Most people are not aware that Cubans have been coming to live in the United States since the late 19th century. The reasons for their move have not changed in over 130 years, it has always been political or economic. These early Cubans made their way to New York and New Jersey and Louisiana where they established their own small communities, but none as large as the o

This third wave of Cubans was far removed from the first two. This wave brought murderers, thieves, and other felons to the United States. This wave began in April, 1980, when a group of six Cuban counter-revolutionaries drove to the Peruvian Embassy in Havana with the purpose of seeking asylum; when the bus they had commandeered headed for the embassy gates and accelerated, the Cubans officially guarding the embassy opened fire on the bus, and a ricocheting bullet hit and killed one of the guards. The Peruvians refused to turn the dissenters over to the Cuban authorities, as a result, several thousand Cubans descended on the embassy. Castro responded by opening up the Mariel port, west of Havana, relaxing restrictions on emigration to the point that many felt free to leave, and "deporting," as we mentioned earlier, a sizable number of people he felt were undesirable such as homosexuals and political activists (Garcia pgs.46-80). The came by the boat loads to Key West where thousands of Cubans living in Miami went to claim relatives that were arriving on Florida’s southernmost shore.

The Cuban community has grown into its own little country here in America. They have turned Miami into Havana north. Cubans have a tendency to always take a piece of their heritage with them wherever they may go. They bring their values, their culture, and unfortunately, their way of running things. Miami, at least to most of us of Cuban descent, believe that this is the model of what Havana might have been, complete with the corrupted public officials. The Cuban immigrants have claimed Miami as there own, regardless of the other cultures that were here. They wanted it more. This is meant with no disrespect to the other communities, but if they wanted to make this city theirs, they should have taken it, not by force, but through economic means.

Most believe that the two waves of refugees aren’t true refugees simply because they have only brought felons and lazy individuals that all they seem to say is that things were better in Cuba. Maybe things were better in Cuba, partly because they didn’t have to work to achieve anything. Unlike the Cubans that came before them even the marielitos that at first could not find work or wanted to work have earned their keep and some have become valuable members of society. Slowly but surely the balseros are starting to wake from their lazy spell and are starting to prove to the rest of their compatriots that the do belong here with them.

The tragedy of all this, is that we tend

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