Preface

I was born in Cuba and sent to the United States at the age of six. I was one of the fourteen thousand unaccompanied children who came as part of what became known as “Operation Pedro Pan.” Like half of these children, I was reunited with my parents within months. Also like many other Cuban families who came to the United States in the early 1960s, we were relocated to Cleveland, Ohio. Raised outside the closely knit Miami émigré enclave, I was not protected from dehumanizing clashes with racism. These contributed to my search for alternative politics and my desire to return “home.” In the late 1960s and early 1970s I began to meet other Cuban exiles who, like myself, wanted to engage with our homeland. While we were a relatively small group, we managed to find our way back. The Cuban revolution seemed to offer an alternative to the social injustices we were witnessing in the United States. Yet, after years of returning to the island, I became aware of the corruption and abuses of the Cuban government—thus, the search for a perspective that could be critical of both governments. Each stage along the way has involved considerable emotional, political, and intellectual struggle. This book explores these journeys.

My intellectual journey began as a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Lourdes Casal first suggested that I study Cuban exile politics. The chair of the department, however, asked why I would choose such an insignificant voting group. I persisted, despite the graduate program director’s concerns about whether or not a Cuban exile could be “objective” in studying exiles. I do not hide the fact that my perspectives are informed and shaped by events that occurred in my homeland when I was young. My experiences of leaving Cuba in the early 1960s and growing up in the United States at a time of social and political upheaval have greatly marked my views as well.¹ Other waves of Cuban exiles have arrived since the 1960s. My experiences differ from theirs in many ways. Yet there have been similarities in our dislocations; after all, the island has been ruled by one person for four decades, and U.S. policies toward Cuba have been hostile throughout this time.

Although I share points of reference with other Cuban exiles, particularly of my generation, my views are my own. I question the validity of perspectives that attempt to speak for others, particularly when the “others” have lived in political circumstances in which debate about issues of politics and identity have been difficult. I believe that part of the process of discovering who we are occurs as we enter into dialogue with others around us. This includes our personal narratives as well.²

Still. I am reluctant to give up the quest for theorizing. After all, there may be conceptual tools that can help us understand differences instead of simply generalizing and consequently diluting and distorting experiences.³ This process can begin by elaborating examples of those realities that cannot be placed neatly in one or another of the conceptual categories that dominate our understanding of social reality. Inquiry about human behavior is subjective, precisely because it is done by human beings. Furthermore, if we learn something new about ourselves in the process of inquiry, we ourselves change.⁴ I would add that what has driven me to “observe” and “participate,” and what has in the process changed me as well, has been my commitment to engage in an intellectual struggle particularly around issues that contribute to defining who is entitled to participate in politics.

My method of inquiry is eclectic. Over the past ten years I have systematically interviewed key political actors in the exile community and in Cuba. I have also extensively reviewed government documents available in various libraries as well as those obtained through freedom of information requests. And I have taken notes of my personal involvement in the various political movements referred to throughout the book.

The introduction that follows places this work at the intersection of the personal and the political.⁵ Chapter 1 presents the theoretical concerns of the book. The need for a more comprehensive theoretical and political perspective has grown more urgent in light of the restructuring of the international political economy. Regional blocs such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement transcend predetermined political borders. The boundaries of the nation-state no longer define people’s work or life experiences as rigidly as they did during most of the twentieth century. These developments call for new paradigms that explore the changing nature of borders. As such, I situate this study within the broader inquiry of the changing nature of nation-states and its impact on the politics and identity of diaspora communities.

The five chapters that follow are divided roughly by decade. The questions posed take into account the development of Cuban exile politics and identity within a particular place in time, while emphasizing the state structures, institutions, and policies of two warring countries that influenced these processes. Chapter 2 unearths the origins of the postrevolution exile enclave in the 1960s. Chapter 3 looks at the development of the Cuban community over the 1960s. Chapter 4 traces the pluralization of exile politics in the 1970s, particularly regarding the relationship with the island. It was during this decade that many young exiles, myself included, sought to return home, eventually helping to organize a group of young Cuban exiles who visited the island periodically. Chapter 5 examines the emergence of Cuban-American political action committees in the 1980s, as many Cuban exiles from both sides of the political spectrum turned their attention to Washington, DC. By this time I had joined the board of one of the groups lobbying for changes in U.S.-Cuban relations. Chapter 6 analyzes post-cold war developments and explores a moment that promised to bring reconciliation. Chapter 7 explores the transition of Miami, spurred mainly by the coming of age of a second generation of Cuban-Americans and the arrival of a new wave of exiles. In addition, I discuss the city’s significance to Cuban exile politics in general. Chapter 8, which concludes the book, revisits the theoretical issues raised in the first chapter and brings us back to the personal dilemmas that have in many ways served as the catalyst for my writing.