Cuban American Culture
In the late nineteenth century, the Cuban Americans started forming communities in the United States. During this period, around 1860s, the cigar manufacturers started relocating their shops to Florida. The movement to Florida was meant to avoid political tumult in Cuba and this movement resulted to the workers in the cigar company relocating to Florida. The Spanish colonialism was intense, the expeditions and the political exiles had reached the peak level Cubans had to shift and by 1870 over 1,000 Cubans had settled in Key West (Savran, 1998). The communities also emerged in Philadelphia, New York City, Tampa, Boston, New Orleans and Jacksonville.
It is essential to understand the origins of the Cuban Americans in order to be well conversant with their culture. Due to the persisted economic and political changes in Cuba, migration continued particularly during the 1959 Cuban Revolution which was later shaped by the Cold War. Two factors instigated the migration the institution of the Cubans socialist reforms and the definition of the United States refugee policy which was based on anti-communism. Consequently, the Cuban refugees fleeing communism were welcome into America and now they are identified as Cuban Americans.
The Cuban population can be said to consist of an array of ethnic origins. In fact, in the early days prior to the Spanish inhabiting Cuba, the total Cuban population was comprised of 90 percent Taino speaking American Indians. These American Indians had earlier displaced earlier American inhabitant. Following the Spanish conquest, Cuba was then claimed in 1842 by Christopher Columbus (Boyer, 2002).
The most important source of income among the Spanish people after the conquest was sugar. In the sugar plantations, the Taino speaking Indians were forced to work in poor conditions often lacking food to eat and most were wiped out by starvations and diseases. After the Taino speaking Indians were subdued by disease and starvation, the Spaniards were forced to import African slaves in order to replace the Taino speaking Indians who died. It is estimated that about 800,000 Africans were imported to work in the Spanish sugar plantation.
The masters and the slaves interacted and produced a new genetic variation a product of both the Africans and the Spanish. This population was known as the mulatto or a black and white mixture population. The mulatto began to expand and the Cuban Americans can trace their origins in the mulatto population. The mulatto roots form the basis of the culture, beliefs and traditions of the Cuban Americans. After the mulatto population spread extensively, the Chinese, Russia and European descent formed what is called todays Cuban American society. The culture of the Cuban American people was greatly influenced by the Cuban revolution. Majority of historians claim the Cuban revolution to have begun in 1956, the time when Fidel Castro led a group of rebels then landed a ship in the south of Cuba (Boskin, 1997). In south of Cuba, the rebels met very strong resistance which almost led to the killing of the rebels including Fidel and Raul his brother who fled to the mountains.
The Cubans entered the United States in three major migration waves and between 1959 and 1962 over 215,000 Cubans had already arrived in America. About 1,300 Cubans exiles backed by the Central Intelligence Agency support were determined to overthrow Castro and return to their home, Cuba. The exiles in 1961 invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs although the invasion failed terribly.
Between 1965 and 1973 the number of Cubans arriving in America tolled to 300,000 which was a permitted deal between the governments of Cuba and the U.S. However, only those individuals with relatives in the U.S were allowed into the U.S through organized airlift. A rapid migration followed in 1980 and at this time the movement into America by the Cubans was a bit less controlled (Boskin, 1997). As the Cuban government opened up the port of Mariel, the Cuban Americans rushed to retrieve their friends and relatives leading to an addition of 125,000 Cubans into America.
The Cuban Americans tend to be a group of United States citizens which appears to be very much conservative in terms of politics. The political conservativeness cannot be compared to other Hispanic groups of the United States citizens. This as a result has been a major voting stumbling block for the Republican Party (GOP) in Florida State. One of the best evidence to show the political conservative nature of the Cuban Americans was the fleeing from the island in order to escape the economic and political repression which they experienced under the rule of dictatorship of Fidel Castro (Boyer, 2002). This political strong stand makes the Cuban Americans to identify with the strong stance of the Republican Party which is anti-communist.
The Cuban American must have learnt some lessons from the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The lessons from the invasion failure formed a culture among the Cuban Americans of being distrustful of Democratic Party. The naming of a street in Miami as Ronald Reagan Street shows how influential Reagan was in the Cuban exile community.
Due to strong political culture of the Cuban American, the outcome of the 2000 United States Presidential election was greatly affected mainly by stoking the passions of the exile community or by serving to improve the Republican turnout in a challenge which was in due course determined by less than 1,000 votes in Florida. The events which led to these strong political standings of the Cuban Americans were the heavy-handed use of the armed agents of INS in the seizure by the Clinton administration and the return of the Elian Gonzalez back to his father in Cuba following the directions provided by Eric Holder and Janet Reno (Savran, 1998).
In Miami Florida, where most Cuban Americans are found, the main diet is comprised of various foods although rice tends to be the staple food for the Cuban Americans. Rice is served in both main meals lunch and dinner while other foods may be taken between meals. Rice is taken with some stew for instance with chicken stew to make Arroz con pollo or chicken and rice. Arroz con pollo is a very common dish among the Cuban Americans although other dishes such as steak sandwich, sweet plantains, pork, cassava root, mamey milkshake, guava paste and papayas are also common.
The pizza typical to the people of Cuban Americans comprises of a soft bread, cheese, sauce and toppings. The pizza is usually made with spices like Goya onion and Adobo. Another popular Cuban dish is Picadillo, the ground beef which has been sauted with tomatoes, green olives, peppers and garlic. Picadillo can be served with a side of deep fried ripened plantains and rice and black beans.
Caf cubano is the most common drink among the Cuban Americans. Caf cubano is a small cup of coffee known as cafecito or sometimes called a colada. The caf cubano serves as the Cubans traditional espresso coffee sweetened with espumita which is special sugar foam put on top of the drink. Caf cubano is well taken when milk is added to it making a cortadito for small cups or caf con leche for larger cups. Materva is a common soft drink for the people of Cuba often referred to as the Cuban soda that is made of yerba mate (Boskin, 1997). Other soft drinks enjoyed in Cuban Americans which originated in Cuba include the ironbeer, jupina and cawy lemon-lime. These soft drinks have been produced in Miami since the era of Fidel Castro.
The national language of the Cuban people is Spanish although up to 96 percent of the Cuban Americans can speak both Spanish and English. Others speak better English than Spanish. In fact, most of the Cuban Americans born in the United States are excellent English speakers and tend to have less facility with Spanish language. Others however speak a mixture of Spanish and English so well and have come to name this mixture as Spanglish. Spanglish is used primarily by young Cuban Americans to communicate with their acquaintances and friends. The young Cuban Americans use Spanglish by incorporation some English phrases, words and syntactic units into the grammatical structures of the Spanish language (Boyer, 2002)
An important part of the Cuban American culture is the pattern of childbearing and marriage. There has been significant depart of the Cuban Americans from their traditional marriage and childbearing patterns. About 63 percent of the Cuban Americans above the age of 18 and born outside United States are married with the corresponding 38 percent of the United States born Cuban Americans being married. It has been observed that almost half of the total U.S-born Cuban American adults are single, a percentage which is five times more than that of the Cuba-born Cuban American adults (Savran, 1998). In another observation, it has been found that about 30 percent of the US-born Cuban American get married to Anglo-Americans while 3.6 percent of the Cuban-born Americans getting married to the Anglo-Americans.
In general, there is an observation of cultural conservativeness which is expressed in the Cuban Americans in all dimensions including political, family life and general lifestyles. Especially the Cuban-born Cuban Americans have a tendency to maintain their cultural practices than the U.S-born Cuban Americans. While the latter group is less likely to become parents, the former Cuban Americans prefer parenting and child bearing. The study of the Cuban-born Cuban Americans can help clearly discern the cultural difference between the Cuban Americans and the U.S born Americans. The U.S- born Cuban Americans may not show the real roots of Cuban origin because of the influence. This suggests that, although it can be said that Cuban culture is conservative, some swaying of the same culture is not unusual.
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