Fidel Castro has called them gusanos ("worms"),escoria ("trash"), and more recently, "the Miami Mafia."
From 1960 to 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left Cuba and began a new life in the United States. Most Cuban Americans that arrived in the United States initially came from Cuba's educated upper and middle classes. Between December 1960 and October 1962 more than 14,000 Cuban children arrived alone in the U.S.
More than one million Cubans have emigrated to the United States. Most settled in Miami or Union City, New Jersey. At the time of the first immigration, Cubans were US citizens and could freely move to the mainland.
Since Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959, there has been a steady influx of Cubans into the United States, punctuated by four significant waves: 1959-1962; 1965-1974; 1980; and 1993-5.
The First Arrivals
The Cubans who came to Miami in 1959 were supporters of the ousted Batista government. Soon they were joined by increasing numbers of wealthy Cubans whose property had been confiscated by the Cuban government: executives of U.S. companies and well-established professionals, including many doctors. Most anticipated a quick return to Cuba, but the US Bay of Pigs invasion failed.
Their parents were afraid that their children were going to be sent to Soviet bloc countries to be educated so they sent them to the States as soon as possible. This program was called Operation Peter Pan (Operacion Pedro Pan).
When the children arrived in Miami they were met by Catholic Charities and they were sent to live with relatives if they had any or were sent to foster homes, orphanages or boarding schools until their parents could leave Cuba.
The Cuban-American Welfare State
In order to provide aid to recently arrived Cuban immigrants, the United States Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966. The Cuban Refugee Program provided more than $1.3 billion of direct financial assistance. These immigrants were eligible for public assistance, Medicare, free English courses,scholarships, and low-interest college loans.
Older immigrants who become a US citizens are also eligible for Supplemental Security Income which provides a benefit of about $600 per month today. This is a welfare program managed by Social Security. Of course, the first wave of Cubans that arrived in the Us were American citizens.
Some banks even pioneered loans for exiles who did not have any collateral or credit.
Rightardia could not find any data on how many Cubans were forcibly exiled by Castro. Most of the data suggests the Cubans came to the US voluntarily to escape Castro's socialism.
So the term 'exile" doesn't accurately describe the majority of Cubans who emigrated to the US. Nor does the meaningless term 'expatriate" which is not defined in most dictionaries.
Rightardia thinks the vast majority of Cubans who emigrated to the US were economic and political immigrants. The term immigrant may not really apply either because these Cubans were American citizens at the time of the Castro revolution. Most of the Cubans simply moved to the mainland.
We evaluate Marco Rubio's Cuban--American dream as another revisionist historical Republican fairy tale. It is clear that Cubans who moved to the US received considerable support from the US government and Catholic charities.
Although Cuban emigration was not a Horatio Alger story, we know many Cubans and they are wonderful hard working people. We appreciate Florida's proud Latin and Hispanic heritage and it doesn't need to be sugar-coated.
sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/castro/peopleevents/e_exiles.html
Wikipedia
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