The Cubans of Union City: Immigrants and Exiles in a New Jersey Community

6. Exile, Ethnic Identity, and Political Culture

6 Exile, Ethnic Identity, and Political Culture P olitics is at the core of the post-1959 Cuban migration to the United States. Perhaps no other ethnic group in this country is as politically active as Cubans are. Their intensity is mainly related to the desire to overthrow the government they left behind. According to some authors, this is typical of immigrants who are fleeing dictatorial, especially communist, regimes.1 Yet Cubans are active in U.S. politics as well. Their political participation in the United States thus takes place on two levels: one focused on Cuba, the other focused on politics at the national and local levels, wherever Cubans reside. These two levels very often intertwine: Cubans who arrived in the early 1960s formed countless anti-Castro organizations , and many Cubans became active in local and national politics to further anti-Castro policies. However, younger Cuban Americans, perhaps understandably, are more interested in U.S. local and national politics and are not necessarily involved in anti-Castro politics. For many of them, Cuba is not the center of their political activities. There are precedents for the high level of political involvement by Cubans in the United States. At various moments in Cuban history exiles have played an important role in their homeland’s political development and struggled to change the government on the island. One instance was during the wars of independence, when José Martí, the foremost father of Cuban independence, and others conspired in the 114 Chapter Six United States to liberate Cuba from Spain. Another moment was during the surge of revolutionary activity during the 1930s in Cuba. Later, anti-Batista activities were carried out in Cuban communities in the United States in the 1950s, organized mainly by July 26th Revolutionary Movement cells, the largest anti-Batista revolutionary force, and by various other groups. Fidel Castro himself procured assistance for his movement when he visited New York while living as an exile in Mexico after being released from a Cuban prison in 1955. Several of my older interviewees told me of the visits that Castro had paid to Union City Cubans. He “used to come to a bodega on 26th Street and Bergenline Avenue and many of us met him there. This was when we supported his revolution!” said a man in his late 70s. The story of revolution in Cuba is also the story of opposition. By the end of 1959, attempts at overthrowing Castro’s government had already FIGURE 6.1 Statue of José Martí at J.F.Kennedy Boulevard in West New York, New Jersey (Ana Meseguer) Exile, Ethnic Identity, and Political Culture 115 begun. Many members of two groups that had fought with the rebels of the July 26th movement, the Segundo Frente del Escambray or the Second Escambray Front, and the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or the Revolutionary Student Directorate, had turned against him. They believed that Castro had betrayed the revolution’s original objectives: to attain socioeconomic reforms, social justice, national sovereignty, and political stability, among other goals. The source of discomfort among many dissenters was what they saw as the increasing influence that communists were having in the government. More groups joined in the struggle : the MRR, Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria or Movement of Revolutionary Recovery, and the MRP, Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo or People’s Revolutionary Movement. Their goal was to destabilize the Cuban economy and, to that end, they engaged in acts of sabotage on the island, especially within the first couple of years after Castro’s victory. In Havana, bombs exploded in department stores and movie theaters . The new rebels also fought in the mountains of El Escambray in Villa Clara province. Other dissidents came into exile and immediately engaged in insurgent activities. They supported the rebels in Cuba clandestinely, smuggling armaments and other supplies by boat. The U.S. government was interested in getting rid of Castro too and, as Cuba-U.S. relations deteriorated in the period 1959–1960 and Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration officially approved a CIA plan to recruit an army of exiles to invade the island. In 1960, the CIA began to train an invasion force of 1,500 called the Brigada 2506. This force trained in secret in Panamá, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. In Miami, the CIA chose a government in exile to replace Castro. After taking office in January, 1961, President John F...