Extract

By Siro del Castillo Translated by Judith C. Faerron

Nowhere in modern U.S. history has a group of recent arrivals been more thoroughly investigated or widely written about in such a short period of time than the Cubans who formed part of the exodus of 1980, popularly known as “Marielitos.” Nor is there any group in this country whose social, cultural, economic and political reality has been more distorted and less understood.

The media and the academic and research community (where it is demographic data rather than the person that counts) took on the task of informing the U.S. public about the Cubans who began arriving in waves at Key West in April 1980. Both routinely ignored the human aspect failing to understand that the lives of these people during the past quarter of a century had been vastly different from those of most Americans, or even from Cubans who had previously made their way to the U.S.

The researchers—each rushing to be the first to publish a study about the new arrivals—jumped to conclusions based on preliminary information which in most cases was obtained in a disorganized and chaotic manner. They wrote reams about the Mariel group as a whole based solely on “scientifically obtained” data relating to those who entered the refugee camps, without stopping to reflect on the differences between them and those processed in Miami.

The media carried its own share of responsibility for...