{"id":222296,"date":"2020-06-04T15:52:18","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T19:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=222296"},"modified":"2020-06-04T16:36:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:36:14","slug":"permanence-and-changes-in-the-new-cuban-migration-to-miami-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/nation-and-migration\/permanence-and-changes-in-the-new-cuban-migration-to-miami-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Permanence and changes in the \u201cnew\u201d Cuban migration to Miami (I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Help us keep OnCuba alive here<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

For Carlos<\/em><\/p>\n

The so-called new Cuban migration to the United States is made up of a large and diverse group that emigrated after the migratory agreements of 1994-1995 and that has continued until today in successive waves. Only between 1995 and 2017 did more Cubans immigrate to the United States than in any of the other stages. The images that circulate regarding this \u201cnew migration\u201d refer, roughly, to the apparent depoliticization of this group, represented on the label of the \u201ceconomic migrant,\u201d whose concerns would be centered on supporting their families on the island, instead of opposition to the Cuban government or their integration into U.S. society. In short, the vast majority continue to be classified as old, but also renewed molds and stereotypes, sometimes stigmas that, as often happens, say little about the diversity of this group, its migratory projects and political positions. In the following lines, I share some preliminary data and findings from a study carried out in September 2019 through group discussions with Cubans belonging to these most recent waves arriving in Miami, in order to build a possible research and debate agenda.<\/p>\n

Motivations and meanings of migration: more similar than different<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the strength of these stereotypes, the motivations and meanings of recent Cuban migration have diversified and become complex, although the rejection of \u201cthe system\u201d prevailing in Cuba remains paramount for the majority consulted. Three major aspects of the motivations emerge from their discourses\u2014family, political, and economic. However, they very often appear intermingled and with resignification. \u201cToday it\u2019s the economic and the economic is the political<\/em>,\u201d said one participant. Therefore, the idea is rejected that, for the last 25 years, Cuban migration has been strictly \u201ceconomic\u201d and not \u201cpolitical,\u201d even though, paradoxically, several participants accuse the most recent migrants of considering themselves \u201ceconomic\u201d migrants exclusively and some of the newer arrivals perceive themselves as such.<\/p>\n

In political terms, the lack of freedoms appears as a reason to migrate. But this lack of freedoms has political expressions (ideological discontent with the \u201csystem\u201d) and also economic ones (professional upgrading, life improvements, job opportunities). It may be thought then that, although some affirm that it isn\u2019t political reasons that have driven their migratory project, in general the motivations for emigrating within this group have not been entirely different from those of their predecessors, even though nowadays there are conditions that make it easy for these migrants to maintain a more active relationship with the country of origin.<\/p>\n

It should be remembered that this new wave of Cuban immigrants, now under scrutiny, is not the first to be criticized. The \u201chistorical exiles,\u201d who arrived in the United States in the first decades after the triumph of the Revolution, were victims of racism and rejection of foreigners, manifested in the posters \u201cNo blacks, no Cubans, no dogs.\u201d However, the following waves of Cubans have also experienced criticism from those who arrived before. Thus, before the term \u201crafter,\u201d that of \u201cMarielito\u201d was used, which not only described the one who came in 1980 through the port of Mariel, but also referred to certain behaviors and ways of being of a generation that had already been socialized in the \u201cproject of the Revolution.\u201d Its pejorative load is similar to that of \u201crafter,\u201d although with nuances and features that differentiate them.<\/p>\n

The term \u201crafter\u201d has also ceased to refer only to a way to emigrate to the United States in fragile boats, and that at first described those who participated in the 1994 exodus, to carry a pejorative sense, attributing to them vulgar, materialistic and opportunistic behaviors, in addition to an apolitical position against the Cuban government and the reasons for their migration. Beyond these images, it would be better to get to know this group to which the social sciences are still indebted.<\/p>\n

Root or rhizome? Emigration in the Cuban imaginary<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n