenever an
important Cuban or
American
leader showed up at Menocal's mansion on Miami Beach, or
anytime
disturbing
news from Cuba reached the city.
The
refugees
in downtown Miami were mostly poor, radical and mobbish but
they soon became allies with their more gentile neighbors
across the
Bay.
Despite their differences there was one issue on which the
two very
disparate
groups agreed, they both opposed U.S. intervention in
Cuba.
Menocal
at one time (specifically when he was president of Cuba and
even when
he
first arrived in Miami) had favored U.S. intervention but he
had come
to
see the error of this policy. Just as the radicals
suffered for
adaptation
this position so too did Menocal. When ex Cuban
president Carlos
Mendietta
(with U.S. encouragement) began to form a government in
exile in New
York,
Menocal was the only important exile left out of the
group. This
occurred
in spite of the fact that Menocal was probably the richest
and
politically
most powerful exile in the United States.
It
is
hard to imagine an alliance between a ragtag group of
student
revolutionaries
and the distinguished and wealthy ex-president; however, as
Justo
Carillo
points out in his history of the 1933 revolution, Menocal
and the DEU
represented
opposite polls of force which were attracted to each other.
The
radicals
provided him with spontaneous demonstrations of support, and
in return, Menocal gave them financial assistance. He
went so far
as
to join with the Pan American League of Miami to put on a
benefit for
the
refugees at the Biltmore Hotel. The Pan American
League was one
of
the products of Miami's enthusiasm over the Caribbean
connection.
Founded
by Mrs. Clark Stearns and supported by such notables as
Marjorie
Stoneman
Douglass, the League stated as its goal the "Promotion of
peace and
understanding
among the Americas".
They
held
luncheons, round table discussions and supported a speakers
bureau
and artistic series, but probably their most significant
contribution
was
providing support to foreign students who were visiting or
studying in
Miami.
As women and mothers their sympathy for the exiled students
went beyond
politics,
and one member Mrs. Julia Sproul Baker joined with Menocal
to put on a
fund
raising affair for them. The guest list (but for a few
exceptions)
included the entire list of "Who's Who" in Miami.
Among those
attending
were Judge Frank Stonemen and Hugh Matheson. Those not
attending
were
also notable. For example, the mayor of Miami Beach
Frank
Katentine
protested to the League when they announced his name on a
guest
list.
He pointed out that the refugees were political enemies of
the
legitimate
government of Cuba, and since the United States still
recognized that
government
he felt that his name should not be used to encourage
political strife
between
factions in any other countries.
If
he
had been asked, Katentine would probably also have expressed
dismay
over the fact that one of the most powerful of Cuba's exiles
was
holding
court in a mansion on Miami Beach. The mayor was
probably
expressing
an uneasiness over the situation that many of Miami's
entrepreneurs
shared.
The feared that the good will being generated between the
two cities
would
be destroyed if Miami became identified as a center for the
overthrow
of
the government. Machado was by no means out, and it
was he who
was
responsible for much of the economic activity between Miami
and
Cuba.
If he survived this attempted coup, and in February of 1933
there was
every
reason to believe he would, Miami entrepreneurs wanted to be
sure that
he
was still well disposed toward Miami.
The
Miami
Herald also revealed some of this apprehension. Even
though
Judge Stoneman apparently supported the refugees and was
still editor
in
chief and foreign editor of the Herald, the paper never
wrote one word
about
the refugees until it was clear that Machado had
fallen. During
the
exciting months from Roosevelt's inauguration to Machado's
fall from
power
in August, Miami was a hotbed of Cuban political
activity. Exile
leaders
met into the early hours of the morning in Menocal's
mansion,
demonstrations
broke out spontaneously at railroad stations and in front of
Menocal's
house,
and there was even evidence that guns stolen from National
Guard
Armories
were being smuggled through Miami to revolutionaries in
Cuba.
None
of this was ever reported in the Herald. Its absence
from the
paper
provokes speculation. Perhaps the trial and execution
of
Chicago's
Mayor Cermak's Assassin was more important, and certainly,
Roosevelt's
first
hundred days were more newsworthy. But the fact
remains that on
at
least fifteen occasions the New York Times saw fit to report
events
that
occurred in the Cuban exile community in Miami, and the
Herald did not.
Perhaps
there
are more subtle reasons for the Herald's apparent
indifference
to the Cuban exile community. For one, every Sunday
during this
unstable
period the Herald was still publishing five full pages of
advertising
paid
for by the Cuban government. In one of these
advertisements which
appeared
early on in the struggle, the Herald even printed an
announcement from
the
Cuban government that Cuba intended to keep her tourists
from being
bothered
by internal problems. The Herald maintained this
tolerant if not
indifferent
view even after Machado had expelled the American publisher
John T.
Wilford
and closed down his paper, the Havana- American.
Apparently
business
as usual was a higher priority than the principles of
journalistic
freedom.
Secondly, the Herald represented the business community of
South
Florida,
not the exiles. This community did not want relations
with Cuba
harmed.
They certainly felt that the upheaval was temporary, and
that whoever
won
the struggle would want to continue to develop commercial
ties with
Miami.
It was best for Miami to remain neutral. As the
struggle wore on,
this
became a difficult trick, especially during the
hot-mid-August days
when
Machado's government finally fell, and tempers exceeded the
temperatures
in downtown Miami.
In
the
middle of the night of August 13, Machado realized his
regime was
finally over. After leaving a note for his wife to
meet him in
New
York, he gathered up his five closest friends and advisors.
Still in
their
pajamas, they flew with Machado in an amphibian Sikorsky to
Nassau
along
with five revolvers, and seven bags of gold.
The
next
day it was up to the highest ranking officials, Secretary of
State
Orestes Ferrara, to bring the government to a close.
Legalistic
to
the end, Ferrara searched for The American ambassador and
chief
negotiator
during the crisis, Sumner Welles, in order to submit his
resignation.
Ferrara smelled blood in the streets and feared for his
life. He
asked
Welles for protection, but the ambassador demurred, stating
that the
excitement
was merely celebration over the departure of Machado.
Ferrara and
his
wife left the ambassador's mansion in an open vehicle and
when the
"jubilant
crowd" recognized him, they quickly turned into an angry
mob.
Guns
were drawn and pistol shots flew over the head of the former
secretary
of
state and his wife. Just ahead of the mob, their
speeding car
arrived
at the harbor where Ferrara and his wife jumped onto a Pan
Am clipper
ship.
The pilot, Leo Tertlesky, the engines idling and when he
heard the mob,
he
taxied out into the harbor and as gunshots ripped into the
plane he
hurriedly
took off leaving fourteen Miami bound passengers, mail and
baggage at
the
terminal. Machine gun bullets continue to tear at the
wings and
fuselage,
but no vital parts were damaged and two and a half hours
later the
plane
taxied safely into the Dinner Key Harbor in Miami.
In
Miami,
another angry crowd greeted Ferrara. As he stepped off
the
plane into the hot muggy afternoon sun, the crowd moved
closer.
As
he escaped through the canopied walkway into the terminal
the crowds
yelled
after him. Most of the shouting was in Spanish but
interspersed
calls
of "murderer", "butcher" and "assassin" could also be
heard. When
a
reporter asked for a translation a young man answered, "Just
imagine
the
worst words you know in English". Shaken but indignant
Ferrara
shouted
from the second floor window of the terminal. As he
left the
terminal
someone from the crowd shouted in English " will fight you
with
anything
you big bum!" Ferrara who had fought a number of duels
in Cuba
ran
to answer the challenge, but was restrained by the
police. Then
under
heavy guard the ex-secretary of state and his wife drove to
the
Hollywood
train station where they boarded a pullman for New York.
The
following
day Miami Cuban refugees greeted Mrs. Machado similarly;
however,
this time the crowd was less controllable. Mrs.
Machado arrived
in
Miami drained both physically and emotionally. After
watching her
husband
flee for his life the day before, she had taken an armored
yacht to Key
West.
From there she, along with her daughters and their husbands,
boarded a
train
for Miami. When she arrived at the Miami Station at
7:30 in the
evening
a crowd began taunting her and her family. When police
threatened
to
disperse the crowd with billy clubs, they resisted by
forming a tight
ring.
Police reacted with their clubs and arrested ten of the
ringleaders.
About fifty of the crowd followed the police and
demonstrated outside
the
jail for the release of their friends. Among those
arrested was
Manuel
Mencia, nephew of Miguel Gomez, the former mayor of Havana
who had
joined
Menocal in the aborted coup of 1931. When questioned
by police
the
effervescent Gomez replied that there must have been some
misunderstanding;
his nephew would never insult Mrs. Machado.
These
last
demonstrations by the exiles finally blew the cover of
tranquility
that Miamians had maintained throughout the crisis.
Police Chief
Scarburo
told reporters that the patience of his entire force had
finally been
stretched
to the breaking point. No more demonstrations will be
tolerate he
announced,
no matter who the demonstrators will be tolerated he
announced, no
matter
who the demonstrators are sympathizing with. "If they
want to
fight
and raise hell", he added, "let them go back to Cuba!"
He
explained
to reporters that during the past five months the city had
quietly put
up
with hundreds of exile incidents. "They have been
pampered for
too
long" he exclaimed, "from here on out they will have to take
their
place
as law abiding residents in the area. We don't believe
any group
in
Miami should be permitted to submit everybody else in the
city to
conduct
as has been exhibited there. This situation", he
confessed, "has
been
embarrassing the police for some time."
In
his
anger he also let out some information he probably should
not
have.
For example, he told reporters that "We have definite
knowledge that
thefts
of machine guns and pistols from U.S. armories have been
traced to
Miami,
undoubtedly through the activity of some of these exiles
[and] the army
has
been sent here to investigate."
When
the
story broke in the Herald there was an immediate attempt to
chasten
Scarburo. While Menocal met with Inspector Frank
Mitchell and
issued
a statement that he (Menocal) would be personally
responsible for the
conduct
of the exiles, members of the Board of Trade met with
Scarburo and
tried
to persuade him to retract his statements from the previous
day.
Scarburo
remained unflinching. "The statement I published
yesterday was
correct",
he insisted, "I have nothing to retract." However,
cooler heads
prevailed;
the ten young men were released from jail and the new
makeshift Cuban
government,
apparently as eager to maintain good relations as most
Miamians were,
announced
that they were sending a ship to Miami immediately to
collect all their
citizens.
In
reaction
to this flood of news, the Miami Herald, eager to establish
good
relations with the new government, editorialized that the
Cuban
departure
was a great loss for Miami. "With the sudden
retirement of
Machado,"
the editorial began, "Miami had begun to lose her Cuban
residents who
are
fleeing back to their homeland. Miami was glad to
extend her
hospitality
to the exiles and sad to lose them." The article
concluded on an
ironic
yet prophetic note, "Miami's gates will always be open to
Cubans,
should
the time ever come again when they need a refuge. In
the
meantime"
the editorial concluded, "our mutual interests will continue
to grow".
The
thirties
witnessed an important turning point in the Miami-Havana
relationship.
With the advent of the airplane, travel to Miami became
safer and
easier
than to the traditional entrepots of Tampa and New York, and
competitive
Miami entrepreneurs pursued this advantage aggressively in
order to
assure
a long lasting commercial relationship with Cuba.
Finally, it
seemed
the two areas were realizing the commercial and cultural
destiny that
geography
had established for them. And although Cuba was
subject to
political
turmoil, Miami business leaders remained resilient: sending
cars and
invitations
to the dictator Machado on one day and bidding bon voyage
and best
wishes
to new leaders the next. Miamians remained seemingly
impervious
to
political convolutions on the island. The benefits of
the
infinite
commercial possibilities seemed to far outweigh the
ephemeral game of
politics.
Experienced
during
the Machado Revolution greatly modified American foreign
policy in the Caribbean. Instead of direct
intervention against
unfavorable
governments, the United States usually followed a plan of
economic
pressure,
combined with military threat and support for exiled
political
groups.
In regards to Cuba, Miami became a participant in this
diplomatic
formula.
Consequently, after 1933, with each change in government in
Cuba, the
Cuban
population in Miami increased to a substantial minority, and
economic
and
cultural ties between the two areas strengthened.
During
periods
of political upheaval, Miami opened its gates to ex-Cuban
officials with money, regardless of their political
beliefs. Not
atypical
of these times was Grau San Martin's friend and ministry of
education
official,
Jose Manuel Aleman who arrived in Miami in October of 1944
with
$20,000,000
in his suitcase. Scenes such as this symbolized both
the
corruption
that plagued Cuban government and the strong economic ties
that Miami
and
Havana were establishing as they moved closer together in
the decades
of
the forties and fifties. Havana, only a short flight
away, became
a
playground for adult games that were still illegal in most
of the
United
States. Cuba also bragged that it offered the least
expensive and
quickest
possible divorce in the world.
Most
Havana's
entertainment operations which included hotels gambling, and
prostitution, were administered in Miami, a safe but
proximate distance
from
the volatile republic. As a result of this new
relationship with
Cuba
and the underworld Miami became involved in these
enterprise, for
example
it became a link in the heroin traffic which flowed from
France to
Havana
to New York. And when politicians such as Aleman
arrived in Miami
with
millions of dollars the various mafia run businesses in
Miami provided
investment
opportunities which would not scrutinize sources of
income. By
the
mid-fifties, the Department of Commerce reported that
investments by
Cuban
citizens in the United States had reached $400,000,000, and
most of
this
money went through Miami.
The
tremendous
amount of financial activity between Miami and Havana, both
legal and illegal, solidified their economic
relationship. It
also
changed the city of Miami radically as people such as Meyer
Lansky and
other
underworld figures began to play a major role in determining
the city's
future.
But these changes were minor compared to influences that the
island
republic
would have on the Magic City in the following decades.
In
1952
Fulgencio Batista, the young sergeant who had given the
Cubans
democracy
in 1940, took it away with a coup d'etat against Carlos
Prio, and Miami
once
again was swept into the whirl of Cuban politics. After the
1952 coup,
Prio
lived in Miami with his millions of dollars. He was
the last
legitimately
elected president of Cuba and for those with a longer memory
he was the
idealistic
student leader of the 1933 r evolution against
Machado. With
these
credentials, many Cubans were willing to forgive his
financial
indiscretions
while he was president, and recognize his as their leader in
exile.
On
the
morning of May 15, 1957 a group of seventeen supporters of
Prio
crept
out of Biscayne Bay on their way to begin the revolution in
Cuba
against
Batista. This small group of soldiers under Calixto
Sanchez
arrived
on the coast of Oriente where they were captured and
summarily shot by
the
Lieutenant of Police of the tiny village of Mayari.
This
relatively
insignificant event marked the end of Prio's claim to
leadership
and increasingly support began to fall to the "hero" of the
Sierra
Madre,
Fidel Castro, and his followers. By December of 1958
Castro had
taken
control of the country and early in the morning of January
1, 1959, the
first
Castro refugees arrived in Miami.
At
first.
Miamians accepted the appearance of refugees on the evening
news
as rather normal routine. Most of the earliest
arrivals had
financial
or familiar connections and had made provisions ahead of
time.
But
very quickly the hundreds of wealthy elite turned into
desperate and
penniless
thousands. At first, the Cuban Community felt they
could handle
the
problem with the result that sometimes there were, according
to
Monsignor
Bryan Walsh, "19 families living in a single family
residence".
Of
course this was an extreme, but even the average Cuban
family in Miami
during
this period was sharing a two room dwelling with two
additional adults.
When
the
pressure on the Cuban families became unbearable they went
to
private
charities, and since it was a familiar institution to the
Cubans, the
Catholic
Church became the first private organization to tackle the
refugee
problem.
In late 1959 the Diocese of Miami opened a Refugee center at
130 N.E.
2nd
Avenue.
The
Catholic
Church also put refugee children into their schools which
inflated
the average classroom size to over sixty students. In
addition,
they
established health care for refugees free of charge at Mercy
Hospital.
One of the biggest problems the Church handled in the early
days was
the
relocation of thousands of children who had been sent by
their parents
to
America alone. Through Msgr. Bryan Walsh's leadership
and the
assistance
of The National Catholic Welfare Council, thousands of young
children
were
placed in foster homes through 47 dioceses in 30
states. The
monumental
task of placing these children and keeping track of them was
a human
miracle
and this event alone deserves a full chapter when the final
story of
the
Cuban migration is told. In the first months of 1959,
the
Catholic
Church spent in excess of $200,000 supporting the refugees,
but this
sum
does not include hospital and educational costs. The
amount
increased
to $561,000 the next year.
Catholics
of
Miami soon began learning of the refugee problem in their
churches
on Sunday as financially pressed pastors asked for
additional
collections.
The rest of Miami also began to realize the dimension of
this problem,
as
the exiles they saw on T.V. began looking less and less like
wealthy
vacationers
and more and more like the refugees they viewed on the
evening news
coming
out of East Berlin. This new group of visitors like
the refugees
of
Communist Europe were bedraggled, confused, hungry and poor.
When
the
new immigrant arrived off the plane, an inspector questioned
him,
and then he received a quick physical. The lucky ones
would be
approved,
photographed, fingerprinted and released. The unlucky
visitor,
however
was sent to Opa Locka airport for further questioning.
Having
survived
this, the immigrant who had no family, found his way to the
Catholic
Relief
Center where he received a meal and possibly a few dollars
with which
to
begin his new life.
Although
shabby
in appearance and almost penniless, these refugees were
quite
different than the group of poor workers and students that
wandered
into
Miami during the Machado revolution. These new
arrivals were, as
later
statistics verified, decidedly middle class. Typical
of the new
immigrant
was a man described by then Mayor Robert King High.
"My law
office
recently required testimony from someone with a background
in Cuban
law".
Said High, "We were able to reach a former judge, an
appellate judge in
Cuba
who had served some 30 years. He came to Miami in the
middle of
1960.
It was brought out in testimony as to what his present
position is and
he
stated that he delivers groceries on a part time basis for
$18 a week".
These
poorly
dressed, mentally depressed, uncomely, wanderers were not
the
Cubans Miamians had become accustomed to and many were quick
to express
their
disgust. News commentator Wayne Farriss echoed the
opinions of
many
when he said:
"Miamians
view
the Cubans as house guest who have worn out their welcome,
who feel it is now time for them to move on. . . .[The
Cubans] are a
threat
to our business and tourist economy. It would
appear that
the
hand that holds Miami's torch of friendship has
been
overextended"
Rejected
in
Cuba, poor abandoned by all but the Church and ridiculed by
many,
the plight of the first refugees from Castor's Cuba was a
sad
one.
Had word of this filtered back to Cuba possibly the great
flow of
humanity
would have ceased. But before the earliest experiences
became
established
practice an amazing event occurred. The Federal
government
stepped
in. No longer was the problem of refugees perceived as
a local
problem
but rather an issue of utmost importance to the national
security of
the
country.
In
the
fifties and early sixties as refugees poured out of Eastern
Europe,
Americans interpreted the phenomenon as proof of the failure
of
Communism.
And when the federal government noticed similar numbers
coming out of
Cuba
they instituted policies which would encourage continued
migration and
prove
a similar point in the Caribbean. Miami quickly became
the latest
battle
front in the cold war, the Berlin of the Caribbean, and the
refugees
were
no longer waifs, but heroes.
Much
of
this ideological transformation is documented in Senate
Hearings
held in Miami in 1961. Senator Phillip Hart from
Michigan set the
tone
for the hearings when he stated that if the United States
was going to
undertake
a major refugee assistance program it must be done "in a way
that
reflects
a conscious understanding that our action in this area bears
directly
on
our foreign policy".
Local
leaders
sensitive to the Washington sentiment and eager to obtain
funds
for their beleaguered community also picked up the cold war
theme.
Congressman Dante Fascell in soliciting funds for education
added that
in
every classroom time must be taken for a rigid
indoctrination
program.
And Mayor Robert King High stated that "we can no longer
treat the
matter
of Cuban refugees as a welfare problem. These people
who gave up
their
homes, and in some instances their families because of their
refusal to
knuckle
under to communist tyranny should be allowed to taste the
fruits of
freedom
(i.e. a comfortable middle class life).
H.
Franklin
Williams of the University of Miami, seeking funds for
refugee
programs being established at his school testified, "[the
refugee
problem
is] something larger than a Miami community problem we see
Miami as the
battle
front of the Cold War. . .for the firs time the United
States was a
country
of first asylum", he pointed out, and "the way in which we
handle these
people
who had chosen to leave a Communist area was important to
the Cold War."
Of
course
Williams as well as others who testified in Miami were
seeking
federal dollars for the community. But the immediate
gratification
of large amounts of federal money prevented reflection on
long term
implications
for the future of the city. The great infusion of
federal
dollars,
along with the millions of Cuba dollars lying dormant in
Miami since
the
forties, combined with vigorous new Cuban middle class, to
set off an
explosion
of entrepreneurial activity in this city such as has never
been seen
anywhere.
Almost overnight businesses sprang up everywhere.
There were at
least
a dozen Cuban newspapers printed in 1960 and they recorded
the swift
Cuban
economic development. On December 30, 1960 the first
Cuban
theater
opened at 313 West Flagler. It was called Teatro
Flagler and its
first
show was the French film "Este Cuerpo Tan Deseado". A
Cuban
employment
agency opened at 223 N.W. 3rd Avenue and in December, 1960
on Miami
Beach
at the Old Raleigh Hotel, Mr. Abraham, the old owner of the
Dulceria
Mignon
del Vedado in Havana, opened what might be the first Cuban
restaurant
in
the Miami area. "We have Cuban food" Mr. Abraham
announced and we
speak
Spanish." At seventeenth street and Biscayne Boulevard
where the
Revolutionary
Headquarters would eventually be established, there was even
a man
selling
Cuban liberty bonds.
More
significant
than these first openings, however, was the dramatic
transformation
of Southwest Eight Street. Within two years, according
to the
City
Directory, between Southwest Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth
Avenue, twenty
eight
street shops changed ownership from American to Cuban.
An
Italian
American shopkeeper on Eight Street, Sylvan Peterno, put
these
statistics into the human terms. After twenty-six
years running a
shop
on Eight Street, he had to close down and sell out in 1962.
[Cuban
migration]
is "knocking the hell out of my business", he said, "the
Cubans trade
with
their own people and we merchants have to take a loss or
sell out
cheaply
to Cubans. It's unbelievable how the Cuban could push
out
Americans
in four years time."
The
other
side of this story of is that the late 1950's Miami was in
po or
economic condition. The city had the highest rate of
V.A. and
F.H.A.
foreclosures in the country, and Eighty street was actually
a shabby
row
of businesses trying to survive in a deteriorating
neighborhood.
Also,
those who were living here before the Cuban migration
benefited
economically
from the influx too. As Antonio Jorge and Raul Moncarz
have
pointed
out, the influx of money and economic activity had a
multiplier effect
which
overflowed from the Cuban community to the general economy,
and small
businessmen
selling appliances, furniture, clothing, used cars and other
necessities
of middle class life, shared in Miami's new prosperity.
The
major
source of the economic stimulus for this activity came from
the
federal government. In 1960, the fiscally conservative
Republicans
contributed four million dollars in benefits to the
refugees, but by
1961,
under the Kennedy administration, expenditures on Cuban
refugees
increased
to $2.4 million a month. By 1976 from this source
alone (Cuban
Refugee
Program) over 1.6 Billion dollars were injected into the
Cuban
community.
In addition, traditional disbursement sources such as the
Small
Business
Association, began targeting the Latins also. As
Professor
Raymond
Mohl has pointed out, of the one hundred million distributed
by the SBA
in
Miami in the early 1970's over half went to Latins.
Overshadowing
all
government expenditures was the investment made by the
CIA. Through front organizations such as the Zenith
group at the
University
of Miami the CIA pumped over 100 million dollars into the
Cuban
community
in the early sixties.
In
addition
to paying salaries of commandos who spent their money in
Miami,
the CIA also added a new dimension to the economy, as
weapons
production
and importation became a key industry in the area.
Miami also
provided
a ready army for CIA operations throughout the world.
At first
this
militia activity was localized. For example
these
counter-revolutionaries
bombed Paula's restaurant at 435 N.E. First Avenue which was
known
hangout
for Castro sympathizers and anytime a Cuban official arrived
in Miami
they
would attack them, claiming they were fighting the
communists.
But
the government funded anti-Communism grew to such a point
that
eventually
CIA agents could come to Miami and recruit an army of one to
two
hundred
Cubans simply by saying they were helping the anti-Communist
crusade.
Although this was kept secret, the implications of such a
policy became
apparent
to everyone as events related to the Watergate break-in
revealed that
Miami
Cubans had played an integral part in that operation.
This
massive
influx of federal money from various sources far dwarfed
normal
public spending in the city.. For example, in 1959 the
budget for the
City
of Miami expected no government funding and planned to spend
a total of
only
$19,000,000 for the entire year. As a result of this
commitment,
the
American government created the largest refugee relief
program in the
history
of the country and in doing so, transformed the city of
Miami
economically,
demographically an politically.
Twenty
Five
years into this program a historian might begin to ask to
what
end was this policy established? If it was to
stimulate the Miami
economy,
then the government policy was an unparalleled
success.
Dreams
of economic expansion, that began in the thirties with the
first air
flights
to the Caribbean, became a reality in the sixties and
seventies, as
exiled
Cuban businessmen, building on old connections in the
Caribbean, made
Miami
the acknowledged financial and trading center of the
Caribbean.
But
if the main purpose was a diplomatic victory over Fidel
Castro, the
policy
was as complete a disaster as the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
For the
diplomatic
and economic assault designed to destroy the Castro
revolution
strengthened
it. First of all, it provided a safety valve for the
revolution.
Castro did not have to purge his strongest opponents, he
simply let
them
go to Miami. Secondly, by opening its gates to the
Middle Class,
America
was removing from Cuba that segment of the population most
necessary
for
a successful bourgeois democracy. With only true
believers,
workers
and the less politically or economically ambitious remaining
in Cuba,
Communism
became the only political destiny possible for the
island. And if
the
purpose of the migration was to undermine Fidel Castro; this
too was a
failure,
for he used his enemies to expand his own prestige.
From a
demographic
point of view, he has expanded Cuban influence into the
Southern United
States,
and from an economic point of view he has established a
colony which
continues
to provide economic support (through money, medicine and
clothing sent
to
families, telephone income, and at time tourist income) to
the Mother
country
Cuba.
Why
did
America embark on such a futile policy? In part the
answer
is that this was just one segment of an overall cold war
policy.
But
also, Miami's history played a part in the evolution of this
policy.
In two previous revolutions, against Spain in 1898 and
against Machado
in
1933, a small group composed of wealthy exiles and poor
desperate
radicals
used Miami as a base for successful revolutionary
operations.
There
was no reason to think that 1959 would be any
different. Local
government
and businessmen lobbied for and supported such a plan
because it meant
added
income for the city and the federal government pursued it
because it
had
been successful in the past. What they did not
understand was
that
the rules the players and the field had all ben changed by
1959.
The
refugees were not just the extremely wealthy and the
extremely poor,
they
were decidedly middle class. And as the statistics for
the first
years
show, the main goal of the majority of the immigrants was
not to foment
revolution
in Cuba, but to reestablished the comfortable middle class
life that
was
taken away from them there. The Senate Hearings on the
Refugee
program
reveal a large amount of money being spent to retrain,
accountants,
physicians,
teachers and lawyers so that they might pursue productive
lives in the
United
States. But most importantly there were new rules to
this
political
game. Cuba had by American design been thrown into the
world
political
arena, Cuban-American relations were no longer being played
out as an
issue
of American hegemony in the Caribbean, but rather as a
question of
Communism
verses Capitalism. As Kennedy said shortly after
entering office,
"Our
objection isn't to the Cuban Revolution, it is to the fact
that Castro
has
turned it over to the Communists".
When this occurred both Miami and Havana became pawns not
players and
their
destinies were no longer in their own hands. At one
time the two
important
geographic centers were on a course of economic cooperation
and
development.
Because of their complementary economic and strategic
significance in
the
Caribbean, the two cities, Havana and Miami provided a model
for
Anglo-Spanish
cooperation in the new era of Caribbean trade which the
airlines were
stimulating.
But due to events over which both sides surrendered control,
these two
cities
have scorned natural destiny to become sworn enemies.
The
destruction
of this relationship has become one of the worst casualties
of the
entire
cold war.
End of Page
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