Essay On Cuban Immigration

During the last two centuries Mexican migration to the United States have changed the culture and economic values of this nation. Coming from a country where only the rich can strive and the poor struggles to survive. Mexican immigrants risk their lives to come to this country for an opportunity to a better life and to support their families back home. With their journey to this nation they bring their culture and language, involving the American culture in many ways. They come to also face many negative aspects as well. discrimination, labor exploitation and ultimately deportation. But this has not stopped them from coming to the United States in the last two centuries.

Many immigrants came into the United States during the nineteenth century; some of them being Chinese. They came here through Angel Island to find better lives than in China, but it did not work out that way for most. These people faced much discrimination in this new country, such as working cheap jobs and being treated unfairly, but eventually they began trying to conquer these unfair acts towards them.

Even though Cuba is a little under 100 miles away from the United States, the relationship between the two countries has created an atmosphere full of tension and perpetual mistrust. When Fidel Castro decided to align Cuba with the U.S.S.R. and become a communist country, the United States of America was stunned and highly insulted. Because of their relationship, both countries have played a back and forth game of trying to outdo the other. This game and state of affairs in Cuba has created a large influx of Cuban immigrants looking for better opportunities and trying to escape poverty and persecution. This paper will be focusing on Cuban immigrants and examining different Cuban immigration laws, which allowed them to easily become United States citizens, including; the Cuban Adjustment Act, The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976 and the Wet Foot, Dry Foot Policy. It will also discuss whether the Cuban immigration laws are unfair to other foreign immigrants and whether the laws are relevant today. Finally, we will be considering the future and try to predict how the laws will change with the changing diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States and the imminent removal of the Embargo Act.

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

The assimilation of Cuban Americans has come rather slowly due to the discrimination that this group has faced. Like most other immigrating groups, Cubans have seen themselves rejected and discriminated by the dominant group, making them embrace their own culture and straying away from the dominant expectations for several years. In order to maintain their culture, and as an effort to reject discrimination, Cuban Americans have opened various organizations and enclaves that help promote their heritage. The stratification between Cubans and white Americans is quite high in places like Florida. In fact, affluent Anglos are usually placed in elite private schools that are populated by little to none Latinos. Due to the fact that many Cuban Americans consider themselves to be exiles, their assimilation has come rather slowly. According to Gordon’s assimilation theory, cultural and identification assimilation have come at a slow pace. To elaborate, Cuban American immigrants have faced much discrimination and stereotyping that has led them to stay away from assimilating to the dominant culture. In fact, their cultural patterns have been kept sturdy by promoting their heritage in organizations, clubs and enclaves. With new U.S. born generations, there can be a sense of cultural assimilation, but for the most part, Cuban Americans have not completely assimilated culturally. In the same sense, identification assimilation has not come hastily. As mentioned, Cuban

the opportunity came during the Cuban Exodus of 1980, he immigrated to the United States. This

It has long been a pattern in the United States that immigrants will assimilate into the culture when they live close to white neighborhoods. Latin American immigrants move throughout the country in different ways. Cubans are an anomaly due to the fact that they live very separated from White Americans even when they have been here for generations (Chaves et al, 2005: 511). Even though they are assimilated into American culture, Cubans still prefer to live in their own communities. This

From the time, Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba tensions ran high between the Cuban government and the United States government. Relations between Cuba and the United States grew during Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Not as much during the Eisenhower administration as the Kennedy administration did tensions between between the two countries intensify. Kennedy faced many a different situations as President. He faced such situations like the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tensions have mounted high for a long time between Cuba and the United States.

My cultural ancestry comes from a Cuban and Mexican decent. I have chosen to write about my Cuban side because I can relate to them more than I could with my Mexican side. I was raised around my Cuban family and would occasionally see my Mexican side due to them living so far away. I have spent a lot more time associating with Cubans and have adapted to more of their habits.

The migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States occurred in two major waves. The first wave was in the 1910s-1940s and the second wave was from the 1960s to the 1990s. Each wave of migrants brought new generations of Puerto Ricans to the United States. Both waves of migrants believed that they were going to live a better life in America and migrated to major cities such as New York City, Chicago, Hartford, etc. The early migrants looked for industrial jobs such as in cigar factories while the later migrants found agricultural work such as in tobacco fields. The communities in which they lived grew larger and larger due to chain migration and because of this, the need for politics evolved.

The framework for American immigration policy began around the 1750-1820 period through the incorporation of colonial legacy with existing state and federal policy (Zolberg, 2009). The United States legislation has excluded whole nations and regions from migrating due to internal and external factors. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Page Act of 1875 restricted Chinese female immigration. In 1917 and 1924, quota systems were adopted to prohibit considerably “undesirable and “inferior” ethnic groups and races. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, between 400,000 and 1 million Mexican laborers and their families were deported under the “repatriation” programs. Approximately

economic growth comes from agriculture and exports to and from Europe. Since America has had an embargo on Cuba since 1962 neither countries trade with each other because of many disagreements about governing techniques and Fidel's unwillingness to comply with U.S. instructions. Cuba’s long history and culture has contributed to many economic and social growth through out the world, but Cuba is still struggling to try to stable their economy.

There have been several regions of United States that have gone through cultural changes throughout time. The indigenous people on the East coast went through a cultural change when the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. The people that lived in the North went through a cultural change when the French entered by the St. Lawrence River bringing their Roman Catholicism religion. The people that were living in what is now Alaska went through cultural change when the Russians entered the area with their new language and orthodox religion. More recently, the people of Miami have gone through cultural changes since the Cubans have entered Southern Florida. To understand the migration of Cubans to Southern

For instance, Joe R. Feagin states, “By the early 1900s agricultural and industrial expansion created an increased demand for low-wage labor in the Southwest. White employers recruited large numbers of Mexican Laborers for farms and factories, with federal assistance [...] employers and their allies in government have sought Mexican workers to do low-wage agricultural; and manufacturing jobs, even as growing numbers of political groups have agitated against such immigrants. By bringing in large numbers of Mexican workers, employers have helped to change the U.S. demographic and political landscape in often dramatic ways” (Page 242). Latino migration was often very common; workers would stay for a few years, and then go back to their country with more money than they could have made in their country of origin. Like African Americans and Native Americans, they were seen different and discriminated against. Furthermore, Asian Americans have come to the United States in waves, at different times, and for different reasons. For example, like Latino Americans, Asians also came to the United States by employers to use their labor and later Asians began to immigrate to America because of the Gold

Immigration involves the movement of a group of people from one country to another where they do not possess citizenship. There are many reasons in which people may leave their country such as employment, lack of resources, family, fear due to violence, exile, the American dream. In 1965, Congress changed immigration law in ways that allowed much more intake from Asia and Latin America than earlier. Before 1965, the intake was mostly from Europe. Since then, over half has come from Latin America—28 % just from Mexico. The share of population composed of non-Hispanic whites plunged from 84 % in 1965 to only 62 % in 2015 while Hispanics soared from 4 to 18 %. (Mead, L.M., 2016)