Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus

The Cuban exodus is estimated to be from 12 to 15 percent of the country’s population. It also harbors several distinct waves of migrants, alike only in their final rejection of Cuba. In this book, Silvia Pedraza links the revolution and exodus not only as cause and consequence but also as profoundly social and human processes that range from the political and economic to the cognitive and emotive. But, ironically for a community that defined itself as being in exile, virtually no studies of its political attitudes exist, and certainly none that encompass the changing political attitudes over the nearly 50 years of the exodus. Through the use of two major research strategies – participant observation and in-depth, semistructured interviews with 120 Cubans who were representative of those who left between 1959 and 2004 – Pedraza captures the processes of political disaffection of participants in this major historical drama. She emphasizes the contrasts among the four major waves of the exodus not only in their social characteristics but also in their attitudes as members of different political generations.

Silvia Pedraza is Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Political and Economic Migrants in America: Cubans and Mexicans (1985) and the coeditor of Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America (1996, with Rubén G. Rumbaut). She has also published articles in such journals as Social Science History and the Annual Review of Sociology. A child of the Cuban refugee exodus, she lived through both a dictatorship and a revolution, which left an indelible mark on her research.

Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics

Editors

Jack A. Goldstone George Mason University

Doug McAdam Stanford University and Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Sidney Tarrow Cornell University

Charles Tilly Columbia University

Elisabeth J. Wood Yale University

Ronald Aminzade et al., Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics

Javier Auyero, Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The Gray Zone of State Power

Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism

Charles Brockett, Political Movements and Violence in Central America

Gerald F. Davis, Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, and Mayer N. Zald, Social Movements and Organization Theory

Jack A. Goldstone, editor, States, Parties, and Social Movements

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention

Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China

Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism

Charles Tilly, Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000

Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence

Deborah Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge

Political Disaffection in Cuba’s
Revolution and Exodus

    SILVIA PEDRAZA
    University of Michigan

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press
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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521867870

© Silvia Pedraza 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Pedraza, Silvia, 1946–
Political disaffection in Cuba’s revolution and exodus / Silvia Pedraza.
p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in contentious politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-86787-0 (hardback)– ISBN 978-0-521-68729-4 (pbk.)
1. Cuban Americans – Politics and government. 2. Cuban Americans – Social
conditions. 3. Cuban Americans – Interviews. 4. Immigrants – United States – Political
activity. 5. Cubans – Migrations. 6. Cuba – Emigration and immigration – Political
aspects. 7. United States – Emigration and immigration – Political aspects. 8. Cuba –
History – Revolution, 1959 – Influence. 9. Cuba – History – Revolution, 1959 – Public
opinion. 10. Public opinion – United States. 11. Public opinion – Cuba. I. Title.
II. Series.
E184.C97P43  2007
304.8′730729109045–dc22      2006100710

ISBN 978-0-521-86787-0 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-68729-4 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To my mother, Silvia Lubián Pedraza,
and my cousin, Alicia María Pedraza,
both of whom did everything they could to help me

Contents

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

I am truly grateful to many colleagues and friends for the support they gave me during my research. Above all, I want to thank the 120 Cubans for the interviews they granted me, long and sincere, and the documents they shared with me. Without their help, this book would not have been possible. Their names are listed in the Appendix. Although my insights and conclusions issued from what I learned from them, I am solely responsible for any errors that remain.

   In addition, many people went out of their way to help me procure an interview. For this, I am grateful to Concha, Olga, and Benito Besú; Alfredo and Liana Blanco and Maricusa Repilado Blanco; Joaquín Calvo and Emma García-Menocal; Max Castro; Jesús and Idalmis Cruz; Emilio Cueto; Himilce Esteve; Andrés Gómez-Mena; Eulogio González; José Manuel Hernández; Francisco León; Melchor Loret de Mola; Nicole Lucier; José Martín and Victoria López-Pedraza; Bernard Mulaire; Patricia and Daniel Pastor; Christine Reinhard; Natalia Revuelta; Oscar Luis Rodríguez and Barbara Grau; Carmen Rodríguez and María Rodríguez; Angelina, Luisa, and Norma Rodríguez; Pedro Romañach; Nicolás Sánchez; Gladys Santana; and Silvia Villalón.

   Many people also lent me photos, poems, and works of art to use for illustration. For this, I am grateful to Robert Aponte; Ricardo Blanco, artist; Elvis Brathwaite, from Associated Press AP/Wide World Photos; Alberto de la Cerra; Elly Chovel from the Operation Pedro Pan Group; Arturo Cuenca, artist; Belkis Cuza-Malé, poet; Rafael Díeguez, artist; Isabel Ezquerra from the University of Miami’s Otto Richter Library, Cuban Heritage Collection; Alina Salgado; Dawn Hugh and Melissa Mame from the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Miami; Joanne Leonard, artist; Huber Matos and María Luisa Matos; Lissette Elquezabal, from the Miami Herald; Ben Osborne and Charity Schmidt; Angel Pardo; Felix Peña; Coiré Rodríguez; and Jesús Selgas, artist. Jessica Cepelak and Ciara McLaughlin from Cambridge University Press assisted me with the photos and illustrations.

   Still others helped me find important sources: Father Juan Manuel Dorta-Duque, from the Antiguos Alumnos del Colegio Belén; Cynthia Harris, from the Jersey Journal; José M. Martínez, from La Voz Libre; Isabel Tejera, from Desafíos; Yuzuru Takeshita, Professor Emeritus of Public Health, the University of Michigan; Lesbia Varona, from the University of Miami Otto Richter Library, Cuban Heritage Collection; as well as Karen Mike, Leif Backman, and Anthony Davis from the University of Michigan Interlibrary Loan. The Sánchez family provided invaluable help in transcribing the interviews.

   At the University of Michigan, many staff members were helpful. Some helped me learn new data analysis techniques, in particular Al Anderson, Ren Farley, Lisa J. Neidert, and Patrick Rady of PDQ, Inc., and JoAnn Dionne, data librarian from the Library. Still others helped me learn the new digital world, in particular Rick Smoke and Carrick Rogers from the Sociology Department, as well as Monica Trujillo, my research assistant, who was sponsored by the Summer Research Opportunity Program. Patricia Preston from the Sociology Department and Peggy A. Westrick from the College of Literature, Science, and Arts Office of Research processed my Faculty Research Assistance Awards.

   A number of colleagues went out of their way to offer useful comments, some of which I heeded. For this, I am grateful to Nelson Amaro, Jesús Barquet, Heriberto Brito, Steven Gold, Pedro Ladislao Guerra, Bert Hoffman, Richard Sukjo Kim, Enrique Pumar, Joane Nagel, Doug McAdam, Vicky Unruh, my student Jordi Martínez-Cid, and two anonymous reviewers.

   I am particularly grateful to Joane Nagel at the University of Kansas, Jorge I. Domínguez at Harvard University, and Sueann Caulfield at the University of Michigan for supporting my grant applications.

   Ruth Homrighaus helped me copyedit the original manuscript, and Brian MacDonald served as my production editor for Cambridge University Press. I am grateful to both.

   Lewis Bateman, senior editor at Cambridge University Press in New York, was both supportive and exacting, and I thank him for seeing value in this work.

   This research project was initially supported by a seed grant from the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline (1995–96). The necessary support came from the University of Michigan’s Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies’ Faculty Grant and Fellowship (1997–99), for which I am particularly grateful to Provost Nancy Cantor and Dean Homer Rose. A grant from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Scholar in Residence Program at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy (Summer 2003), allowed me to spend a peaceful summer working through difficult intellectual issues. Travel to Italy was made possible by the University of Michigan’s Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies’ Discretionary Funds, for which I am especially grateful to Dean Homer Rose, from the University of Michigan’s Rackham School of Graduate Studies, and Dean Terrence J. McDonald, from the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and Arts. Associate Dean Susan Gelman of the College of Literature, Science, and Arts helped me obtain a Faculty Research Grant. Joseph P. Marino, Associate Dean for Research of the College of Literature, Science, and Arts, and Lester P. Monts, Senior Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs, helped me obtain Faculty Travel Awards that made participant observation in Cuba and Puerto Rico possible. With sincerity, I express my gratitude to all of them. Without their support, this research would not have been possible.

Abbreviations

Map of Cuba

Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus