CUBA-MIGRATION: From ‘Traitors’ to Compatriots

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 9 1995 (IPS) - Previously called “worms” or “traitors,” Cuban emigrants will now be able to visit their country of origin as often as they wish, without seeking permission from any Cuban authority.

Part of an attempt by the government to normalise relations with emigrants after several decades of viewing them as political enemies, the new measures will mean a simple card, renewable every two years, will be the only document needed by Cuban emigrants who want to visit their families.

Up to now, the nearly two million Cubans residing in some 40 countries had to apply for a Cuban passport and visa to visit their home country. But the elimination of such red-tape means emigrants will be able to travel whenever they wish.

The measure, announced on Monday as a corollary to the second conference on “The Nation and Emigration”, only excludes those who engage in hostile actions against Cuba, or have criminal records in their country of residence.

“We do not demand ideological or political agreement, only respect for the sovereignty of the country and its people,” Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina told the 357 emigrants invited to Havana by the government of President Fidel Castro.

Specialists say authorities are beginning to differentiate between emigrants. Whereas they were previously seen as a homogeneously hostile group, it is now recognised that economic motivations have played a strong role in recent waves of emigration during the past few years of crisis.

According to psychologist Consuelo Martin with the Centre for Studies of Political Alternatives, “presenting the social group of emigrants as a homogeneous whole, which was excluded from the nation, was an error committed for many years.”

In an article published in the magazine ‘Temas’, Martin pointed out that “the social image of the emigrants did not consider their heterogeneity, in spite of the fact that isolated studies had brought the issue up.”

Official policy automatically identified all emigrants with the small groups of exiles that organised terrorist actions or sabotage against Cuba, or constantly maligned the government.

The habit of throwing everyone into the same package affected Cuban residents in countries such as Spain and Venezuela, because of measures related to the tension between the United States and Cuba, which had nothing to with communities in other countries.

According to statistics, the phenomenon of Cuban emigration to the United States did not appear after the triumph of the revolution in 1959.

A study by Blanca Morejon, an expert at the Centre on Demographic Studies, shows that some 15,000 Cubans lived in the United States in late 1906, making the group that country’s largest Latin American community.

Nine decades later, the Cuban community is far from being the most numerous.

According to the 1990 U.S. census, Latin Americans and people from the Caribbean residing in the United States accounted for 43 percent of the country’s total immigrant population.

Slightly more than half of a total of eight million come from Mexico. Cuban immigrants total 1,043,922, 19.6 percent of whom are second-generation.

According to analyst Rafael Hernandez, the overwhelmingly negative attitude of the Cuban population towards emigrants began to change in the 1970s. But it was not until the 1990s that the shift has begun to be reflected in official policy.

Cuban authorities announced in April 1994 that the search for solutions to the emigration problem can no longer depend on the ups and downs of U.S.-Cuban relations.

Sixteen years after the first talks between the government and a group of emigrants, Cuban authorities held the first conference on “The Nation and Emigration” in April 1994.

In slightly over a year, authorities approved the right of emigrants to invest capital in Cuba and open bank accounts, while encouraging cultural, religious and academic meetings.

The government has also decided to make it easier for emigrants and their family members to carry out university studies in Cuba.

The president of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, said all that is left now is for the U.S. government to lift the restrictions faced by Cubans residing in the United States.

In spite of several immigration accords that put an end to a massive exodus of illegal immigrants from Cuba in the summer of 1994, the Clinton administration has failed to lift the ban on travel to Cuba, which is only permitted in cases of extreme humanitarian emergency.

While more than 80 percent of Cuban-Americans have family members in Cuba, money orders are only authorised for paying travel or emigration expenses.

“No big deal” to some, the new, flexible travel procedures have generated new hope for Cubans both home and abroad, who for several decades have suffered from family separation.

“Whoever left here did so forever. And you had to pretend you forgot parents or brothers or sisters, because they were considered traitors to their homeland,” says Oscar Vazquez, who for nearly 20 years kept no contact with a brother who lives in Miami.

For the 67-year-old Cuban, things began to change in the late 1970s, when his brother was allowed to visit several times. Now they write and talk on the telephone, and Vazquez was even able to visit Miami last year.

“But you can’t stop thinking that any political problem between Cuba and the United States will ruin everything,” says Vazquez, who regrets all the years that he put ideological disagreements above family ties.