52 pages • 1 hour read
Mirta OjitoFinding Mañana
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Gusano
Gusano, Spanish for “worm,” was a pejorative term coined by the Castro regime and popularized by its supporters to describe Cubans who fled the island in the years following the Cuban Revolution. To Cubans well versed in the Marxist theory that underpinned the revolutionary project, the word is an easily recognized reference to “parasites,” or those who establish serially predatory, “parasitic” relationships with the working classes. Landlords, the owners of farms and factories, and elites in control of sugar plantations in Cuba would have been described as parasites, or worms, and so the word has deep political connotations for Cuban people.
In the immediate period surrounding the revolution, wealthy Cubans fled the country. They were all characterized as gusanos, as were successive waves of exiles. The term was revived with special fervor during the Mariel boatlift, and Ojito recalls seeing dozens of political posters depicting the would-be exiles as cartoon worms posed in all sorts of offensive and humiliating poses. “Gusano” became an easy, recognizable insult to hurl at those who did not support the Castro regime, and it is a characterization that remains meaningful for anyone in Cuba or the Cuban diaspora.
Hialeah
Hialeah is a city in South Florida. Directly adjacent to Miami, it was a predominantly Cuban area during the Mariel boatlift and remains so today. Hialeah has the highest Hispanic population of any US city outside of Puerto Rico, and it has the largest Cuban population of any city in the United States, surpassing even Miami. Although Hialeah was originally developed as a kind of playground for Miami’s elites, the Cuban Revolution transformed the neighborhood into a working-class destination for new arrivals to the United States. Successive waves of Cuban immigration to South Florida only bolstered its status as the epicenter of the Cuban diaspora in the United States. Hialeah remains the epicenter of the Cuban diaspora and, along with Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, a symbol of Cuban American success in exile.
The Mariel Boatlift
The Mariel boatlift was the mass exodus of Cubans in which author Mirta Ojito and her family fled Cuba. Beginning on April 15, 1980, and ending on October 31, 1980, it became the largest mass migration event in Cuban history. It is estimated that more than 125,000 Cubans left Cuba with the steady stream of ships that made their way from Florida, to the port of Mariel in northern Cuba, and then back to United States soil. It was the product of the Carter administration’s interest in improving relations with Cuba, the crisis at the Peruvian embassy detailed in the early chapters of Finding Mañana, and a series of diplomatic meetings between Cuba and the United States that resulted in Castro greenlighting a system in which Cuban Americans could charter ships to pick up their relatives in Cuba, along with other groups of Cubans seeking to emigrate. At the time, Cubans had special immigration status because the United States was willing to give political asylum to individuals fleeing communism. This preferential treatment, although it soured somewhat as the numbers of Mariel refugees began to rapidly increase, would continue for many years and only come to an end after another wave of immigration in the 1990s. Mariel was part of a complex tapestry of socio-political events that impacted Miami during the 1980s, and is now seen as formative in the making of a “modern Miami.” Although the refugees did experience discrimination, they largely assimilated into broader Miami culture, and today there is less of a distinction between the various waves of immigrants.
Marielito/Marielita
Marielito and Marielita were nicknames given to the Cuban refugees who arrived in the United States as part of the Mariel boatlift. Although the Mariel refugees were initially welcomed, a combination of their sheer numbers and Castro’s successful PR campaign to brand them as criminals and undesirables turned the tide of public opinion, and “Marielito” became a pejorative. The tens of thousands of Mariel refugees overwhelmed South Florida, and they were met with some opposition by all three of Miami’s dominant groups. Earlier waves of Cuban exiles felt that the Mariel refugees were not truly anti-Castro, that they had tried to “stick it out” in Castro’s Cuba and left only when they failed. White people were also increasingly nervous about demographic changes in their city. What had once been a sleepy Southern town was increasingly the financial and cultural capital of Latin America and although the previous waves of Cuban refugees had brought newfound development and progress to Miami, they were loath to lose their majority status. A prominent extra-judicial killing of a Black man by Miami police officers and those officers’ subsequent acquittal had inflamed racial tensions, and there was resistance to the new refugees in the Black community as well: Many felt that a new influx of refugees would further disenfranchise and marginalize Black people in South Florida. “Marielito” thus became shorthand not only for the “criminals” and “undesirables” Castro railed against but also for a disruption to the status quo in South Florida. When a spike in crime seemed to indicate that many of the Mariel refugees were indeed criminals (this would later be disproven), public opinion further soured. Although authors like Ojito seek to reclaim the term, it is now deemed offensive, and although she uses it in her text, it is not a term that authors would use today without discussing its history and politics.
