Voices from Mariel : oral histories of the 1980 Cuban boatlift

Auteur(s) :

Garcia, José Manuel

Résumé

Between April and September 1980, more than 125,000 Cuban refugees fled their homeland, seeking freedom from Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. They departed in boats from the port of Mariel and braved the dangerous 90-mile journey across the Straits of Florida. Told in the words of the immigrants themselves, the stories in Voices from Mariel offer an up-close view of this international crisis, the largest overseas mass migration in Latin American history. Former refugees describe what it was like to gather among thousands of dissidents on the grounds of the Peruvian embassy in Cuba where the movement first began. They were abused by the masses who protested them as they made their way to the Mariel harbor, before Castro permitted them to leave the country in an attempt to disperse the civil unrest. They waited interminably for boats in oppressive heat, squalor, and desperation at the crowded tent camp known as “El Mosquito.” They embarked on vessels overloaded with too many passengers and battled harrowing storms on their journeys across the open ocean (...). This book illuminates a powerful moment in history that will continue to be felt in Cuba and the United States for generations to come. - Note de l'éditeur