Cuban-American Politics

So since I've been doing a great deal of work reading U.S. Latino literature, theory, and history I've come upon the fanatical elements of 1960s era Cuban immigrants/exiles to the United States. Many of these folks were directly funded in their immigration, often of bourgeois elements or middle class, highly skilled, and as their presence in Miami progressed they became recruited directly into the CIA. Actually, there is a CIA station at the University of Miami that contributes to this flow of people.

Often this generation of Cuban-Americans consider themselves exiles (as opposed to maybe those of the Mariel boatlift era, who were largely motivated to leave for economic reasons), and they orient their politics around "lo que dejé"--what I left behind. The Cuban communist/Castro regime dispossessed the enriched elements (the Criollos) of Cuba instating such "draconian" policies as seizing the properties of those who owned more than one residence, to solve housing shortages in the country. The Cuban-Americans of this generation want those properties, along with their nationality returned to them.

This persistent grudge has enabled some rather unsavory political moves by this U.S. funded exile group (see the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act) including voluntary involvement and attempted-invasion/coup during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, some presence inside the Watergate scandal, working against Communist groups within the U.S. and Latin America, the fatal bombing of a Chilean ambassador to Washington, and bombings/terrorism within Cuba itself. In the below video a journalist recounts how a former CIA agent and anti-Castro Cuban-American Luis Posada Carriles was able to move between the United States and Cuba to cause bombings of the tourist industry and the intelligence agency cover-up of evidence regarding his case, with what appears to be some U.S. government supported mandate. He awaits a trial in Texas currently. This move by the exile community is actually a departure from the left-wing radicalism of earlier generations of Cuban-Americans who were often active in unionization, communist, and anarchist struggle.

Part 1


Part 2


What this reminds us is that to be minority does not equal subordination necessarily, or a standpoint against domination and capitalism. Instead, the case of the Cuban-American community is often one where the U.S. colludes with the national bourgeoisie and perpetuates clientelism in the Americas...NIMBY