MIAMIMIGRATION

Relations between the United States and Cuba, from about 1960, with the election of John Kennedy, deteriorated somewhat, when one would have thought that an articulate and ‘liberal’ thinking President would have in fact found a way to improve things.; yet, in only the twelfth week of his presidency, the United States and an assorted collection of Cuban exiles mounted the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, with a view to overthrowing Castro. It was over ion three days. This event pushed the Cuban Government closer to the Soviet Union and this resulted in what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place over 37 days in 1962 from the 14^th October to the 20^th November.

Cuban migration to the United States had been going on from 1959, when Castro and his troops came down from the hills and marched into Havana. Throughout all the political trial and tribulations between the two countries, Cuban citizens sought to resettle in the United States.

  

Some three years on from the Bay of Pigs event, on the 6^th November 1965, the United States (under President Lyndon B. Johnson) and Cuba signed a migration agreement to bring Cubans to the United States; it lasted from December 1965 to April 1973. Cuba and the United States formally agree to begin an airlift for Cubans who wanted to go to the United States. These flights became know in the United States a Freedom Flights. Most Cuban emigrants during this period came to the United States; about forty thousand went to other countries. From 1966 through 1971 gross immigration exceeded fifty thousand people per year. In September of 1971, Time magazine published a piece:

Anyone who has seen Cuban refugees literally kissing U.S. soil as they disembark from one of the twice-daily flights between Cuba and Miami is not likely soon to forget the sight. Since 1965, the "freedom flights," as they have come to be called, have brought 245,805 Cubans to live in the U.S. Last week, the 2,879th such flight landed in Miami with 85 passengers-the last of the refugees, at least for a while. The Cuban government informed the U.S. that it was suspending the flights for a few weeks to work out a final list of only 1,000 refugees.

From Fidel’s Castro’s point of view, it might just have been an exercise in getting rid of the leftover grifters and assorted con artists from the Batista period. If you had just been release from goal would you not be please to end up in Miami?

After 1973, the United States continued to receive some illegal immigrants from Cuba, but most Cuban immigrants to the United States came from third countries, especially Spain. In 1977, for the first time since 1959, Cuba’s negative migration balance fell below one thousand and U.S. immigration from Cuba was just above three thousand (mostly from third countries). Over 41 years from 1959 to 2000, some 828,000 people have migrated to the United States (87.2% of them Caucasian).

This is a point of view from historian Maria Christina Garcia, author of Havana USA describing the change in attitudes of Cuban exiles in Miami pre- and post-1965

And what about the Cigar Culture. It's a point of view.