Abstract
On 15 April 1980, Fidel Castro opened the port at Mariel Harbour, prompting 125,000 people to depart for the United States in search of asylum. Unlike those who emigrated from the island thirty years earlier, these refugees did not encounter empathy from the American public. Rather, Marielitos encountered hostility, as they found themselves scattered in detention centres around the United States. As refugee camps sprang up in small communities in the US South and Midwest, sensationalised accounts of crimes committed by the migrants shaped negative local perspectives of Cubans. This article complicates the legitimacy of the image of the refugee criminal, however, by describing the context within which Marielitos travelled to remote areas in the US, specifically in west-central Wisconsin. Ultimately, this study demonstrates how media reporting on the Mariel boatlift, along with the contentious socioeconomic climate that Cuban refugees encountered while detained in rural America, influenced the popular representation of their criminality.
Highlights
On 15 April 1980, Cuban President Fidel Castro opened the port at Mariel Harbour, prompting approximately 125,000 men, women, and children to depart for the United States in search of political asylum
By printing articles about how the presence of Marielitos intersected with local concerns about sexuality, politics, and the economy, Wisconsin newspapers contributed to the production of a monolithic representation of Cuban refugees as criminals
Mounting frustration with high unemployment and increased cost to taxpayers, along with an overall anti-refugee sentiment, influenced media reporting about the presence of Marielitos in the United States
Summary
On 15 April 1980, Cuban President Fidel Castro opened the port at Mariel Harbour, prompting approximately 125,000 men, women, and children to depart for the United States in search of political asylum. Media characterisations of Cuban refugee criminality following the Mariel boatlift, and its plot helped to shape one of the dominant images of Marielitos in popular culture and the US national imagination (Martinez et al 2001).
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