Cuban Arrivals, 1959–1980

Abstract

Cuba’s proximity to the United States, only 90 miles to the tip of Florida, has facilitated migration between the two countries since the nineteenth century. Cuban independence movements against Spain from the mid-1800s until the 1898 Spanish-American War sparked social and political turmoil. As a result, several cigar manufacturers established factories in Key West and Tampa, drawing thousands of workers from the island to Florida.2 By 1900, an estimated 20,000 Cubans and Spaniards had left Cuba for the United States. Among tourists, business men, and workers, travel between Cuba and the United States was also popular. Key West, New Orleans, New York City, and Tampa were the primary destinations of Cuban visitors and settlers.3 The brief period of educational Americanization in Cuban from 1898–1902 (as discussed in chapter four) and Cuba’s status as a protectorate of the United States under the Platt Amendment (1903–1933), further cemented political and economic ties between the two nations. In 1934 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt abrogated the Platt Amendment as part of his Good Neighbor Policy towards Latin America. However, U.S. business interests in Cuba, particularly in sugar plantations, continued from the 1930s to the 1950s, and tourism also flourished between the two countries.