Cuban Immigration to the United States

Given the closeness of Cuba to the United States—both geographical and, before the 1959 revolution, economic—it is no surprise that there has always been movement of people between the countries. The 1910 census showed that there were officially 15,133 Cubans living in the United States, and a report on immigration to Congress at the time included data on 44,211 Cubans. In 1959, an estimated 124,000 Cubans were living in the United States. In the early years of the revolutionary government, an additional 215,000 moved here, and now the Cuban community is well over a million. As we mentioned above, the center of that community is in Miami, but there are sizable communities in other cities in Florida and in New York, Illinois, and California as well.

The existence and size of the Cuban community in the United States is a result of both "push" and "pull" factors. The revolutionary government's inflexible attitude toward dissent, and its imperviousness to demands that dissenters make, probably constitute the greatest push factors: Cubans who are unhappy have had no reason to believe that they can effect changes in their lives. Another strong push factor for the recent wave of newcomers is the economic situation and scarcity of crucially necessary goods like medicine.

The "pull" factor has been the United States' policy with regard to Cuban emigres, which has effectively been, until recently, an unqualified welcome for both documented (Cubans entering the United States through normal immigration procedures, including legal departure from Cuba) and undocumented (Cubans arriving in the United States without immigrant visas, who have usually left Cuba illegally). Until 1985, there was no quota for Cubans entering the United States via normal immigration procedures, as there was for other immigrant groups. Cuban undocumented entrants have always had special status: While entrants from other countries have been required to demonstrate that they were fleeing political persecution to be granted refugee status, it was officially assumed that anyone arriving in the United States from Cuba was a bona fide refugee and therefore had automatic access to the special benefits that refugees are entitled to. Cuban entrants have had other special privileges as well; since 1966, for example, the Attorney General has had discretionary power to guarantee permanent residency to any Cuban who has been in the United States for a year, including those on visitor's visas who have overstayed the period delineated in their visas.

There have been, since the revolution, three basic waves of Cubans coming to the United States. These groups tend to differ from one another in their opinions and values and have different acculturation experiences, depending partly on when and why they emigrated from Cuba, and partly on their reception in the U.S.

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