Somos los Abandonados: Mariel Cuban Stories from Detention and Resisting the Carceral State

Kristina Shull

doi:10.33596/anth.445

Abstract

Through an analysis of government documents, media sources, migrant testimonies, made objects, and acts of protest, this essay examines the impact of the United States’ indefinite detention of Mariel Cubans—and their resistance—on immigration detention policy and the rise of the carceral state during the Reagan administration. As the United States first detained Mariel Cubans on military bases and then in US prisons, Cubans continually challenged their indefinite detention and US attempts at deportation through legal, political, and poetic claims, as well as uprisings—culminating in a two-week takeover and standoff at two prisons in Atlanta and Louisiana in 1987, the longest prison uprising in US history. Throughout, the Mariel migration remained at the center of the Reagan administration’s immigration and prison policy discussions, ushering in a new era in detention and immigration restriction. This essay also considers the role of Mariel Cuban storytelling as a powerful form of resistance to detention, and the extraordinary anti-Blackness, queerphobia, and criminalization surrounding this migrant group, then and now. It concludes by reflecting on contemporary coalitional efforts to uplift the stories of Cubans recently—or still—imprisoned, some having arrived with the Mariel Boatlift, and possibilities for abolitionist futures.

Highlights

Lene, born Lenin, arrived in the United States “terribly confused and fearful” at age sixteen with the Mariel Boatlift, a large-scale migration of nearly 130,000 Cubans to southern Florida during the summer of 1980
Did a small but significant number of Mariel Cuban arrivals find themselves ensnared in rising mass incarceration trends in the United States during this time, but their positionality—in time, space, and identity—helped drive these trends
Jackson was a critic of Reagan’s hard-line foreign policy and a champion for detained Haitians and Central Americans, he supported the deportation of Mariel Cubans in his negotiations for the release of US political prisoners in Cuba, and normalizing US-Cuba relations overall, as emphasized in a telegram he sent to Reagan after his trip

Summary

Introduction

Born Lenin, arrived in the United States “terribly confused and fearful” at age sixteen with the Mariel Boatlift, a large-scale migration of nearly 130,000 Cubans to southern Florida during the summer of 1980. As the United States first detained Mariel Cubans on military bases and several thousand deemed criminal, deviant, or mentally ill in US prisons, Cubans continually challenged their indefinite detention and US attempts at deportation.

Results

Conclusion