This essay focuses on something that is more complex than what we encountered in the previous one of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. While Puerto Rico remains an unincorporated territory of the U.S.A., Cuba is an independent and sovereign republic. It does share, however, a colonial history with the U.S.A., just like Puerto Rico does. However, the historical dynamics of becoming a diasporic community are different. I will briefly cover the relationship between Cuba and the U.S.A., and then point out the difference between that historical relationship and the historical relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S.A. I will also focus, briefly, albeit, on the socio-economic conditions of the Cuban Diaspora in the U.S.A., and then offering a theological view of the situation.
It is difficult to overstate the importance and impact of the Cuban Revolution on Latin America and the world. After his rebel army toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959, Fidel Castro and his comrades transformed Cuba from a capitalist ally of the U.S.A. into a fully socialized economy closely linked to and heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union. The Cuban revolutionaries carried out one of the most sweeping land reforms in Latin American history, radically redistributed wealth, providing all Cubans with basic health care, education, and social services, and became an important inspiration and ally in the export of Marxist revolution to other parts of the Americas and the Third World. The Unites States organized a failed attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro in April 1961, and the bitter conflict between the United States and Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in October of 1962. It is hard to imagine another country of its size (seven million inhabitants in 1960) that has played such a pivotal role in world politics in the last half century (Marshall C. Eakin, The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, p.308).
One of the most striking aspects of the Cuban Revolution was the triumph of such a radically anti-Unites States, Marxist revolution in a country so close to the U.S.A. (90 miles off the coast of Florida) and with such a long history of integration into the U.S.A. economy. Observers have often noted that the extreme anti-Americanism of the Cuban regime was a direct result of decades of US cultural, economic, and political domination of this small island nation. The same holds true of the anti-Americanism of the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979. The strong economic ties between the U.S.A. and Cuba go back to the eighteenth century. The raid expansion of sugar cultivation in the nineteenth century made Cuba the great sugar exporter of the world, and much of that production was controlled by U.S.A investors and corporations. Sugar dominated Cuba, and the U.S.A. dominated Cuban sugar. The sudden and dramatic U.S.A intervention in the Cuban-Spanish War in 1898 temporarily derailed Cuban independence, as the US Army occupied and ran Cuba until 1902. For the next three decades, the US Marines intervened repeatedly to "stabilize" Cuba, and to "protect American lives and property." After 1934, the U.S.A. strongly supported Fulgencio Batista, an army sergeant/stenographer who rose to power and maintained it through the control of the Cuban Army (Ibid,).
Ironically, the Cuban Revolution helped propel forward another fundamental change-this one in the U.S.A. Although Cubans had long moved back and forth between the U.S.A. and Cuba, in the early 1960's, some 250,000 Cubans fled into exile, mainly to south Florida and the New York-New Jersey areas. These exiles were largely white middle and upper-class Cubans who were well educated. They transformed the politics of both regions and created a very powerful political lobby in Washington that has played a role in U.S.A. politics for more than fifty years (as swing votes in more than one state.). In the early 1980's, facing internal and political challenges, Castro allowed another 125,000 Cubans to flee the island, and most again went to south Florida. The so-called Marielitos (named after the Mariel, the key point of departure in Cuba) were largely darker-skinned and less educated than those of the 1960's wave. Their arrival created serious rifts within the Cuban community in the U.S.A. The hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles have also played a prominent role in the growing "Latinamericanization" of U.S.A. culture and society. The bilingual and bicultural Cubans have been incredibly successful in academia, government, and the private sector. One of the great unintended consequences of the Cuban Revolution has been the diversification and enrichment of U.S.A society and culture as the country has become "Hispanicized (Ibid. p. 314).
On November 2, 1966, the U.S.A. Congress adopted the Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives all citizens of Cuba admitted or paroled into the U.S.A. after January 1, 1959, and present in the country for at least one year, the special status of "political refugees," with the right to automatic permanent residence. Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, refugees face none of the restrictions governing immigration to the U.S.A., such as presenting proof of persecution at home, and are virtually guaranteed permanent resettlement in the U.S.A. (unless they are convicted criminals), whether they simply overstate their tourist visas, or arrive anywhere on U.S.A. shores (and not just designated ports of entry) with no documentation at all. The Cuban Adjustment Act has remained in effect to this day, though it has come under challenge at times from those who believe that Cubans should not be afforded special status (Himilce Novas, Everything You Need to Know About Latino History. New York: Penguin Group, 2008, pps. 194-195).
Cuban Americans generally have nothing good to say about the Castro regime (Fidel Castro died in January 2017). They seem him as the dictator who stole their country, forced them into exile, and caused them incalculable suffering and pain. They call him the "tyrant, the devil, the grime ball" and other choice names. As for the U.S.A. sponsored embargo against Cuba, the majority of Cuban Americans are of the conviction that the only strategy for bringing an end to the Castro regime (Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother, was the defacto leader of Cuba from 2006 until 2018), and at the same
protecting the international community from potential acts of terrorism (especially bioterrorism, given that Cuba has invested heavily in biotechnology), is a continued economic blockade of the island (Ibid., p. 208).
How does one evaluate the situation of the Cuban Diaspora from a theological standpoint? As previously stated, it is a very complex situation. Latin American Liberation Theology addresses the issues of oppression and suffering generated by colonization, homophobia, imperialism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
Cuba, for a long time, was an economic (though not directly political) colony of the U.S.A.. Their economy was controlled by U.S. economic interests, resulting in a wide gap between the "haves" and the "have nots." As a result, there was widespread poverty. Liberation Theology denounces poverty, and calls for a total revamping of the economic structures so that poverty can be eradicated.
The economic and indirect political colonization of Cuba came as a result of U.S.A. imperialistic interests and the quest for hegemony. The concepts of the Monroe Doctrine and "Manifest Destiny" legitimized and sugar-coated this imperialistic venture. Liberation Theology denounces the concept of one country "lording it" over another.
The migration of Cubans to the U.S.A. in 1959 was generated by economic factors. However, it should be noted that the migration that took place, was carried out primarily by those who were members of a privileged socio-economic class who exploited the working class in Cuba. The migration was generated by the redistribution of wealth by the Castro regime. This redistribution promoted expanded benefits for the majority of the population. Liberation Theology denounces the hoarding of the resources by a few who use them for their own benefit at the expense of the many.
The privileged class who migrated was primarily white. They fled a government which was now moving to implement racial equality in Cuba. Liberation Theology denounces people being assigned and confined to social conditions the basis of race.
The more "well to do" Cubans of the Diaspora are the same ones who kept and maintained their fellow black Cubans on the island in a condition of subservience and secondary-class status. In essence, they seek to replicate the same socio-economic conditions which gave them a status of privilege on the island. Liberation Theology denounces the concept of "privilege" and advocates for an promotes the Gospel concept of equality.
En fin, Liberation Theology, in its application to the Latinx Diaspora in the U.S.A. takes on a different twist in the Cuban American community. The Puerto Rican and other Diasporic Latinx communities in the U.S.A. consist primarily of people who came to U.S.A. shores as a result of economic havoc wreaked by U.S.A. foreign policy. Cubans in the Diaspora constitute a community that led a country that gave them and their oligarchies the same country that all along was giving them protection and support.
A genuine Liberation Theology in the Cuban Diaspora would call for a community organizing that would mete out justice to all Cuban Americans and not just a select few. It calls for the Cuban American community to pursue a system in which all can equally participate in "the good of the land."
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dr. Juan A. Carmona
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