Hideaki Kami. Diplomacy Meets Migration

“Even if they don’t get welfare,” protested one irate resident in Lithia, Florida, “they are still a burden. They will take Americans’ jobs. They will produce innumerable children to further flood our schools, crowd our already crowded country, and deplete our resources” (Tampa Tribune, May 30, 1980, 19-A). Most Americans seemed to agree. A Gallup survey conducted in mid-1980 reported that 56 percent of Americans polled opposed Cuban immigration. Not exactly the “open heart and open arms” that President Jimmy Carter had promised Cubans in the Mariel boatlift. The forces of racism and nativism that often gather behind the facade of egalitarian myths found cathartic outlet in 1980. These were difficult economic times: the United States mired deep in recession, with unemployment approaching 8 percent. The toxic national mood meant bad timing for the Cubans. “They didn’t come here to help keep freedom,” decried a Tampa resident, “they came for the free ride, free housing, free food, free money” (Tampa Tribune, June 22, 1980, 2-C). A “non-violent invasion of the USA,” warned one resident from Brooksville (Tampa Tribune, May 6, 1980, 13-A); they “should voluntarily be sterilized,” demanded a Sun City resident, so “we could be sure they would not multiply our population beyond their own generation” (Tampa Tribune, May 25, 1980, 3-B). “Outlaw immigration,” exhorted an Orlando resident. “Blow up the Statue of Liberty. Let’s take care of Americans” (Tampa Tribune, June 22, 1980, 2-C).

Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Immigration · Political science · Population · Sociology · Unemployment · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Demography · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies