America Is Obsessed With Cuba. But What Do We Know About Its Citizens? (NY Times, 2021)
Marie Arana reviews THE CUBANS: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times by Anthony DePalma.
Almost exactly 40 years ago, in the spring of 1980 — even as cherry blossoms swept down the streets of Washington, D.C., the Iran hostage crisis crept toward a halfway mark and the World Health Organization announced the global eradication of smallpox — a flotilla of boats, creaking under the weight of a desperate humanity, began making the 100-mile journey from Cuba to Key West. By the end of that summer, the Mariel boatlift would bring 125,000 people to America: more than 1 percent of the total population of Cuba at the time and almost 20 percent of all Cuban migration since the Castro revolution. In motorboats, barges, yachts, cargo ships and shrimp boats, defying storms and a scorching sun, they streamed into the receiving halls of the Florida Keys, where United States government fliers welcomed them to a land of “full liberty” and “the chance for rebirth.”
