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WORK TITLE: Sugar, Cigars and Revolution
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Miami
STATE: FL
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
Phone number: 212.237.8708
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 77010337
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n77010337
HEADING: Pérez, Lisandro
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035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca00126882
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |d OCoLC |d ScU
100 1_ |a Pérez, Lisandro
370 __ |a Havana (Cuba) |e Miami (Fla.) |2 naf
372 __ |a Sociology |a Latinos (United States) |2 lcsh
373 __ |a John Jay College of Criminal Justice |2 naf |s 2010
373 __ |a Florida International University |2 naf |s 1985 |t 2010
373 __ |a Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, La.) |2 naf |t 1985
373 __ |a University of Florida |2 naf |t 1974
373 __ |a University of Miami |2 naf |t 1970
373 __ |a Hialeah Senior High School (Hialeah, Fla.) |2 naf |t 1966
374 __ |a Authors |a College teachers |2 lcsh
375 __ |a Males |2 lcdgt
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a His Infant mortality … 1977: |b t.p. (Lisandro Perez)
670 __ |a His Working offshore, 1979: |b t.p. (Lisandro Pérez)
670 __ |a John Jay College of Criminal Justice website, September 10, 2018: |b (Lisandro Pérez, Professor; education, Ph.D., 1974, University of Florida, Sociology and Latin American Studies; M.A., 1972, University of Florida, Sociology and Latin American Studies; B.A., 1970, University of Miami, Sociology and Anthropology; born in La Habana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States with my parents in 1960. We settled in the Greater Miami area, and I graduated from Hialeah High School in 1966; Louisiana State University, a great place to start my career. During the ten years I was at LSU I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and served as Graduate Coordinator and as Acting Chair of Sociology and Rural Sociology. In 1985 I returned to Miami when I was hired as Associate Professor and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University; In 2010, after 25 years at FIU, I accepted the position of Professor and Chair of the Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of the City University of New York) |u https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/lisandro-p%C3%A9rez
953 __ |a ba02 |b ba14
PERSONAL
Born in Havana, Cuba.
EDUCATION:Hialeah High School, 1966; University of Miami, B.A., 1970; University of Florida, M.A., 1972; Ph.D., 1974.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. John Jay College of the City University of New York, professor and chair of the department of Latin American and Latina/o studies. Cuban Research Institute, founder. Worked formerly as an associate professor and chair of sociology and anthropology at Florida International University; as an associate professor, graduate coordinator, and acting chair of sociology and rural sociology at Louisiana State University; Cuban Studies, editor, 1999-2004; and as a graduate research assistant in the Sociology Department at the University of Florida.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Lisandro Perez is a writer and professor of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of the City University of New York. Born in La Habana, Cuba, Perez immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1960, when he was a child. The family moved to the greater Miami area, where Perez attended Hialeah High School. He graduated from high school in 1966 and went on to attend college at the University of Miami. He majored in sociology and anthropology with minors in English and Spanish. After graduation in 1970, Perez was awarded a graduate research assistantship by the sociology department at the University of Florida. With this assistantship, he was able to study under some of the major voices in Latin American studies, including Raymond Crist, Charles Wagley, Lyle MacAllister, John Saunders, Maxine Margolis, and his mentor in sociology, T. Lynn Smith.
Under the guidance of T. Lynn Smith, Perez wrote a dissertation on rural-urban migration patterns in Colombia in the age of la violencia. After graduating from the University of Florida, Perez joined the faculty of Louisiana State University, where he taught for ten years. He was granted tenure as an associate professor and served as the graduate coordinator and acting chair of sociology and rural sociology.
In 1985, Perez was hired as an associate professor and chair of the sociology and anthropology department at Florida International University in Miami. While there, he founded the Cuban Research Institute, which he directed for twelve years. In 2010, after twenty-five years at Florida International University, Perez accepted a position as professor and chair of the department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College. While at John Jay College, he has established a bachelor of art degree program in Latin American and Latina/o studies and has taken students to Cuba on study abroad programs.
Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York traces the history of 19th-century Cuban New York, spanning from 1823 to the Spanish-American War in 1898. This timeframe marked a period in which New York City was inhabited by the largest population of Cubans outside of the island.
Perez pinpoints the Cuban-American sugar trade economy as the catalyst for Cuban immigration. This “sugaro-cracy” was led by Cuban-born descendants of the Spanish, who had come to define Cuba’s elite class. These individuals immigrated to New York to establish their businesses, invest in American real estate, and gain independence from Spain. A portion of the book focuses on the influence these wealthy families had on Manhattan’s diverse community during this time, described through anecdotes and personal stories. Included are the stories of Father Varela, who built two parishes in downtown New York City that still stand today, and Emilia Casanova, who hid arms in the vaults under her father’s house in the Bronx before smuggling them to Cuba. Perez goes on to describe New York-based Cubans’ dashed hopes for annexation by the U.S. and the failed war of independence of 1868-1878. José Martí, a leader in the fight for Cuban independence, is a major focus in the book. Later in the book, Perez describes how Cuban New York demographics changed as working-class Cubans began to outnumber the wealthy elite in New York City toward the turn of the century.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly described it as a “colorful and scrupulously researched history,” adding, “Perez’s engrossing work showcases a little-discussed facet of New York City’s rich history.” Geraldine Richards in Foreward Reviews website wrote, “it serves as a comprehensive guide to the social, cultural, and political lives of the transnational community of wealthy Cuban plantation owners and their immigrant compatriots.” Richards described the book as, “a fascinating excursion into nineteenth-century New York,” noting, “great spiritedness animates the prose.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2018, review of Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York. p. 90.
ONLINE
Forward Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (July 10, 2018), Geraldine Richards, review of Sugar, Cigars and Revolution.
LISANDRO PÉREZ
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EDUCATION
BIO
PUBLICATIONS
RESEARCH
RESEARCH INTEREST
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Professor
Email: loperez@jjay.cuny.edu
Phone number: 212.237.8708
Room number: 8.63.31NB
EDUCATION
Ph.D., 1974, University of Florida, Sociology and Latin American Studies
M.A., 1972, University of Florida, Sociology and Latin American Studies
B.A., 1970, University of Miami, Sociology and Anthropology
BIO
I was born in La Habana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States with my parents in 1960. We settled in the Greater Miami area, and I graduated from Hialeah High School in 1966. In 1970 I received a B.A. degree in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Miami, with minors in English and Spanish. I was awarded a graduate research assistantship by the Sociology Department at the University of Florida and I went up to Gainesville, where I was privileged to take courses from some of the foremost Latinamericanists of the time: Raymond Crist, Charles Wagley, Lyle MacAllister, John Saunders, Maxine Margolis, and, especially, my mentor in sociology, T. Lynn Smith. Not only did Dr. Smith direct my dissertation, on rural-urban migration patterns in Colombia in the age of la violencia, but he also recommended me for a faculty position at his former institution, Louisiana State University, a great place to start my career. During the ten years I was at LSU I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and served as Graduate Coordinator and as Acting Chair of Sociology and Rural Sociology. In 1985 I returned to Miami when I was hired as Associate Professor and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University. After serving as Chair at FIU, I founded FIU's Cuban Research Institute and directed it for twelve years, a span of time that marked the ascendancy of the CRI as the premier university center for the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans, with more than 1.5 million dollars in support from the Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, and Christopher Reynolds foundations. We established the CRI Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies, which is still held today on a biennial basis, and at the CRI we also maintained a very active pioneer program of exchanges and collaborations with colleagues in Cuba. From 1999 to 2004, I edited Cuban Studies, the leading journal in the field, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. In 2010, after 25 years at FIU, I accepted the position of Professor and Chair of the Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of the City University of New York, where I oversaw the establishment of a B.A. degree in that field, as well as spearheaded several initiatives designed to enhance the success of students. I have taken CUNY students to Cuba in study abroad programs during 2015 and 2016. I am proud to serve at John Jay, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and in a Department that is the largest Latina/o Studies Department in CUNY, with a strong commitment to student success. I am currently on a sabbatical leave, which I am spending in Miami engaged in research and writing before returning to John Jay.
PUBLICATIONS
Selected Publications (see vita for complete listing):
Lisandro Pérez. Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York. New York University Press, 2018. 400 p. https://nyupress.org/books/9780814767276/
Lisandro Pérez. “La ruptura del 68 y los orígenes de la intransigencia y la intolerancia en la cultura política de la emigración cubana.” Revista Casa de las Américas (Havana), no. 274 (January-March 2014).
Lisandro Pérez. “Cuban Americans and U.S. Cuba Policy.” Diaspora Lobbies and the U.S. Government: Convergence and Divergence in Making Foreign Policy, edited by Josh DeWind and Renata Segura. New York: New York University Press and the Social Science Research Council, 2014.
Lisandro Pérez. “Cubans in Nineteenth-Century New York: A Story of Sugar, War, and Revolution.” Nueva York, 1613-1945, edited by Edward J. Sullivan. New York: The New York Historical Society, 2010.
Lisandro Pérez. “Sugar, Slavery, and the Rise of Cuban New York.” New York at 400, edited by John Thorn. New York: Running Press and the Museum of the City of New York, 2009.
Lisandro Pérez. “Cubans.” The New Americans, edited by Mary Waters and Reed Ueda. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Guillermo Grenier and Lisandro Pérez. The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States. Boston: Allyn & Bacon (New Immigrants Series), 2003.
Lisandro Pérez, editor. Cuban Studies (University of Pittsburgh Press), 1999-2004.
Lisandro Pérez. "The Household Structure of Second-Generation Children: An Exploratory Study of Extended Family Arrangements." International Migration Review, vol. 28, no. 4 (Winter 1994), 736-747.
Lisandro Pérez. "Immigrant Economic Adjustment and Family Organization: The Cuban Success Story Reexamined." International Migration Review, vol. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1986), 4-20.
Lisandro Pérez. "The Political Contexts of Cuban Population Censuses, 1899‑1981." Latin American Research Review, vol. 19, no. 2 (1984), 143‑61.
Lisandro Pérez. "Iron Mining and Socio‑Demographic Change in Eastern Cuba, 1884‑1940." Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 14, part 2 (November 1982, 381‑405.
RESEARCH
Selected Grants and Fellowships
Principal Investigator, “JUNAM: Supporting Excellence in a Latin American and Latina/o Studies B.A. Degree.”
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE), Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program. $180,084. October 1, 2014 – September 20, 2016.
Fellowship, “Cuban New Yorkers: The Cuban Community of New York City and the Development of the Cuban Nation, 1823-1958.” Mel and Lois Tukman Fellow, The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library. Fellowship and residency. $50,000. September 2004-June 2005.
Fellowship, “Cuban New Yorkers: The Cuban Community of New York City and the Development of the Cuban Nation, 1823-1958.” Faculty Research Award, National Endowment for the Humanities. $40,000, September 2004-August 2005.
Fellowship, “Cuban New Yorkers: The Cuban Community of New York City and the Development of the Cuban Nation, 1823-1958.” Awarded by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to support a month-long research residency at the New York Public Library. $2,500. May 2003.
Co-Principal Investigator, “US/Cuba Policy: The Transition in Cuba and in the Cuban-American Community.”
Two-year grant of $100,000 awarded by The Christopher Reynolds Foundation to support research on the role of the Cuban-American community in a Cuban transition, 2000-2002.
Principal Investigator, “A Program of Research Collaboration with Cuba.” Two-year grant of $100,000 awarded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to expand and intensify collaborative research programs with colleagues and academic institutions in Cuba, 2000-2001.
Principal Investigator, “A Program of Academic Travel and Research Collaboration with Cuba.” Two-year grant of $74,127 awarded by the Ford Foundation to expand the scope of the previous grants “Travel to Cuba,” and “A Program of Academic Travel and Research Collaboration with Cuba,” 1998-2001.
Principal Investigator. “Cuba and US Nonprofits: A Resource Guide and Directory.” Two-year grant of $100,873 awarded by the Ford Foundation to develop a guide and directory to facilitate contact of U.S. nonprofits with appropriate institutions in Cuba, 1998-2001.
Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, September 1997-August 1998.
Principal Investigator, “Island and Diaspora: Cuban National Sovereignty, Identity, and Reconciliation in the 21st Century.” Four-year, $250,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for a program of resident fellowships in the humanities at the Cuban Research Institute, 1994-98.
Principal Investigator, “A Program of Academic Travel and Research Collaboration with Cuba.” Two-year grant of $50,000 awarded by the Ford Foundation to expand the scope of the previous grant “Travel to Cuba,” 1995-1997.
Principal Investigator, "Travel to Cuba." Three-year grant of $28,000 awarded by the Ford Foundation to support travel of F.I.U. faculty to Cuba and for visits from colleagues in Cuba, 1992-1995.
Principal Investigator, "Cuba in Transition." One-year grant of $500,000 awarded in June 1992 by the Office of Research of the U.S. Department of State and the Agency for International Development for research on economic and political issues relevant to a transition in Cuba.
Social Science Research Council Fellow, August 1980 to August 1981. Awarded by the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. Title of the project: "The Social Demography of Twentieth‑Century Cuba." The fellowship was combined with an academic‑year sabbatical leave from Louisiana State University that was spent on research in Washington, D.C.
RESEARCH INTEREST
Cuban history and society; ethnicity, immigration, Latinos (esp. Cubans) in the U.S., historical research methods, New York ethnic history, political culture, and Cuban Americans and U.S. policy towards Cuba
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interview: lisandro perez
picture of lisandro perez
A professor at Florida International University, where he founded the Cuban Research Institute, he was born in Cuba and came to the US with his parents in 1960 when he was eleven. Perez belongs to the so-called "1.5 generation" of Cubans who arrived in the US as children or adolescents.
Explain what the "one-and-a-half generation" of Cuban-Americans means.
...We were not the adults who came from Cuba. We aren't the first generation, because those are our parents. But we're not the second generation either, because we were not only born in Cuba, but we have a memory a childhood in Cuba. So we call ourselves the "one-and-a-half."
How do you differ from other Cubans in America?
We differ in terms of the moment that defined us--that is, the moment we left Cuba--the whole confrontation that was taking place with the Cuban government and that whole struggle of the early 1960s. We've always considered ourselves a younger, newer generation.
Where does the generation stand politically?
It's curious, because there's been a number of my contemporaries who spent almost all of their lives in Miami that pretty much follow a lot of the principal ideas of the Cuban exile community.
Whereas, somebody like me who left Miami for a considerable period of time and got an academic degree, have perhaps a different sort of development. I think a critical differentiating factor in my generation ideologically is whether or not you spent all your life in Miami, or if you spent a lot of your life, particularly your formative years, outside of Miami.
Living outside of Miami exposes you to the fact that there is a different world out there with different ideas about Cuba. There are those of us who left Cuba when we were children in the early 1960s, then entered college in the United States at the time of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War era. So we were exposed to a lot of ideas that were rather counter to the very conservative ideas of our parents' generation.
living outside of miami exposes you to the fact that there is a different world out there with different ideas about cuba.Miami is conservative.
Miami is, in many ways, an exile community. And exile communities, let's say, do not exactly have an objective viewpoint of the homeland they came from. Exile communities tend to always be in opposition to the government of the country that they left, and are always in effect trying to regain the homeland.
The Cuban revolution was embraced by the American left for a long time and by the left all over the world, since it was a socialist revolution. And, of course, that has put Cuban exiles essentially on the right. It has made them conservative. I think the more basic dynamic that's going on is that they are very much in opposition to that government. It's incredible that, in the past 40 years, that sort of exile ideology of regaining the homeland still persists, and it's still a driving force in Miami.
How realistic is it?
Part of the reason that the exile ideology has remained frozen and unchanged is because it's not just unchanged in Miami, but essentially the entire context of Cuba is unchanged. The relationship between the US and Cuba hasn't changed in 40 years. So the Cuban exile community also has remained frozen in time.
What really brought in optimism among Cubans that they would soon regain the homeland, that the Castro government would fall, were the changes in Europe at the beginning of the 1990s. A lot of people here in Miami in 1989-1990 were saying, "In a few months, we'll be back. In a few months, we can travel to Cuba." And I think they haven't quite understood the nature of the Cuban system.
Can you give an overview of the past decades?
I think you can divide the last 40 years exactly into two phases in terms of what's driving US policy towards Cuba. From 1961 to 1980, what was in place was a traditional Cold War sort of ideology of US foreign policy that defined certain governments as being enemies or hostile to the interests of the US.
. . . By the 1980s, however, you have the creation of powerful interests within the Cuban-American community, or at least interests that were able to articulate the position of the Cuban exile community in Washington, especially the Cuban-American National Foundation. Also there were friendly administrations in Washington, of Reagan and Bush, which were viewed as being sort of close to the position of Cuban exiles.
Starting in the 1980s, Cuban exiles take a protagonist role, if you will, a leading role in formulating US policy towards Cuba. Before 1980, there had been actors. They had been agents of the US policy towards Cuba, as epitomized by the Bay of Pigs. But in the 1980s and 1990s, in the absence of anyone else caring about Cuban policy in the United States, Cuban exiles became the principle actors in US-Cuba policy. And I think have, to a very large extent ,remained to this day.
Elián's case seemed to turn into a metaphor for something bigger. . . .
The Elián case tugged at a lot of very deep themes and very underlying themes here the Cuban exile community. First, obviously, is the struggle against Castro. And the very fact that Castro wanted the child back was enough for the Cuban exile community or the leaders here to say, "Well, you can't have him back."
At another level, a basis of this community is that life in this country, in exile, was preferable to living in Cuba. The Castro government has turned Cuba into a hell, according to the way the exiles view it. And if you have that perception, then you want to try to prevent people from going back against their will.
And the exiles were devastated the way it ended.
Overall, I think Cuban-Americans, particularly those who've been active in the struggle against Castro, have sort of been spoiled a little bit by the US government. That is, almost everything the Cuban exiles have asked for in terms of US policy towards Cuba they have gotten. For example, there's Radio Martí and TV Martí--a radio and television station that transmits to Cuba and is paid for by US taxpayers. We want the Torricelli bill passed, which strengthens the embargo. We want the Helms-Burton bill passed, which strengthens the embargo. All those things the US government has given to the Cubans, in part, I think, because most Americans don't care about US-Cuba policy, and therefore they're ready to give that to Cuban exiles.
But to say that we also want this child who has the surviving natural parent in Cuba to stay here because we say so, because we say that he's better off here instead of being reunited with his only natural, remaining parent. . . . That, apparently, was something that the US was unwilling to do, both in terms of public opinion and in terms of the federal government. Many Cuban-Americans were absolutely in shock that this was not granted to them, as many things have been granted. And they were in shock that people apparently did not understand what they were talking about. In many ways, it is the Cuban-American community that did not understand they were really asking for something very unreasonable. For them, it made every sense in terms of the struggle against Castro.
This was a very poor battle for them to pick. It was one that, from the beginning, that they were going to lose. But what happens is that this community frequently does not have the ability for self-criticism and for looking at itself and saying, "Wait a minute, we shouldn't be doing this. Let's not be carried by emotion on this."
Do they know what freedom is?
There's been a real problem, sometimes , in the political behavior of Cuban-Americans, or at least it appears a problem to many. On the one hand, many Cubans espouse democracy, and they say they're here because they want democracy. But then, in many ways, they act here in the United States in ways that are very anti-democratic.
One of the basic concepts that's missing a bit--and it's true also of the generation in Cuba--is that there's been a very long tradition in Cuban political culture to view democracy as the rule of the majority. Certainly Fidel Castro believes he speaks for a majority and that he has a moral cause, just like many leaders in the Cuban exile community believe that they speak for a majority sentiment in the Cuban exile community. They believe that gives them the right to assert their rights over a minority, without realizing that the real secret to a democracy is not so much majority rule as it is the respect of the rights of the political minorities and the respect of the right of dissenting views. And that is the one aspect of democracy that we seem to be missing, both in Cuba and in Miami.
if you talk to the exiles about cuba, instead of using terms like the communist system or the government, they're likely to say fidel castro. it's a very personalized conflict...And anybody who deals with Castro is evil.
In order to understand some of the dynamics of the Cuban community here and how it functions politically, you have to understand that, in many ways, it's like a small town. The community is economically very strong. It generates a lot of employment, and it generates a lot of business for itself, for its members. And one of the things that you don't want to do is be ostracized on the basis of your political ideology because you disagree with some of the basic tenets of the community.
Some of the basic tenets have to do with anti-Castroism, which is at the very heart of the community. And, of course, the ability of the Cuban community to ostracize people depends a little bit upon what they do. If you're a lawyer or you own a store or you depend upon the community for your business, you are much more likely to be cautious of being labeled a communist or a Castro sympathizer than if you're somebody like me, who has tenure at a university.
More and more people are challenging the tradition of the Cuban exile community, in part because it's become a bit outdated. What's happened, to some extent, with US policy towards Cuba and of the view supported by many in the Cuban exile community of hostility and isolation is that it's become an exhausted model. That model presumably was going to bring some fruit in the early 1990s with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but again, it hasn't happened. The Elián case focused a lot of attention on the Cuban situation and a lot of Americans started asking, "Why don't we change this policy?"
Elián was a spark?
I think the Cuban exiles have had a lot of influence on US policy towards Cuba in the past, because nobody cares in the US; nobody has Cuba on their radar screen. It's possible that most of the chief executives of the Fortune 500 companies would want to change policy towards Cuba and allow commerce with Cuba. But if they had 30 minutes with the president of the United States, they're not going to talk about Cuba. And so there hasn't been a real concerted effort on the part of those people who would favor a lifting of the embargo and new relations started with Cuba.
Whereas for Cuban-Americans, that's their priority. They have lobby organizations. They have a committed congressional group of three Cuban-American congressmen who make that their priority. And so they represent a very dynamic force in favor of keeping US policy. On the other side, you don't have anybody with a lot of weight committed in this country to change US-Cuba policy, and therefore it hasn't changed.
Was Elián a spark for the exhausted?
The impact of Elián has really been a little bit contradictory. On the one hand, the events swirling around Elián have served in many ways to strengthen the hard-liners in Cuba and in Miami. A lot of people in Havana and Miami have been mobilized around the drama of this little boy.
On the other hand, it's also brought to the attention of the world--the larger world outside the hard-liners of Havana and Miami--the fact that this policy is now 40 years old. It hasn't worked. It's a relationship that belongs in the Cold War, and it ought to be changed.
The exiles are sure they're right on this issue.
The inability of Cubans in the United States, and especially in Miami, to see that this whole Elián case has been very bad for their cause is due to an absence of means for self-criticism. The local press plays a great deal to the interests and the views of the Cuban-American community. That's true of the largest newspapers in this city, and it is true of the local television stations. Nobody really challenges in many ways what the Cubans are doing. You see that in the national press, but not in the local press.
The Spanish language radio stations have a tremendous function for reinforcing an exile ideology, and for really whipping people up to do things, and encouraging people to do things that are really quite unreasonable. The Spanish language radio stations function as the gossips in the town square. Nobody really knows them and nobody listens to them directly, but nobody wants to incur their wrath. Nobody wants to be vilified by them, because when they start a rumor it spreads through the entire town.
Why do the exiles view themselves as exiles and not as immigrants?
It's very important to the image of Cuban-Americans to see themselves and for others to see them as exiles, not as immigrants. The term "immigrant" to them denotes the notion of people who come in search of economic opportunities.
Cubans, despite what may be the reality, do have this ideology that they came here because they were in a sense driven out, impelled to leave by a government and by a political system. Therefore they view themselves as exiles. It has nothing to do with whether they will actually go back and live. It has to do with the fact that you need to triumph over the government that compelled you to leave the country and is the source of all this suffering, et cetera.
Part of the emotion that you see among many Cuban exiles is that this is a highly personalized sort of conflict. If you talk to Cuban exiles about Cuba, instead of using terms like "the communist system" or "the government" or anything like, that they're more likely to say "Fidel Castro," It's a very personalized conflict that even finds its way into the laws that the US has written and enacted, which have in part been written by Cuban exiles. The Helms-Burton bill actually says that a precondition for improving US relations with Cuba is that Fidel Castro and Raoul Castro, by first name and last names, have to be out of there.
. . . Emotion is, in many ways, a driving force. It sometimes keeps people--as the Elián case pointed out--from seeing things rationally, or pragmatically. You could make the argument to many people here in Miami that the embargo is helpful to Fidel Castro. It keeps him isolated. It enables him to blame others for his troubles. But people here wouldn't be interested in that. The embargo cannot be understood as a rational, pragmatic measure to overthrow the Cuban government. It has to be understood in emotional terms. If you lift the embargo, for many Cuban exiles, it means Fidel will have won.
And isn't it the same with the Elián case?
Absolutely. From the beginning, it was evident that it was a no-win situation for Cuban-Americans, and a win-win situation for Castro. Yet the Cuban exiles in Miami plunged right into it and gave Fidel Castro this victory.
How do you explain this 40-year conflict between Cubans--the hardliners on both sides of the Florida straits, here in Miami and there in Cuba.
One way to look at what has happened in the last 40 years is ...the generation that spawned the conflict 40 years ago is still in control in Havana, and still in control in Miami. And because they are the same generation, from the same place, the same culture, they have many similarities, including their view of governance, their view of expression and their freedom of expression, their view of political rights in many ways.
What, if anything, can change their views,?
There are two experiences that change Cuban-Americans in terms of their political views. One is to have lived outside of Miami for an extended period of time--being exposed to other views on Cuba and other views on the world.
The other thing that can change your views if you're Cuban-American is to go to Cuba. Not because you come back thinking that the Castro government is great or anything like that--on the contrary. Like anything else, when you view reality firsthand, it's not black and white. You see that the reality is much more complex. You see Cuba as a real place where real people live and try to make their living and struggle in very difficult conditions. And you have a better appreciation for what should be the policy.
In my classes among young Cuban-Americans born in this country, there is this sort of view of Cuba that is mythological. What they hear about Cuba is from what they hear at home. They hear about a place that used to be fabulous, that now is forbidden and that people don't go to it.
Some people have told us the exiles feel guilty that they left.
I don't agree with that. I think that one of the characteristics of Cuban exiles is that they have viewed exile favorably. And by favorably, I mean that it is an important way of showing opposition to the government. For example, there are any number of artists and people who leave Cuba now who haven't denounced the Cuban government. They're not true exiles in that sense, and they're criticized; they have not gone through, in a sense, a crossing of the River Jordan, which exile represents.
This is different from other groups, I might add. For example, the Russian émigrés from the Bolshevik revolution viewed exile as the worst thing that could happen to them, and it was definitely to be avoided. Given the conditions in Cuba or the way Cuban exiles see it, exile is viewed as something that is desirable. There's a lot of questioning of people who live in Cuba, who may have opportunity to leave, but don't leave. And so the only way of really knowing if someone is against the government is if you've left.
So that is how Elián's father was viewed?
That's the way that Juan Miguel González has been viewed. Elián's father has been so roundly criticized and vilified in the Cuban exile community, because having had the opportunity to stay here, he is choosing to go back to Cuba.
Why do they want him here?
Every person who chooses to leave--in a way that challenges Castro, especially if they leave in a dramatic way--is received almost as a hero, because it's a personal victory over Fidel Castro. All we have to see is what happens during the rafter crisis. Cubans here in Miami welcome people escaping from Cuba. The more dramatic, the better--in a helicopter, or in a hijacked plane, or in a raft.
When, as happened in 1980 and in 1994, Fidel Castro says, "Anybody that wants to leave can leave. You can get on the rafts and leave." Then the Cuban exile community says, "Oh no, now we don't want them. If Fidel wants them to leave or if Fidel lets them leave, now we don't want them, because that's Castro's game now."
For several reasons--some of them historical--the leadership of the Cuban exile community has always been one that has greatly used emotion; the emotional community to maintain a policy of hostility and isolation in terms of Cuba. But even more than that, it's been always a message of anti-revolution. Part of the inability of the Cuban exile community to really be an important agent of change within Cuba has been that they have not recognized that a good portion of the Cuban population has a historical commitment to that revolution of 1959--even while they may want to change the current situation, while they may feel that the current government is outdated and is exhausted What happened is that this leadership here decided that it would make a message that was not only anti-Castro, but anti-revolutionary. And I think that that message has very limited utility in Cuba.
A lot of people in Cuba do not want a leadership to come from Miami, for example, saying that they didn't like the process that started in 1959, because a lot of Cubans now in Cuba profited from that process. The Cuban exile leadership here has allowed the Cuban government to be the sole trustee of that historical revolution, which many Cubans fundamentally support. And therefore, that's part of the reason why I think the message of Cuban exiles is very faint in Cuba, because most people in Cuba view them as people who want to return Cuba to pre-1959. That's what the Castro government has told them, but the behavior of Cuban-Americans has reinforced that view.
I was in Cuba in January of this year. Although it probably is the case that a lot of the demonstrations on the streets in Cuba supporting the return of Elián are probably contrived by the government, I think there is a genuine feeling among people in Cuba that the child ought to be returned to his father. It's actually very insulting to tell people that the child cannot come back to live in a country where you live, and that somehow children in Cuba cannot have any kind of happy life or a normal life. I think that's insulting. A lot of people of different ideological persuasions are puzzled by the position of the Miami relatives, by the position of the Cuban exile community. This has genuinely allowed Fidel Castro, again, sort of another victory.
What about the notion that the child belongs to the state in Cuba?
What's been argued here in the Cuban exile community is that raising a child in Cuba is very different from here, and that it's preferable for the child to grow up here.
. . . Ultimately, the issue is that his father lives in Cuba. His surviving natural parent lives in Cuba, and that's where the child should be. I don't know if the Cuban exile community proposed to bring every child from Cuba here, because certainly all those arguments could be made for the other children in Cuba. And obviously that wouldn't be the case. In that sense, the INS has been consistent. The INS never said the child has to go back to Cuba. The INS has said, yes, the child may apply for asylum, yes, the child could be granted asylum, but someone has to speak for him. And the person who speaks for him is the natural surviving parent. It's very difficult for people across the US to find the flaw in that logic. Only in Miami and among Cubans is that logic questioned. People are saying, "No, the child essentially should stay here, because we think this system is superior to the system in Cuba."
Politically, what is and what will be the effect of Elián?
I think the most important consequence of the Elián situation has been a real loss of influence on the part of Cuban-Americans in influencing US policy. A lot of the US has now, because of Elián, focused a bit on Cuba and focused on the role that Cuban-Americans have had in formulating US policy, and may be unwilling in the future to let US policy towards Cuba be determined by Cuban exiles in Miami. Certainly if you look at editorials of newspapers around the country, you can see that that's what they're saying: "Why have we, in effect, let these people in Miami run US-Cuba policy?"
So the Elián case backfired?
From the beginning, Elián was a no-win situation for Cuban-Americans and was a win-win situation for Castro. If the child was returned, he could say it was a victory for the revolution. If the child was not returned, it was yet another injustice of the Americans and of the Miami Mafia, as he calls them. So it was always a win-win situation for Castro. But yet, Cuban-Americans plunged headlong into this and did not think of these consequences.
What about the reactions of the other communities in the Miami area?
Many Cuban-Americans are saying the reason that we lost the struggle of Elián is because the other communities don't understand us. What Cuban-Americans don't understand is that a lot of other communities and people in this country looked at this totally different than the way they did, and found that the position of Cuban-Americans was unreasonable.
I don't think that it was a problem of lack of understanding. It was a disagreement. And for most Americans, this was an issue of whether or not we're going to keep a child here against the wishes of the surviving natural parent. Many Cuban exiles had all these arguments against sending Elián to Cuba because of the system in Cuba, et cetera. But a lot of Americans didn't accept that argument, and many Cuban-Americans were shocked that there hadn't been this sort of understanding.
People are devastated in this community. . . .
There is a lot of emotion here in this community. There's a lot of pain in this community. There are people that have suffered a great deal as a result of the entire Cuban process, people who've lost homes, and people who've lost relatives. What frequently happens is that the Cuban community, as has been demonstrated by the Elián case, acts emotionally. That's fine. . . . But if you attempt to base your actions upon emotion, you're going to do things that are irrational, and people are going to criticize you. What we're seeing now is a backlash against Cuban-Americans, a backlash that doesn't take much in this country to generate. There are a lot of prejudices and racism and anti-immigration sentiments in this country, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to stir those sentiments up.
Print Marked Items
Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The
Making of Cuban New York
Publishers Weekly.
265.22 (May 28, 2018): p90.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York
Lisandro Perez. New York Univ., $35 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8147-6727-6
In this colorful and scrupulously researched history, Perez, a professor of Latin American studies at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice, traces the 19th-century origins of Cuban New York, a vibrant community that
developed long before the 1959 Cuban revolution. He vividly narrates the rise of the Cuban sugar trade with
the U.S. and the formation of the 19th-century "sugaro-cracy"--the Cuban-born descendants of the Spanish
who became Cuba's elite. They went to New York not only for business but to plot their independence from
Spain, invest in real estate, gain a valuable network of social contacts, and send their boys to boarding
school. Perez discusses New York Cubans' thwarted hopes for annexation by the U.S., the failed war of
independence (1868-1878) that spurred a massive exodus of intellectuals and aristocracy, and the New York
Cuban community's changing demographics as craftsmen, cigar makers, and laborers gradually
outnumbered the moneyed class. Perez introduces readers to generals, writers, cigar workers, Freemasons,
and many other 19th-century Cubans, including Father Varela, who founded two downtown Catholic
parishes that still exist today, and Emilia Casanova, who used the vaults under her father's house in the
Bronx to store arms before smuggling them to Cuba. Perez's engrossing work showcases a little-discussed
facet of New York City's rich history. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 90.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638860/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ea12adc4. Accessed 19 Oct. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638860
SUGAR, CIGARS, AND REVOLUTION
THE MAKING OF CUBAN NEW YORK
Lisandro Pérez
NYU Press (Jul 10, 2018)
Hardcover $35.00 (400pp)
978-0-8147-6727-6
Lisandro Pérez’s Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution is a fascinating excursion into nineteenth-century New York, when wealthy plantation owners strolled its streets. It serves as a comprehensive guide to the social, cultural, and political lives of the transnational community of wealthy Cuban plantation owners and their immigrant compatriots.
Grounded by extensive research and the author’s personal interests, the book reveals the connections between the United States and Cuba from 1823 to the Spanish-American War. During this time, New York City housed the largest community of Cubans outside of the island. It lost this status when José Martí’s vision for a free Cuba was abandoned.
The text both informs and entertains. The first part of the book focuses on a few wealthy Cuban families and their personal and business relationships. These stories create a sense of neighborhood-place, where Cubans contributed to the international personality of Manhattan.
Anecdotes introduce chapters, effectively presenting a moment of personal and historical significance, as when José Martí celebrated at Delmonico’s the night before drafting orders to begin the 1895 Cuban uprising.
The best storytelling occurs in the last chapters. The passion of Martí and others is revealed through their words, not through a chronicle of battles. Great spiritedness animates the prose.
An impressive list of sources and footnotes is included. The book’s chronological approach supports the sense that this is a story about Cuba and New York, but it creates some awkwardness as the book progresses. Phrases reminding the reader of earlier events interrupt the narrative flow.
Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution is a lively and multifaceted record of Cuban communities in New York City.
Reviewed by Geraldine Richards
University Press 2018