Cuban Americans

Responding mostly to political and economic changes and realities in Cuba, Cubans have migrated to the United States for nearly 2 centuries. Although most Cubans who migrated to the United States did so hoping for a quick return to the island, history dictated otherwise, and in the process, Cuban migrants have left permanent marks in major U.S. cities from Key West and Tampa, Florida, to New York City, Philadelphia, and Miami. The latter is by far the largest and most permanent Cuban community in U.S. history. As a result, since the late 1960s, Cuban migrants in the United States, as well as their descendants, adopted Cuban American as a label that proclaimed their equally Cuban and U.S. cultural identities.

The Cuban community in Miami, Florida, represents the largest concentration of Cubans in the United States. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 900,000 of the 1.5 million Cubans in the United States reside in Florida, making it the largest immigrant group in the state. The present ethnic community traces its origins to 1959, when reactions to political and social changes implemented by the Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, triggered a mass migration of political exiles to South Florida. Since then, Miami has served as the main point of entry for Cuban immigrants, and the city has experienced four massive waves of Cuban migration (1959–1962, 1965–1973, 1980, and 1994–1995) in 35 years. Today, Miami is the city with the third-largest concentration of Cubans in the world.

Cuban immigrants. Here, Cuban immigrants are shown playing dominos in Maximo Gomez Park (“Dominos Park”) in the Calle Ocho, Little Havana, area of Miami. Latin immigration to South Florida has changed the entire region, but the presence of Cuban Americans has particularly transformed Miami, Florida.

Source: Jeff Greenberg/The Image Works.

This entry describes the long history of immigration from Cuba and the present Cuban American community.