II.

History

Beginning in the 19th century, the southern United States became a convenient place of refuge for Cubans fleeing political persecution or economic hardship. As early as the 1830s, there was a significant Cuban colony in Key West, Florida. Later in the century, as Cubans struggled to free themselves from Spanish rule, substantial communities of political exiles arose in Tampa, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; and New York City.

The Cuban wars of independence, the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878), and the revolution of 1895-1898 destroyed many tobacco plantations in Cuba. Many of the early Cuban immigrants were cigarmakers who took up their trade in Tampa and Key West. Ybor City, Florida, bears the name of one of the most prominent of these cigar manufacturers, Vicente Martínez Ybor. Many other important figures in Cuban history also had long stays in the United States during this period. José Martí, a writer and patriot who led the final insurrection against Spain in 1895, lived in the United States in the 1880s and early 1890s. Tomás Estrada Palma, who became Cuba’s first president in 1902, resided in the United States for over 20 years.

During the first half of the 20th century, Cuban immigration to the United States varied according to the political and economic conditions on the island. Because of a highly unstable political climate, several thousand Cubans immigrated during the 1930s. Among these immigrants was Desi Arnaz, who later achieved fame as Ricky Ricardo in “I Love Lucy,” one of the most popular television series of all time. In the late 1950s, during the turbulent last years of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, about 30,000 Cubans left the island for the United States.

Soon after Castro’s takeover in 1959, the number of Cuban immigrants rose sharply. From 1959 to 1962, more than 200,000 people left Cuba for the United States. Approximately 125,000 more left Cuba on so-called freedom flights, daily flights from Havana to Miami between 1965 and 1973. A similar number were transported to the United States in the summer of 1980 by the Mariel boat lift, an informal fleet of fishing boats and pleasure craft sent by Cuban exiles to pick up relatives from the Cuban port of Mariel. From 1959 onwards, thousands of other Cubans reached the United States in small boats and homemade rafts. Many others lost their lives in the waters of the Straits of Florida.