Interface; Miami Si, Cuba No

muth how i am tony betten and this isn't a fence when we began this series of interface programs last year we were concerned about the ways that different cultures in america come together struggle for dominance blend and occasionally explode

we felt when we began interface and we feel now that such a definition of cultural relationships especially presented from a black perspective was crucial to understanding what happens to blacks in our struggle for full citizenship in this society this edition of a difference would be a good case in point as we focus on cubans in miami florida in a little more than fifteen years over four hundred thousand cuban exiles have flooded into dade county florida which include cities like miami and hialeah the impact of these exiles has been great and now we can begin to see what some of the results of the largest in migration in american modern history maybe this migration has not occurred in a vacuum of sociological significance for example the influx of about one thousand patients has had quite different reactions from the united states government and longtime miami residents so timeless now to miami and little havana

join us at the miami interface sure many of the same ideas for those who can afford it and are inclined to have the luxury of high priced hotels the gold coast of the sunshine state has become a single word in miami and miami a lot of us might hear and four was really two cities miami beach somewhere down at heel and for years now a retirement center for great many transplanted new yorkers and the city of miami one of twenty seven municipalities in dade county it is this other miami that we are primarily interested in for this report because it is here in dade county at one of the largest and most sudden in migrations in modern history has taken place nearly half a million cubans have come to settle in miami dade county

and these cubans seem to be in dade county to stay alfredo duran was born in cuba came to the states during the first years of the castro takeover and later fought with other exiles and the ill fated day of things he was captured imprisoned and then released under an amnesty negotiated by the united states to return to miami and today as a thriving law practice we came here were originally not as immigrants we came here originally as people were leaving the nation because of political problems or politically reality are we sort of started outs think it's taken together and we created a ghetto in bay county which we call little havana and we gathered around that and we started beating each other because we have a common purpose and that common purpose because of the language

difference turned out to be what might be called an economic miracle in the sense that we have established our own economy we establish an economy which is mostly self sustaining and i just at this point that the fifteen years that economy itself is starting to expand and pushed out what it doesn't necessarily mean that we have mastered the the financial establishment of this county or that we necessarily have dealt with the financial status month as we regulate filled with ourselves live from their ownership of many small businesses cuban exiles of begun to compete for job slots formally consider the exclusive province of white miami's anticipating a struggle for the larger economic benefits south florida has to offer cubans have begun to organize politically i'll be a brave was born in michigan of latin american parents serve a few stints in any id programs in south

america and recently moved to miami where he organized the spanish american league against discrimination ray is determined to speak out for hispanic whites in south florida if there is a cuban problem in the state or if there is a black problem and the style that hasn't been created either by the cubans about the blood that has been created by the dominant animal european that seemed to believe that anybody who is racially and culturally different that's not really belong to the first class america that had to take second class citizenship and i think that though i for one i'm trying to articulate this very strong feeling that is beginning to re formulated by and more and more of the younger cubans we're here to stay and we intend to make a contribution in this country we didn't intend to make our presence felt not necessarily as an assimilated lower class

but as an equal amount we take indicators such as well what business enterprises are the cubans running here in miami you're going to find that with very few exceptions for very small businesses their volume of business is very small comparatively speaking their payroll is sell the senate seat ten twenty people and that i don't think they can be from her doubly was shown as they measure of great success the cuban affluence that how the brain tends to minimize as myth is grounded in some hard realities according to the dade county community improvement program statistics show that the cuban presence has created at least ten thousand new jobs it did not exist in the beginning of the nineteen sixties median income of cuban families rose from better than five thousand dollars to over eight thousand dollars annually in nineteen seventy the speed of this economic success represents in less than a generation of

phenomenon virtually unprecedented in the history of large migrations to the united states but the success of the cuban entrepreneur has clearly not been shared by some cuban workman in little havana gave us their views all right i think i did one on a

pale pale video of them at a visit that might be allowing all of the value of the only o'donnell will save money they'll be coming many black miami into the sudden in migration of cubans with bitter irony black miami in his watch as cuban exiles were given assistance aid and money that native born black americans never received some blacks began to feel that the cuban migration and the federal government's attention to cuba needs blunted demands that blacks were making during the nineteen sixties civil war its trouble jesse mccreary is an attorney in miami at thirty four mccrary is that a fast moving career he's been an assistant state's attorney general and four time such as one of florida's federal court judges mccrary likes to remember that he is one of few

blacks it is able to maintain offices on miami's biscayne boulevard we asked mccrary what he thought the cuban immigration means to blacks in miami went on it means that economically when you look at what the cubans have done in terms of their economics versus what blacks have done it means that we are once again at the bottom of the barrel well there are no predominantly black financial institutions in this in this county on some people would say that you know that is a bank here with a number of blacks on the board of directors but when you look at the control of the bank on where the major portion of the stock is well it's held by white men at all contrast thing that are you have cubans do have a bank that reportedly is one of the fasting growing banks in the country now that

poses a problem because i believe that the whole strength of any community happens to be what kind of financial institutions do yet it is an institution that can make a loan to a man who wants to go in business is an institution that is sympathetic to a man who wants to build a house is an institution where you can borrow money to send his children to school if you don't have those kinds of institutions than certainly oh what other people have them that is quite miami cuban miami and then black my and it does not having it certainly puts them in a pretty poor position either it will fire along that we were used to fall all we've done in many instances not voluntarily not because miami wants to do it it's been done in many instances because of litigation because the programs in this community they're receiving federal money they don't want to lose that federal money so what they do is all around and this big fat hole about anew a few little black spots the question

is are those maxed out spots of how second is that a kind of rock that's a bad word in some quarters is that kind of cohesiveness that we say oh how we galvanized to the point blacks are concerned now about moving themselves economically that we don't have a rallying point lead to that that maybe it if life is hard for unskilled cubans in miami it's been even harder for blacks who have no skills the plight of poor blacks in florida as not changed appreciably in fifteen years at the current economic recession has made the work was lives of the black poor even more empty and in the black communities of south florida workers sit in camps waiting for something to change with baggage that you know

it's a thing that i went up to visit his government in the history of the money gets to be ceo there's nobody sitting at the glen bolger you just insightful and so when they say that would be worth a little and you sit down to write your ticket today are racing to build go to the day that this round i mean this guy was going to be

and what the cubans not all refugees have been welcomed all prospered in the subtropical city during the past two years more than a thousand patients have arrived legally what the cubans or have sought political asylum but most of them put in jail tonight authorization to work or deported some of those who remain received weekly subsistence funds from the haitian refugee information center located in the predominantly black northwest section of miami station director of the centre of reverend chuck morgan it feels the haitian plight is similar to that of the cuban it is a very hard to start to use it to go to polluted the last official in the country so all haitian people in cuban people down here ron

paul for being decimated by cuts to the haitian people have done the senate getting a runaway also fall they invested in just and then they use the castle is a coming is but there's nothing funny to an economist and the ocean do it two hundred and how to do it has set a contingent on that and thousands in cuba is setting up a minivan that had been cued also information go they say have invested by the motto do body image and they are right life because

those boys so policies in these things because these days so

no so without work here you think it's better than living and at its existing medical license gets us so that us about that we might one day my sister wasn't there that have been giving to do you can do he said when i think what might might but you have to do anything with additional schooling that doesn't seem to the

fbi to do as a nation they sleep on wooden find cuts under the low black bean ceiling of the dimly lit basement which has been equipped with a few showers a stove and a refrigerator you with food provided at cost by local merchants they're fed two meals a day six days a week volunteers hold english classes at the church and the hope of better equipping their patients to avoid exploitation so that they may deal with the american culture but not allowed to work the men mostly wait wait until authorities decide to jail or deport them or give them political asylum neal sonnett of the miami law firm sign it and be a man as in contesting the

haitian deportation rulings in the courts since nineteen seventy two when the first boatload of haitian refugees arrived in south florida in december of nineteen seventy two and they were legally grown into the custody of a group of them of baptist ministers a refugee center was set up by private good persons and religious groups of patients that were here were not required to post bonds of any kind they were allowed to seek employment so they could make a living and provide for their own needs all the sudden that changed i think it changed when the government decided that they'd better start getting rough on the ones that we hear so is to discourage more haitians from coming over and the result was that now patients are denied the right to work even though their jobs despite the unemployment rate they are going begging veteran phil in and we have statistics show that haitians are in jail immediately upon their arrival here in a required to post five hundred olive barnes and that's lowered from what it used to be which was a thousand in order for them to get out of jail well of course a haitian comes over here with no money

and as required make a five hundred thousand dollar bond has been the position of sentiment in a lot of all united states immigration and naturalization service contends that the stories of persecution killed by allegations of florence immigration authorities insist that the patients come for economic reasons better jobs and living conditions and that those haitians who say they will be killed if theyre returned can't prove it we spoke with lewis teague adult acting district director of immigration we evaluate their statements carefully we went to the office of refugee and migration affairs in washington dc and they evaluate their statements carefully we through the refugee office of migration affairs in washington also made extensive checks from time to time with the embassy in haiti we found no evidence that these people actually were subject of

persecution they were denied political asylum because we found nothing to believe that they would be subject of persecution upon return and i might add that not every case was turned down in nineteen fifty nine or nineteen sixty i had not sure that they are hundred and sixty nine volume was coast guard moved from haiti and a coast guard boat robichaud imported breads you may have read about that they came here to miami were told by our coast guard brought in every one of those hundred and sixteen would give them political asylum because if they return it was felt that they would be subject of persecution well i sat down to i think would would like us to have the border showing that every individual haitian an assault on lawyers palace i don't really think that's the test it certainly wasn't the test when we allow the nigerian refugees it wasn't the test when we allowed in six hundred thousand and more cuban jay's and it hasn't been tested traditionally speaking with regard to refugee groups from

communist countries there has been a real open arms attitude when somebody comes from a communist country and yet the debt there has been it seems to me a failure of the government to realize the tyranny can occur and right as well as on the left i think that we can show in almost every case that these patients were actively opposed to do like a government but i'm not sure that we ought to have that burden of proof it immigration definition of political refugees a person's subject to persecution because of race religion or political opinion that's the official definition an immigration law person subject to persecution because of race religion or political opinion with opinion i emphasize our government says said that cuba was a commerce nominee country is economist alan a country and people coming from there a subject of persecution same as hungary this a mischievous rockhill the same as russia it is true that any question that the haitians have not enjoyed the same

ol privileges that the cubans that when they lived it the haitian refugees are mostly poor illiterate and semi skilled unskilled thirty percent of them are women they come in groups of forty to sixty on twenty foot boats packed in like sardines it is a treacherous eight hundred mile voyage to the miami show and some of the nation's weather tended to make it to this country are known to have the last say the reverend jack cassidy christian community service agency talks about his organization's efforts as they're released from custody they're taken to the haitian refugee information center given temporary shelter and care either through a local church are or all depending on the numbers every week publication center makes up the list of persons in the immediate assistance food shelter clothing or medical needs and that list has brought to us we review the list with the director of the science

and insofar as money that we have available publicly issue the money for that the haitian staff themselves distribute resources system is usually reluctant to deal with a revision of immigration laws it's not a it's not of an issue that is very popular for people particularly times a violent one however in the nation case we we we can show a serious note our gross injustice done both in terms of due process and in terms of the administrative decisions that have been made by immigration naturalization services we believe that it is possible for congress or racist national committee half to alter the administrative process her to have influence on the administrative members of the small haitian community in miami are

incensed about the treatment of their countrymen we just heard has been here twelve years and six months ago we opened like who's a record and book shoppe he feels the nation should be given the same chances that you know what they should be in on the haitian is just going to get in the way among the haitian that because of the nation will deserve some pundits into consideration about his vision of what the refugees that the broken the body and on that trying to avoid any import all been somewhat in them in this one and i'm it is not my intention so bruno forte who's been here sixty years and has all of the new breed restaurant what about the other thing that they're going to see this be a wine i want to

make is that i think you can hear the way that they said yes because i am currently i don't want a scathing thought now i have a different reason which is that the state the economy is based in washington davis is back well it's clear that soon in a few elections perhaps and only a few months to cuban exiles in miami will demonstrate their manipulation of power politics in south florida without doubt the cubans already have a piece of the american pie the question seems to be whether peace will exclude a significant share of roses next week jon is again an interface for an in depth profile of jazz great less mature

until then this has been interface and tony betten see he's been to pay it's been a piece by

and now you know then no men named it