Cuban-Americans in Miami Politics
The Cuban community in Miami is now entering its fourth decade. Cubans, during the last thirty years, have come to dominate the cultural, economic, and political life of the city. They transformed Miami from a second-rate city into a center of business, politics, literature, and art. The arrival of the Cubans gave Miami the human skills and hemispheric connections necessary to exploit its natural advantage, and emerge as the capital of the Caribbean Basin. They transformed the city from a middle-sized tourist center into a modern metropolis.
The transformation of Miami allowed Cuban-Americans to enjoy remarkable economic success in comparison with other immigrant and minority groups.(1) Studies of the Cuban experience in the United States with few exceptions have been preoccupied with how Cubans have "made it" economically.(2)
While Cuban-Americans economic success has attracted a great deal of attention, there has been a paucity of research on Cuban political empowerment.
The rapid growth of Cuban political power in the United States has been extraordinary. In one generation three Cuban-American congressmen have been elected, Cuban have won ten Florida state house seats, three Florida state senate seats, the mayorship of Miami, Coral Gables, Hialeah, and other communities in Florida and Northern New Jersey. In metropolitan Miami-Dade County, Latins have consolidated their status as the core electoral constituency. Hispanics have also strengthened their local political position due to a recent federal court ruling which overturned the county's at-large election system on the basis that it prevented Hispanics and blacks from electing their "preferred candidates." In state politics, Cuban Republican legislators from Dade County have emerged as an important swing vote on matters ranging from the selection of state legislative leaders to the enactment or defeat of major policies. On the issue of reapportionment, Cuban Republicans were nothing short of catalytic in dramatically modifying the Democratic majority's plans for Congressional and state legislative district lines. In statewide elections, south Florida's Latin voters have demonstrated that in close statewide contests, their bloc voting can alter the outcome. Both George Bush in the 1992 presidential contest and Connie Mack in the 1988 Senate race squeak past Democratic opponents in Florida due to the overwhelming support Cubans give Republican candidate.
Nationally, the election of three Cuban-Americans to the U.S. House (two Republicans from South Florida and one Democrat from New Jersey), combined with the ongoing lobbying efforts of such groups as the Cuban American National Foundation and the Valladares Foundation, has resulted in an expanded role in Washington, at least with regard to shaping policy toward Cuba. For example, the Cuban-American National Foundation was able to win U.S. Congressional approval of Radio and T.V. Marti, which broadcast to Cuba, and also the Cuban Democracy Act which tightened U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba. More generally, Cuban-Americans have emerged as a group whose support is actively courted by a growing number of officeholders from outside the state -- from presidential candidates down to members of Congress seeking campaign contributions. Perhaps most importantly, the community's clout has shown itself to be significant not only when actively asserted at the polls or through lobbying and campaign support, but is increasingly a status that is voluntarily recognized and actively courted. Such voluntary recognition reduces the future costs of exercising influence over the political process.
These political accomplishments occurred in a general context of Hispanic ascendancy in Miami's culture and business. The 1980s was a transitional decade in Dade County as Miami moved from being a tripartite city (Anglo, Blacks, and Hispanics) to becoming a largely "Hispanic city" in the 1990s. Moreover, all political, demographic and social indicators point to the possibility that the 1990s will be another decade of dramatic political gains for Cubans.
The Cuban Experience in Theoretical Perspective
The political and socioeconomic success of the Hispanic population in Dade county raises several important questions for Latino politics: Is the "Cuban model" of political and economic empowerment a model that is unique to conditions in Miami or is it a model that could be replicated by other Latino and minority populations?
The Cuban-American political experience does not fit neatly into the current literature on minority politics. For example, in their pathbreaking study on the condition of minority groups (Latinos and Blacks) in ten Northern California cities, Browning, Marshall, and Tabb (1984) postulated that minorities must participate in governing coalitions in order to exert influence on policy. What is crucial is incorporation, that is minority participation in a liberal dominant (Democratic) coalition in city government.(3) Such incorporation is itself dependent on electoral mobilization. The Browning et al. study concluded that policy responsiveness is largely determined by levels of participation in coalitions.(4) They identified a range of possibilities for minority incorporation: "At the lower end, we have no minority representation; then some representation, but on a council dominated by a coalition resistant to minority interests; finally--the strongest form of incorporation--an equal or leading role in a dominant coalition that is strongly committed to minority interests. The higher levels of political incorporation are likely to afford substantial influence or control over policy."(5)
The conditions Cuban-Americans faced in Dade County was substantially different from the experience that Blacks and Chicanos faced in Northern Califronia. Cuban political empowerment has occurred despite the fact that they do not participate in electoral coalitions. Cubans have only won elections when Hispanic constitute a majority of the electorate and a super-majority of the district's population. Moreover, Cubans have not allied themselves with liberals and Democrats; when Cubans do participate in coalitions they joined conservatives and Republicans. The Cuban alliance with the Republicans can be partly attributed to the fact that the Republican party has been the historically under-utilized party in Florida. As with many of the immigrant groups who came to the U.S. in the late 1800's, the party of opportunity frequently is that party which is the weakest in the region. Like the Irish in Boston who seized control of the Democratic party's local machinery in the face of "Yankee Republicanism," the Cubans have become dominant in Dade County's Republican party, providing an "entree" for Cuban political activists and candidates. In the late 1970's, facing significantly less competition for party nominations, Cuban-Americans became a common fixture on the ballot in offering Republican opposition in what had formerly been one-party contests. The Cuban model also does not fit the pattern articulated by more radical theories of minority politics. Critical scholars point out that the predominant way in which mainstream political science's views minority politics is flawed because it does not acknowledge the historical situation of Blacks and Hispanics.(6) The unique historical conditions of Blacks because of slavery and of Chicanos because of the U.S. conquest of the Southwest in the Mexican War has meant that blacks and Hispanics have been treated as "conquered peoples." Even Nathan Glazer acknowledges "the fact that the American Southwest was once a part of Mexico is a reality in the listing of structural features even if it has no present consequences."(7) Other scholars go much further than Glazer contending that the long-term consequences of these historical conditions have been more important for Latinos and Blacks. In order to explain the lowly socio-political status of Blacks and Latinos they modified theories of classic colonialism to the situation of American minorities.(8) According to Chris Garcia and Rudolfo de la Garza, an essential feature of internal colonialism is a "situation where one group of people dominate or exploit another, and, generally the relations occur between culturally different groups."(9)
The internal colonialism model suggests that the minority group entered the dominant society involuntarily through a forced process. Blacks and Latinos, therefore, are not immigrants as are other ethnic groups. The internal colonial interpretation claims that the present disadvantaged position of minorities is in large part the result of past oppression, an oppression that was severe. The oppression continues, although it is no longer overt and may no longer be directly supported by formal government policy.(10)
Hero argues that the unique historical conditions of Latinos has created a "two-tiered pluralism" in the U.S. political system. Two-tiered pluralism describes the political situation for Latinos and other minorities in which equality is largely formal or procedural, but not substantive. Hero argues that this formal and marginalized inclusion exists for most facets of the political process.
The internal colonialism model does not fit the Cuban political experience in the United States. As journalist Earl Shorris wrote, "Cubans identify with the conquerors, not the conquered, the subject, not the object."(11) Cubans, as recent arrivals in the United States, have not suffered the historical discrimination and oppression envisioned in the internal colonialism model. Moreover, as political exiles they entered the United States voluntarily and not in a forced process as did African-Americans and many Latinos. The unique historical experience of the Cuban community in Miami has led many scholars to conclude that the minority model, used in Mexican-American and Afro-American studies, is not appropriate for Cubans. Hero suggests that the traditional pluralist model might be better suited for Cubans than his two-tiered pluralism theory.(12) Some even suggest that the Cuban American model for political incorporation more closely resembles those of ethnic groups such as the Irish and the Italians.
However, while the internal colonialism model overstates the level of discrimination, the traditional pluralist approach may
understate both formal and informal discrimination against Cuban-Americans. Cubans face racism and discrimination because
of their racial backgrounds, language and national origin. Even the most privileged white Cuban immigrants of 1961
confronted racism in the United States. In Miami in the early 1960s, it was common to find signs posted in apartment buildings
that read: "No Pets, No Kids, No Cubans."(13) Moreover, during the 1960s and 1970s, due to the urging of local Anglo
politicians new Cuban refugees were relocated outside of Dade County in an effort to prevent the political empowerment of
Cubans. Public resentment against Cuban-Americans is reflected in a 1993 USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll which found that
only 19 percent of the respondents believed that immigration from Cuba has benefitted the United States.(14)
In particular, Cubans have suffered a great deal of language based discrimination. For examples over the last decade hundreds of employment discrimination complaints were filed with the EEOC in Miami over the issue of language. Dade County was also the birthplace of the English only movement in the United States during the 1980s. In part because of this discrimination and in part because of the deterioration of the quality of life for minorities, the Cuban community faces a growing list of social problems. Although the income average for Cubans is higher than for other Hispanics, it is still significantly lower than the income average for a white family.(15) Furthermore, since Cuban women have one of the highest rates of incorporation into the work force, these income figures tend to be inflated. Cuban families also suffer from one of the highest divorce rates in the country, and single females who head households face problems such as the lack of adequate child care and the lack of equal pay.(16) Moreover of all Hispanics, Cubans as a group have the oldest average age. Lack of adequate medical care, inflation and an increasingly hostile environment toward those who do not speak English combine to make life in the United States difficult for elderly Cubans.
The stereotype of the Cuban community in American as living in "golden exile" is vastly exaggerated. Although Cubans enjoy higher social-economic levels than other Hispanic they still suffer from racial and linguistic stigmas. Thus, in understanding the role of Cuban-Americans in the political system it is useful to view them as a stigmatized class. In other words, they are vulnerable to the same types of discrimination as other Hispanics and Blacks while at the same time not suffering from the historical legacy of slavery and segregation. The Cuban model is a unique mixture of official privilege and official discrimination, a combination of not experiencing the legacy of oppression which Blacks and Chicanos suffered but at the same time facing the language, political, and economic barriers erected by the dominant society.
Another major contributing to the uniqueness of the Cuban Model are the generous federal benefits which Cuban refugee received. First, the United States granted Cuban immigrants special status, allowing them to enter the United States without the restriction imposed on other groups. "The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966" gives automatic residency to any Cuban who comes to the United States, be it a tourist who overstays his visa or someone who sneaks in, after only a year and a day after arriving in the United States. People fleeing any other country, even other communist countries, must submit clear proof that they are persecuted. For Cubans, escape is usually enough to guarantee permanent resettlement in the United States. No other group has benefitted from such an exception for so long. The act, also allows Cubans to apply for federal assistance (SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc.) immediately after becoming legal residents. More than 500,000 persons immigrated to the U.S. under the Cuban Adjustment Act.(17) Moreover, the U.S. government invested over $1 billion in assisting Cuban resettle in the United States through the Cuban Refugee Program.(18)
The Cuban-American strategy for overcoming the stigma of discrimination is also unique. The critical factor in explaining the political empowerment of Cuban-Americans is geopolitical. The Cubans were able to advantage of Miami's political and economic underdevelopment to overcome the discriminatory policies created by the city's Anglo establishment. The interaction of talented middle and upper class Cubans with an underdeveloped city is a key factor in explaining the Cuban success story. Cubans when they arrived in the U.S. faced a weak and fragmented political establishment. Miami before the Cubans was composed of poor blacks, sun-seeking retirees, newly arrived farmers from other parts of the South, and on Miami Beach, an extension of New York Jewish enclave.
The population of Miami had little connection with the rest of Florida and little in common among themselves, except perhaps the love of sun and sand. The weakness of the Miami power establishment was reflected in the struggle to create a strong county government. It was not until 1957 that the Metro Charter creating unified government in the county was approved by a mere 1,784 votes and only after bitter opposition from the jealously independent incorporated cities. The fight pitted downtown business and civic interests, who saw a pressing need for coordinated authority, against local residents bent on protecting their own particular life-styles. The lack of loyalties to a civic establishment among the diverse population of Dade and the lack of a municipal identity beyond tourist resort made the city far more permeable to outside influences than older cities in the United States.(19)
The weakness and fragmentation of the Miami power elite provided a golden opportunity for the arriving Cubans who in large were from the upper and middle strata of Cuban society. As Portes and Stepic point out, "The first exiles encountered a social and political order that, if not entirely amorphous, was a far cry from the consolidated power structures in places further north, and therefore far more permeable. As the Miami Herald and its allies struggle to build a serious city out of the assemblage of theme parks, the entire Cuban bourgeoisie arrived on the doorstep."(20)
Through an examination of the conditions that prevail in Miami, specifically, patterns of migration, socioeconomic conditions, and the existence of a self-sustained Cuban enclave, we can begin to explain how the Cubans took advantage of these geopolitical conditions to incorporate themselves into the American political system. It was the interaction of the Cuban migration and the city of Miami that produced the Cuban success story. While, the Cubans did not "make" Miami, they did unalterably changed the course of its development---demographically, economically, socially, and politically.
The Cuban Enclave
The Cuban community in Dade traces its modern roots to Fidel Castro's revolutionary victory on January 1, l959. Castro initiated a process of revolutionary change that, in its rapidity and pervasiveness alienated large sectors of the Cuban population.(21)
An exodus from the island was underway by 1960, and the principle destination was Miami. During the ensuing 30 years, more than 750,000 Cuban refugees arrived in the United States, most passing through Miami. By 1990, the census bureau put the number of Cubans living in the U.S. at 1,140,000. Most Cuban-Americans settled in Miami or returned to the city after first settling in the North, and thus over half (561,868) of the Cuban-American population lives in the Miami area. Miami now ranks third in the nation, behind only Los Angeles and New York, in the size of its Hispanic population. When one considers that Miami has a substantially smaller overall population than either of these other two cities, and that almost all of the Hispanic population has settled in the city since 1960, it is of little surprise that Miami has undergone the single most dramatic ethnic transformation of any major American city in this century.
According to the 1990 census, well over 60 percent of all Hispanics living in Florida reside in Dade County. The 1990 census shows that about 51 percent of the population of Dade county is Hispanic.
TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
The 1990 census figures illustrates the dramatic increase in the Latin population, during the last ten years. It is estimated that during the 1980s over 300,000 Latin Americans moved into Dade County. At the beginning of the decade there was the Mariel boatlift which brought in 125,000 Cuban refugees, often poorer than Cubans who had come earlier. Around the same time, 70,000 Nicaraguans who fled the Sandinista regime and the civil war arrived. Colombians, Peruvians, Hondurans, Guatemalans, each escaping turmoil in their countries soon followed, melding into Dade's flourishing Hispanic community and taking advantage of the economic space created by Cuban-Americans during the 1980s. The total Hispanic population of Dade County is 953,407 of which about 55 percent is Cuban-American.
TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
Cuban-Americans are not only concentrated in Miami, but within Dade County distinctive neighborhood settlement patterns have also tended to concentrate the Hispanic population in well defined areas. Hispanics have basically settled in three sections of Dade. The traditional concentration of Hispanics is the Little Havana section of the City of Miami, where Cuban refugees first settled in the early l960s. Sections of Little Havana range from about 70 to 90 percent Hispanic, and most of the 239,400 Cubans in the City of Miami live in this section of town. The most rapid Hispanic growth (Cubans, Nicaraguans, and South Americans) in the county is taking place in the West Dade area, made up of the communities of Sweetwater, Village Green, Westchester, and West Kendall, where Hispanics make up over 70 percent of the population. The third area of Hispanic concentration, mostly Cuban, is the Northwest section of the county which consists of the cities of Hialeah, Miami Springs, and their surrounding neighborhoods. These areas range from 55 to 85 percent Hispanic. In addition, there is a sizable Hispanic, mostly Mexican, farm-workers community in the Homestead area.
These settlement patterns have facilitated the development of the Cuban enclave in Miami. The basis of the enclave is highly differential entrepreneurial activity.(22)
Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach define an ethnic enclave as "a distinctive economic formation, characterized by the spatial concentration of immigrants who organize a variety of enterprises to serve their own ethnic market and the general population." (23)
They argue that the two fundamental conditions necessary for an economic enclave are in existence in Cuban Miami. The Cuban community in Miami has both the presence of immigrants with sufficient capital, either brought from Cuba or accumulated in the United States, to create new opportunities for economic growth, and an extensive division of labor."(24)
After locating in Miami, the Cuban middle class developed an elaborate network of successful small enterprises, rather than relying on the public sector as a primary vehicle for upward mobility. These small and middle-size enterprises served as a source of employment for ensuing waves of Cuban immigrants.
Travel writer David Rieff captured the dynamic of Cuban exile economics when he wrote, "the first wave of immigrants (those
who came to Miami in the first year after the revolution) founded the businesses that employed the second wave (those who
came to Miami between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies); in turn both groups employed the third wave."(25)
The proliferation of small businesses, primarily serving Latin tastes, is the foundation of Cuban economic and political power in Miami. Miami ranks first in terms of the number of Hispanic-owned businesses relative to the size of the Latin population.(26)
Miami has an estimated 55,712 Hispanic owned businesses. Some 7,700 of Cuban firms were large enough to have paid workers, and those employed 34,504 people.(27)
These Hispanic-owned firms generated nearly $3.8 billion in receipts in 1987, or about 15 percent of all receipts generated by Hispanic owned firms in the United States.(28) Among Hispanics, Cubans have by far the highest business ownership rates, at 63 businesses for every 1,000 Cuban Americans. This rate is more than three times that of Mexicans (19) and nearly six times that of Puerto Ricans (11).(29) The high rate of business ownership among Cubans is due to the selective migration of former business owners and better-educated adults following the Cuban Revolution. Another reason is the heavy concentration of Cubans in the Miami area, which had a booming economy during the 1980s. That large, prosperous ethnic enclave provides Miami's Cubans with a potent small business incubator.
Cubans have also been successful in the founding of larger corporations. With about 5 percent of the country's Hispanic population, Miami has almost a third of the largest Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States. Thirty-one of the top 100 Hispanic businesses in the U.S. are located in Dade County. Bacardi Imports of Miami is the nation's most profitable Hispanic owned business with total sales in excess of $500 million in 1987. The Cuban presence and their economic successes has also attracted Latin American tourists and capital, and resulted in scores of multinational corporations locating their Latin American offices in Miami.
Sociologist Lisandro Perez pointed out that the strong and diversified entrepreneurial activity is responsible for the enclave's most important overall feature: institutional completeness.(30) Cubans in Miami can, if they wish, live out their lives within the ethnic community. The wide range of sales and services, including professional services, available within the community makes possible its completeness. There are 30 Latin-owned banks, 1,500 Latin lawyers, eight Spanish radio stations, two Spanish TV stations.(31)
Cubans can work in a Cuban-owned business, shop in a Cuban supermarket, visit a Cuban doctor or dentist, eat at a Cuban restaurant, and avoid all interaction with the dominant society. Clearly, the success of Cubans in Miami was, to begin with at least, almost independent of that of the larger community. The existence of the enclave also serves to insulate Cuban-Americans from the affects of language based discrimination. The Cuban enclave became a community where Spanish-speaking immigrants could settle without fear of being at a serious disadvantage because of the language barrier. The 1990 census showed that Spanish has replaced English in Dade as the language most often spoken at home. Fifty percent of those surveyed in 1990 said they spoke Spanish at home, compared to 43 percent who spoke English. Moreover, the number of Dade county residents speaking Spanish at home increased from the 1980 census, which had 43 percent of the residents of Dade County speaking a language other than English at home.
The fear of language based discrimination has served to unite Dade's Hispanic communities. The fear of an anti-Spanish backlash has been reinforced by English only initiatives, at both the county and state level, which seemed to be specifically aimed at Miami's Latin population. In November 1980, Dade voters approved an ordinance prohibiting the use of any language other than English in county business. This ordinance overturned a Metro ordinance passed several years previously that had established Dade County as "officially bilingual." The petition drive and resultant referendum turned into a name calling contest between Hispanics and Non-Hispanic communities. A poll taken at the time of the referendum indicated that nearly half of those voting for the ordinance did so in order to express their "protest" and "frustration" with Dade's Latinos and not because they thought the ordinance was a good idea.
The relative prosperity of the Cuban community and their large numbers in cohesive and contiguous neighborhoods have safeguarded the Cuban-American community to a large extent from the prejudice and discrimination that has plagued other Latin groups in the United States. Miami, in the view of many in the Cuban community, is essentially a Cuban city. Indeed, the only city in the world where more Cubans live is Havana itself. This image of Hispanics making Miami uniquely "theirs" is reflected in a survey which showed that Anglos in Miami feel as much or more discrimination than do Hispanics.
TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE
The Cuban-American community has also taken the lead in defending the right of the Spanish-speaking minority (majority) in Dade county through the development of its own anti-discrimination institutions and through quick reactions to discriminatory behavior. The Spanish American League Against Discrimination (SALAD) is particularly noteworthy for its work in this area. Spontaneous citizen action also plays a significant role. For example, in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 11, a supermarket clerk was suspended for speaking Spanish in front of customers. The Hispanic community's reaction was swift and effective. The store in which the incident occurred received over twenty bomb threats, picket lines were set-up, and the powerful Spanish-speaking radio stations began organizing a boycott of the supermarket chain. Less than forty-eight hours after the incident, the company announced that the clerk would be reinstated, the offending manager transferred out of Dade County, and the store issued a public apology to their Spanish-speaking customers. Afterwards, the chain conducted an extensive campaign in the Spanish-speaking media to regain their share of the Hispanic market. The Hispanic community vigilance against language based discrimination was reinforced when news broke in April, 1992 that a personnel agency refused to refer people with Spanish accents to job openings at a Miami bank.
Political Cohesiveness
Cuban-Americans not only live in compact and contiguous neighborhoods, but they also display a remarkable level of political cohesiveness. The anti-Communist ideology of the Miami exile community has attracted national and international attention. The clearly articulated goal of the Cuban community is the overthrow of Fidel Castro in Cuba and the establishment of a democratic government in its place. All Cuban-American elected officials and all main-line Cuban-American organizations share the view that compromise and dialogue is impossible with the Castro regime. Cuban-American opposed by a four-to-one margin the establishing of diplomatic relations with their homeland. Anti-Communism and anti-Castroism are "given" in the Miami Cuban community.(32)
TABLE FOUR ABOUT HERE
This anti-communism has been underscored by a series of public flaps in the Cuban community over the right of Cubans and non-Cubans alike to dissent from this anti-Castro consensus. In 1992, American Watch issued a report condemning the exile community for its lack of tolerance of views that do not conform to the predominant ideology of uncompromising hostility to the Castro regime. The report concluded that "many anti-Castro Miami Cubans have a good deal in common with the regime they loathe. Freedom of expression suffers, much as it does in other countries of Latin America--or anywhere in the world--where violence rules."(33)
One of the most infamous incidents of intolerance occurred in l986 when 2,000 angry Hispanics, mostly Cuban, attacked 200 anti-Contra demonstrators at Miami's Torch of Friendship monument. The Cubans pelted the anti-Contra rally with eggs, rocks, and an occasional glass bottle, forcing Miami riot police to bus the smaller group of demonstrators out of the area. The event attracted numerous public officials, the vast majority of whom sided with the counter-demonstrators. A Cuban radio station broadcast live from the site. The Mayor of Miami, added to the political tension by referring to "Marxist groups" in the anti-Contra rally, and told the mostly Cuban crowd: "Unfortunately they have a right to be on the other side of the street."(34)
However, the anti-Communism issue has not by any means been limited to confrontations over substantive foreign policy questions. Frequently, symbolic politics and otherwise non- political events become the forums for such conflict. Anti- Communist fervor has been a regular part of municipal government deliberations, campaigns for local office, and cultural events. Plays by Cuban born playwright Dolores Prida and performances by Latino musical stars, such as Denise de Kalafe and Ruben Blades, have been canceled in Miami because these individuals have visited or performed in Cuba.
The Cuban community's anti-communism is an important factor in explaining the community alliance with the Republican Party. The Republican party, with its reliance on hard-line foreign policy rhetoric, became the natural home of Cuban exiles (See Table 5).
TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE
While, preoccupation with Latin American Communism generally and the Castro regime specifically still stands as a core political issue in the community, it is no longer the "singular" Cuban issue it once was. For example, survey data show that over three-fourth of Cuban-Americans are more concerned with politics in the United States than in Cuba. Only 4 percent of Cubans identified more with homeland politics than with U.S. politics and 20 percent are equally concern with Cuban and U.S. politics.(35)
Cuban voting patterns and their loyalties to the Republicans are not only contingent on an anti-Castro foreign policy or the enormous popularity of Ronald Reagan, but are also increasingly dependent on the Republican party's willingness to address the other political, social, and economic needs of the Cuban community. Cuban-American politics can no longer be solely understood in terms of militant exile politics. A more traditional brand of American ethnic politics has been emerging. The significance and force of anti-Castro symbolism is still alive, but it has been combined with more mundane concerns for jobs, domestic social services, and other substantive policy concerns. Cuban-Americans are not only interested in electing staunch anti- Communists; they also expect their elected officials to serve the interests of their community. This tension between the "old" politics of exile and the "new ethnic politics" has created a two- dimensional voting pattern among Cubans. For offices that have great symbolic power, such as President and U.S. Senate, exile politics is still quite evident. On the other hand, for many state and local offices, ethnic politics and concern with servicing the community become preponderant.
Although this metaphor of a dual political identity within the community is admittedly "too neat" to apply literally, it does help to explain the fact that Cubans do not vote uniformly Republican in all elections. Below the Presidential level, especially in Congressional elections, where local issues begin to take precedent over foreign policy issues, some Democratic candidates have demonstrated an ability to attract Cuban support. The two most prominent Cuban Democrats are Dade County Commissioner, Alex Penelas and State Representative Annie Betancourt both were able to attract Cuban Republican voters by emphasizing local issues.
Tripartite Politics
The rising dominance of the Cuban-American community in Miami has created tension between Hispanics and non-Hispanic groups in Dade County. As David Rieff suggests, "It is difficult to live in someone else's capital city, particularly if you were there first."(36) This raises the most troublesome problem of living in Miami, interethnic relations. As Portes and Stepick pointed out, "the regrouped Cuban bourgeoisie not only redefined the character of the city, but also prompted other ethnic communities -- natives blacks and whites included -- to cast their identities in sharper relief."(37)
Dade County is profoundly divided by the competing interests of three distinct and separate ethnic groups. The Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White communities all have different social and economic interests. The division of Dade along ethnic lines has made Miami one of the contemporary symbols of racial upheaval in America. The deep ethnic tensions in Dade are illustrated by the fact that four times in the 1980s the county was rocked by race riots. The cleavages between the community of interests of the three major ethnic groups has led to the development of tripartite politics in Miami. "Tripartite politics" refers to the notion that ethnic factors between the three communities predominate over all other factors in Dade politics. The existence of competing community interests between the different ethnic groups is demonstrated by the fact that Blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic Whites each live in compact and contiguous neighborhoods, are politically cohesive, vote in blocs, and are politically polarized from each other.
The source of Hispanic-Anglo conflict has its roots in the replacement of the old weak Anglo establishment with the exiled Cuban bourgeoisie. This tension between Hispanic and Anglo is often manifested in terms of the language issue. The perception of non-hispanics is that Cubans are unwilling to learn English and instead are imposing Spanish and their culture on native Americans. These feelings are reinforced by the nature of the large Cuban enclave in which Spanish is the "lingua franca" of commercial interaction. Enos Schera, a leader of the Citizens of Dade United which led the fight for the 1980 English only initiative expressed Anglo reaction when he said, "Miami is a pressure cooker and they (Cubans) are hell-bent on making Americans learn Spanish. I have nothing against the Cubans, (But) the Cubans come here and don't learn our language. The message is 'When in Rome, you do as the Cubans.' It's total insanity. It's as though we are the foreigners."(38)
Anti-Cuban feelings reached its high-point in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift as the spectacle of a new wave of 125,000 Cuban refugees arriving in Miami distres the already besieged non-Hispanic communities. The sheer drama of the event with thousand of Miami Cubans chartering boats to rescue their family from the Castro regime created the perception that Miami was being overwhelmed by a flood of Hispanics. Adding to the anxiety of non-Hispanic was the annocement by the Cuban government that over 45 percent of the new arrivals had criminal backgrounds. Castro claimed that "those that are leaving from Mariel are the scum of the country--antisocial, homosexuals, drug addicts, and gamblers, who are welcome to leave Cuba if any country will have them."(39) The Miami Herald dutifully parroted the concerns of civic leaders and repeatedly castigated Cuban-Americans for their eagerness to rescue relatives left in Cuba and shrilly echoed Castro's characterization of the new refugees.(40)
The Herald and the Anglo establishments reaction to Mariel backfired. It simply reinforced the deep cleavages between Cubans and the rest of the city and created a legacy of distrust between the Cuban community and the city's principle newspaper. The tension between traditional Anglo institutions and the growing Latin populations was also reflected in the feud between the President of the Cuban-American National Foundation Jorge Mas Canosa, and the Publisher of the Miami Herald, David Lawrence, over the Herald's editorial policy.
Moreover, Mariel destroyed the image of Cubans in the United States and, in passing, destroyed the image of Miami itself. The lingering affects of Mariel was reflected in 1987, when radio talk show host Taffy McCallum asked Anglos to call in with nice things to say about Hispanics. No Anglos did. Nasty things? That was another story. "They brought all the crime, all the crooks," charged one woman, becoming more and more enraged about Hispanics as she spoke. "They . . . They . .. They're animals."(41)
In response to the growing Cuban presence in Miami, many Anglos simply left for whiter pasteur in the North. Non-Hispanic
whites moved north -to suburbs in Broward County or retirement villages in Palm Beach, or to Orlando or to Tampa. In
contrast to Blacks and Hispanic, the non-Hispanic White population is rapidly declining, falling from about 80 percent of the
county total in 1960, to less than 33 percent in 1990 (See Table One). According to University of Miami geographer Ira
Sheskin, Non-Hispanic whites have left because they fear the crime, are searching for opportunity, and can afford more house
for the dollar someplace else. Or because they can't speak the language anymore. "It's quite clear among those who live in this
place and follow what goes on that some non-Hispanic whites have moved out of Dade County because none of their neighbors
speaks English," says Sheskin. "Where people feel problems is when they walk into a store ... and feel like they're in a foreign
country."(42)
Despite their decreasing numbers, the non-Hispanic White population was able to retain considerable political power until 1992 by maintaining control of Dade County's delegation to both the Congress in Washington and the Florida State Legislature in Tallahassee. Although, they represented less than a third of the county's population, non-Hispanic Whites comprised ten out of the twenty members of the Dade delegation to the state House, and held three of the seven state Senate seats, and three out of the four seats to the U.S Congress until the 1992 reapportionment.
Fresh wounds were opened between the emerging Cuban elite and the old political establishment during the bitter struggle over redistricting in Florida. Cuban politicians successfully argued in court and in the legislature for greater Hispanic representation based on the Voting Rights Acts. The liberal political establishment initially rejected these claim by arguing that Cubans were not minorities because of their socio-economic status and thus not entitled to protection under the Voting Rights Act. "The Cubans have ridden on the backs of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans to claim privileges which, as the only middle-class emigres of any size that we have had in this country, they don't need," said State Senator Jack Gordon of Miami Beach, who chaired the Florida State senate reapportionment committee.(43)
This feeble and ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Anglo political establishment to hold on to power only serve to deepen the cleavages between the old guard and the emerging Cuban community.
Black Miamians are often the "odd man out" in the contest between the emerging Cubans and the Anglo establishment for political power. Blacks are the most disadvantaged of the three major ethnic groups that live in the Greater Miami area. By all social-economic indicators, Afro-Americans are the worst off of Dade county's citizens. For example, according to Dade County Planning Department estimates, only 1 percent of local businesses belong to Blacks. The average median family income for Blacks in Dade was $20,209 compared to $23,446 for Hispanics (Cubans, the most affluent of Latinos, averaged $26,770), while Whites enjoyed the highest at $35,977. Blacks are also more likely to feel the effects of discrimination. According to one poll, 34 percent of Miami's Black community said that they or someone they know faced discrimination in seeking a job or promotion. (See Table 3) Education for Blacks is also far below the standard for Hispanics and Non-Latin Whites. According to Dade County Public Schools, six out of the seven senior high schools that were designated as deficient last year because of low test scores were predominately Black. Black dropout rates were the highest at 8.9 percent, compared to 7.2 percent for Hispanic students and 5.5 percent for Whites.(44)
Moreover, Miami is still a segregated city. The gulf between Afro-Americans and other Miamians and the effects of lingering racism was clearly revealed in a 1987 poll which showed that 42 percent of the Anglos and 45 percent of the Hispanics live in neighborhoods that contain no Blacks. Blacks in Miami tend to live in fairly confined neighborhoods, segregated from both Cubans and Anglos. Black settlements patterns have had a profoundly negative effect on political mobilization. Historically, due to both the legacy of Southern racism and the conscious placement of some Black settlements in the unincorporated areas of the county, Blacks traditionally played an almost insignificant role in local politics. Although the City of Miami has always had a substantial Black population, and while there has been some Black resettlement in other Dade municipalities, especially Opa Locka and Florida City, over 60 percent of Black Miamians live in unincorporated sections of the county. This settlement pattern, and the extent to which it undermines black influence in local government and complicates grass-roots organizing, stands as a formidable barrier to political mobilization. These factors, along with the at-large elections in the county (until 1993) and City of Miami, combine to compounding the political obstacles faced by Blacks.
Miami's Black community -- facing discrimination, poverty, and not participating in local decision-making erupted in violence four times during the 1980s. The Black neighborhoods of Liberty City experienced one of the most violent riots of the century in May 1980 and Overtown experienced several nights of disorder in December 1982, in the Spring of 1984, and again in January 1989. The immediate reason for these riots was the police shooting of Black residents but these disturbances also reflect the frustration of the Black community with the small number of Black police officers, the violent acts of some police officers toward Black citizens, the absence of Black owned businesses -- indeed, poverty, unemployment, ethnic tensions, and powerlessness in general.
In 1990 the Miami Black community used a more sophisticated tactic to express its grievances against the Non-Latin White and Hispanic elites with the Black boycott of Greater Miami. A boycott of the Miami tourism and hospitality industry was called by the Black community in 1990 to protest their marginalized status. The event which instigated this Black "empower" movement was the less-than-dignified treatment given the African National Congress (ANC) leader, Nelson Mandela, when he addressed a labor conference in South Florida in June, 1990. Winnie and Nelson Mandela were not officially greeted nor honored by any elected body in Dade County, after Mandela acknowledged on the television show "Nightline," the loyal support of Cuban president Fidel Castro and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in the ANC's anti-apartheid struggle. But the demands of the protestors, who call themselves Boycott Miami: Coalition for Progress, went far beyond formal apology and redress. They attacked the economic life-line of Miami, the tourism industry, in hopes of redressing the grievances of the African-American community.
The boycott, which according to Greater Miami Convention & Visitor Bureau (GMCVB) cost as much as $50 million in revenues
reflected the widely held view in the Black community, that Cubans and Anglos need to stop ignoring blacks. Robert L. Steinback, a Miami Herald columnist who is black, held that the outcome would determine the future of the city. "Miami will in fact evolve into a hopelessly fractured city if the black community is not given clear reassurance that it is a welcome and vital part of the economic, political and social environment in south Florida."(45) W.T. Smith, leader of the boycott, agreed. "What you're seeing is the kind of friction that is necessary to mold together three communities who really have not had much time or interest in working together," Smith said. "Let's face it, it's going to be the Cubans' town. They have a tremendous stake in seeing that Miami becomes a bright and shining example."(46)
The Cuban Model
The Cuban experience in Miami is unique. The Cuban political model has been shaped by the demographic and geographic conditions of Dade County and the Cuban population. The Cuban economic enclave would have been extremely difficult to establish without access to Latin American capital. Moreover, the rapidity and large numbers of the Cuban migration to the United States combined with their concentration in Dade County made them politically relevant in a short time. Similarly, tripartite politics and the anti-communist ideology of the Cuban exile community has created an extremely cohesive political community.
TABLE 1
DADE COUNTY POPULATION BY ETHNIC GROUP
Numbers Percentage
Non-Hispanic Whites 585,607 32.21
Hispanics 953,407 51.22
Blacks 369,621 16.57
Source: U.S. Census Bureau 1990
TABLE 2
HISPANICS IN DADE
Cubans 561,868
Nicaraguans 72,244
Puerto Ricans 68,634
Colombians 53,582
Dominicans 23,475
Mexicans 23,193
Hondurans 18,102
Peruvians 16,452
Guatemalans 8,242
Others 101,908
Source: U.S. Census of 1990
TABLE 3
DADE COUNTY RACIAL AND ETHNIC ATTITUDES
People who said they or someone they know has faced discrimination in seeking a job or a promotion:
Group % Facing Discrimination
Anglos 14%
Blacks 34%
Hispanics 13%
People who said that another group would discriminate against them:
Group % Facing Discrimination
Anglos Blaming Hispanics 30
Hispanics Blaming Anglos 28
Blacks Blaming Hispanics 32
Blacks Blaming Anglos 40
Source: Miami Herald/Channel Six Poll, Miami Herald, February 27, l989.
TABLE 4
CUBANS-AMERICANS FOREIGN POLICY BELIEFS
Issue %in Agreement
1993 1991
Favor Current U.S. Policy 80 80
(no diplomatic relations and no trade)
Favor Tightening the U.S. Trade Embargo 85 86
Favor Military Action by the Exile 73 76
Community Against Cuba
Favor a U.S. Invasion of Cuba 60 63
Favor U.S. Support for an Internal 77 75
Rebellion to Overthrown the Castro
Government
Favor Increasing International 87 85
Economic Pressure on Cuba
Favor Negotiations with the Cuban 77 75
Government to allow Family Member to
Travel to the United States
Favor Negotiations with the Cuban 52 62
Government to allow regular phone
communications with the island
Favor Starting Negotiations with the 56 62
Cuban Government to facilitate a democratic
transition
Favor a National Dialogue between the exile 43 40
community, the Cuban government, and Cuban
dissents
Source: Florida International University Florida Poll, July, 1993 and March 1991.
TABLE 5
PARTY LOYALTY BY NATIONAL ORIGINS
Mexican Puerto Rican Cuban Anglo
Always Republican 13.4% 13.3% 63.4% 24.8%
Former Democrat 7.4% 3.4% 13.7% 13.4%
Always Democrats 77.3% 79.5% 22.2% 57.3%
Former Republican 1.9% 3.8% .7% 4.4%
Source: Latino National Political Survey(47)
ENDNOTES
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1. Alejandro Portes. "Immigrants' Attainment: An Analysis of Occupation and Earnings among Cuban Exiles in the United States." In R.M. Hauser (eds.) Social Structure and Behavior: Essays in Honor of William Hamilton Sewell, (New York: Academic Press, 1982): 91-111.
2. Guillermo Grenier, "The Cuban-American Labor Movement in Dade County: An Emerging Immigrant Working Class." In Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick (eds), Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity and Social Change (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992): 134.
3. Rufus Browning, Dale R. Marshall, and David Tabb, Protest is Not Enough, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
4. Ibid, p. 21.
5. Rufus Browning, Dale Rogers Marshall, and Lewis Tabb, (eds.) Racial Politics in American Cities, (New York: Longman, 1990) p. 9.
6. See for example Chris Garcia and Rodolfo O. de la Garza, The Chicano Political Experience, (North Scituate, Mass: Duxbury Press, 1977); and Milton Morris, The Politics of Black America, (New York: Harper & Row, 1975).
7. Nathan Glazer, "The Political Distinctiveness of Mexican Americans." In Walker Conner (ed.) Mexican-Americans in a Comparative Perspective, (Washington D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1985)
8. Rodney Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992) p. 17.
9. Chris F. Garcia and Rudolfo de la Garza, The Chicano Political Experience,
10. Rodney E. Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System, p. 18.
11. Earl Shorris, Latinos: A biography of the People, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992) p. 333.
12. Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System, p. 27.
13. Maria Torres, "Cuban Exile Are Not a Bit Golden," Chicago Tribune, November 15, 1986.
14. Deborah Sharp,"For Cubans, success, conflict," USA TODAY, July 15, 1993.
15. Thomas Boswell, A Demographic Profile of Cuban Americans, (Miami: Cuban American National Council, 1994):27.
16. Ibid, p. 34.
17. Lisandro Perez, "Cuban Miami," in Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick, Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change (Gainesville: Univeristy of Florida Press, 1992) p. 85.
18. Tomas D. Boswell, A Demographic Profile of Cuban Americans, (Miami: Cuban American National Council, 1994):31.
19. This is a key point made by Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepic in City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 80-88.
20. Portes and Stepick, 88.
21. Richard R. Fagen, Richard A. Brody, and Thomas J. O'Leary, Cubans in Exile: Disaffection and the Revolution, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968) p. 100-1.
22. Lisandro Perez, "Cuban Miami," in Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick (eds), Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity and Social Change (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992): pp. 90-91.
23. Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach, Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) p. 203.
24. Ibid.
25. David Rieff. Going to Miami, p. 46.
26. William O'Hare, "Best Metros for Hispanic Businesses," American Demographics, November, 1987: p. 33.
27. Michael M. Philips, "Minority Businesses Flourish in South Florida, States News Service, October 8, 1991.
28. U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic in America, Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993, p. 28.
29. American Demographics, January, 1992.
30. Lisandro Perez, "Cuban Miami," p. 91
31. Lurie Hollman, "Miami Moving to a Latin Beat, St. Petersburg Time, July 19, 1987.
32. Lisandro Perez, "Cuban Miami," p. 95.
33. American Watch, Dangerous Dialogue: Attacks on Freedom of Expression in Miami's Cuban Exile Community, (New York: American Watch, Vol.4:7 August 1992) p.2.
34. See Stack, John F. and Christopher Warren. "Ethnicity and Politics of Symbolism in Miami's Cuban Community." Cuban Studies 20: 11-28.
35. Ibid, p. 103.
36. 36 David Rieff, Going to Miami, p. 145.
37. 37 Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami, p. xii.
38. 38 Jeanne DeQuine, "Diverse Ethnic Groups Remain Enemies in Miami," Reuters, July 3, 1990.
39. 39 Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, 21.
40. 40 Ibid, p. 23.
41. 41Laurie Hollman, "Taking Sides in Politics, Ethnic Loyalty Shapes Government in Miami, St. Petersburg Times, July 19, 1987.
42. 42 Laurie Hollman, "Miami Moves to a Latin Beat," St. Petersburg Times, July 19, 1987.
43. 43 Larry Rother, "A Black-Hispanic Struggle Over Florida Redistricting," New York Times,
44. 44 Dade County School Board, Annual Report 1991, p.
45. 45 Dan Sewell, "Cubans have Transformed Miami Into an Inland of an Opportunity; Immigrants: The Exiles and their Children Dominate the Economy, Government, and Culture. The New Order Worries Some Black Leaders," Los Angeles Time, December 23, 1990.
46. 46 Ibid.
47. 47 Rodolfo O. de la Garza et al., Latino Voices, p. 127.