Chapter 15: Caribbeans, Central Americans, & Soviet Jews

Chapter 15 of the text focuses on groups that have emigrated to America from the Caribbean, Central America and the Soviet Union. What many of these groups have in common is that they seem to have founded their own communities along the east side, including New York and Florida. These are also groups that found refugee in America because of corruption that took place in the countries they lived in. The text focues on Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, Central Americans and Soviet Jews.

One of the groups that I found interesting were the Cubans. Thomas Jefferson thought that Cuba would eventually become a part of America. Prior to the American Civil War, there were schemes for annexation of Cuba concocted by southern politicians. In 1898, Cuba became indpendent but was an American protectorate. This lasted for six years. During this period, Cubans were able to come and leave the United States. In the 1950s, Cuba was still going through major political unrest and this sent even more Cubans to the United States. What I found interesting about this section on Cubans is that even if these Cubans emigrated from the same country, they are still divided based on skin color, white Cuban Americans and black Cubans. Page 375 of the book states in the middle of the second paragraph, "Black Cuban refugees have reported housing and other discrimination in the Miami area, including discriminination in predominantly Cuban areas and from Cuban American landlords." Reading this was interesting because it's easy to assume that groups that emigrate from the same areas would try to "stick together". That is obviously not the case here, provided the fact that Cubans had been divided or classified based on their skin color. Not only that, but Cubans were even discriminated by other Cubans. There were white Cubans who faced poverty in the United States, but that was usually due to the fact that the individual was elderly or if the indviduals lived in households headed by woman.

This issue of discrimination and unfairness was also present among the Haitians. Haiti was a country of poverty. The text even described it as a "desperate" country. A statistic that struck me is found on page 378 (second paragraph), "The World Bank estimated a few years ago that, in the mountainous countryside where most of the people live, nine out of ten Haitians live below what it calls the 'absolute poverty level' of $135 a year, or $.37 a day." Just like the Cubans, Haitians suffered from misrule. Although, unlike the Cubans, Haitians weren't really welcomed in the United States. On page 379 of the text (second paragraph) it states, "Unlike the Cuabns, who are welcomed as refugees from the communism, the Haitians were unwanted refugees from hunger." The text explains that if the United States government were to automatically accept the claims of asylum seekers, then it could be assumed that anyone could enter American territory without uderging screening in countries of first asylum. Although, many argue that the U.S applies their rules selectively and that the Haitians were discriminated because of their skin color.