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["James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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From:   Geography Education List, INTERNET:GEOGED@xxxxxxxxxxx
To:     , INTERNET:GEOGED@xxxxxxxxxxx

Date:   4/20/100  1:23 PM

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This is an interesting piece that arrived this morning.

Muncel
==========================================================

Rough Draft

     The Miami Myth Machine

     By

     Rodolfo F. Acuna

Almost every Mexican American, it seems, has a grandparent or a
great-grandparent who rode with Pancho Villa.  Few know or admit
having ancestors who opposed the Mexican Revolution and supported
the dictator Porfirio Diaz.  The events surrounding Elan Gonzalez
remind me of this tragic page in Mexican American history.

Like the Miami Cuban Americans the Mexican exiles arriving after
the 1911 overthrow of Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz actively
pressured the U.S. government to intervene in Mexican affairs
and overthrow the revolutionaries who had taken away their land
and privileges. Those exilados dreamed of the day that they would
return to Mexico and resume the old ways.  Time and the truth
about Diaz and his dictatorship changed the reality of those
exilados, for as imperfect as the Mexican revolution was, it at
least gave most Mexicans another vision of themselves.

Although the Cuban revolution took place over forty years ago.
The Cuban exiles fervor and dreams of returning to their land
and privilege still burns hot.  Few Cuban Americans remember
that Fulgencio Batista y Saldivar came to power as the result
of a 1952 coup and that it was Batista's political illegitimacy
that made the rise of Castro possible.  In the process they seem
to forget that it was Batista and other dictators who turned the
island into a mafia fiefdom that allowed Cuba to be monopolized
by international land companies like the United Fruit Company.
More important, they forget that many of their leaders supported
these oligarchies.

Unable or unwilling to create a revolution from within, they
continue to pressure Americans to fight a war that they themselves
to wage.  Cubans living in Miami, because of the Cold War and
their alliance with the most reactionary sectors of our society,
have been much more effective in controlling American foreign
policy than Mexican exiles were in the first part of the 20th
century.  Certainly more enduring.

The appeal of Jorge Mas Canosa and groups such as the Cuban
American National Foundation lies in the perception that they
can control, or at least influence, American foreign policy
toward Cuba. Therefore, it is not surprising that they see the
Elian Gonzalez controversy as a test of this power.  So they
desperately fal back on their habit of myth making, blaming
their every calamity on the bearded one, angrily blaming Castro
for the abolishment of democracy in Cuba, as if it ever existed.

U.S. Cuban exiles spin myths such as that Cuba was democratic
before Castro, and that God has destined them to free Cuba.  The
reality is that these people are not part of the modern Cuba.
Anyone who has been to Cuba or had relations with the Cuban
community in the United States would be dense if they did not
notice the contrasts between the two societies just in terms
of race. I remember a Cuban American neighbor telling my wife
that she had married well because I was lighter than she was
and thus our children would be born of a lighter hue. She would
emphasize that although working class that she was a gallega
(Galician), not an African Cuban.  She frequently called blacks,
los morenos, as apart and less than white Cubans.

When in Cuba last July, I witnessed a racially mixed society,
with over two-thirds of the island black or mulatto.  Almost
every African-Cuban intellectual I met repeated that he or she
would not have become a professor if it had not been for the
revolution. In watching the talk shows from Miami on television
or the crowds in front of Elian's distant relative, Lazaro
Gonzalez's home, over 95 percent of the Cuban-Americans in the
audiences or the mobs are obviously white Hispanics.

I make this point because Cuba of the exilados does not exist.
The integration of the races in Cuba contrasts with the reality
of Miami where intermarriage between white and black Cubans has
been more an aberration than the rule.  If they ever return to
Cuba, the wanna be Cubans will find a society with different
memories and values than their own.

Out of historical curiosity, we should perhaps ask how and why
the Mexican exiles' fervor burned out while Cuban American
community remains trapped in a cesspool of intransigent nationalism.
Because of the success of extremist groups such as the Cuban
American National Foundation, natural immigration and contact
with the island, has been prevented.  Unlike the Puerto Rican
or the Mexican American, its island has not continuously nurtured
and regenerated the Cuban American. Like the Truman show they
find themselves trapped in time. In turn, Mexican and Puerto
Ricans in the US have become more racially mixed.

The 2000 census will make clear the growing differences between
Cuban Americans and other Latino American groups.  Many Latinos
are indeed are questioning whether Cuban Americans as a group
have suffered a history of discrimination in the United States
similar to that of Mexicans or Puerto Ricans.  Cuban Americans
have become a minority through the stretch of the "Hispanic label,"
which has allowed them entitlements usually reserved for
Americans who suffered a history of discrimination.

Census 2000 will also count some 32 million Latinos, 21 million
of whom are of Mexican origin.  Cuban Americans will number a
tiny fraction of this total--about 1.4 million, contrasted to
about three million Puerto Ricans and three million Central
Americans. The Census will also underscore these differences
between Cuban Americans and the others, for example, the median
age of Mexicans in the US is 24.3 whereas among Cubans it is
40.8 years (versus 26.5 for all Hispanics and 38.2 for white
Americans).  The age gap will make the disparity in income
between Mexicans and white Americans even more glaring. The
income of the Cuban American exceeds that of white Americans,
while Mexican and Central Americans earn about two-thirds the
income of white Americans.

Relations between Cuban American leaders and other Latino
groups have always been tenuous.  Privately, many Latino
leaders resent the appeal of Cuban Congressional Representatives
Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to the memory of
the civil rights movement, remembering that in the 1960s Cuban
Americans to advance their interventionist policies crawled in
bed with almost every reactionary group and leader, working and
supporting the Republican party against the best interests of
other Latinos.  It has always been their way or no way, with
the two mentioned congressional representatives resigning from
the Hispanic Congressional Caucus because Mexican American
Congressman Xavier Becerra was elected its chair. Becerra
committed the sin of visiting Cuba without their permission.

Thus, it is not too surprising that other Latino groups do
not see the Elian Gonzalez case through the same prism as
the Miami zealots.  Unlike the Cuban American community, the
continuing immigration from Mexico and Central America has
restructured and changed most Latino communities.  The Cuban
American community in turn has become an intellectually
incestuous, unable to regenerate itself,  obsessed with
preserving a past that was never--even at the expense of a
small six year old boy.

Because Mexican American, Central American and other Latino
leaders have not spoken out, they have allowed the false
impression that the Jorge Mas Canosas, Lincoln Diaz-Balarts
and Ileana Ros-Lehtinens enjoy power within the Latino universe.
Cuban Americans to set the record straight only comprise 4.3
percent of  the 32 million Latinos in this country.  They
don't speak for the 95 percent.  Lastly, elites always believe
that they are the victims of revolution, no matter how much
they contributed to it.




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From: Muncel Chang <AlohaPele@xxxxxxx>
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