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 ADRIFT: The Cuban Raft People Amid the steady stream of refugees leaving Cuba since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, three especially great waves of migration stand out. In the first (1960-1961), many took flight after the pro-Soviet character of Castro’s rule became apparent. In the second, well over a hundred thousand people fled the country during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Another began in 1994, when countless refugees launched all manners of precarious crafts in order to reach U.S. soil. In Adrift, Alfredo A. Fernandez recounts the saga of the 1994 refugees, tracing the origin of the crisis to the pervasive turmoil produced in Cuba by the 1989-1991 collapse of the USSR and the resulting cut-off of Soviet economic subsidies. During this period, U.S. immigration policy flip-flopped, making the journey to American life for Cubans ever more precarious. In tracking 1994’s crisis through ensuing years of global political fallout, Fernandez presents a compelling international gallery of heroes, rogues, survivors, diplomats, and traitors. Among them: raft people who faced sharks and storms on the flimsiest of home-made vessels, only to end up in the limbo of U.S.-run detention camps; UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright chastising the Cuban government for cowardice; Fidel Castro himself appearing at a Latin American summit surrounded by scores of visibly armed bodyguards; and finally five-year-old Elian Gonzalez, found floating alone in an inner-tube off Fort Lauderdale in November, 1999, rescued, only to become a pawn of international politics. Ultimately, Fernandez suggests, we must ask whether it is the Cuban people or U.S. immigration policies that are adrift. Alfredo A. Fernandez was born in Cuba in 1945. His writings in Spanish include the novels El Candidato (winner of the 1978 Premio Union de Escritores de Cuba), Domino de Dictadores (1992 Premio Razon de Ser), and Lances de Amor (1993 Premio Novela Alejo Carpentier). He has also worked with the Cuban Institute for Film as an advisor and scriptwriter. Susan Giersbach Rascon is Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she also teaches in the Graduate Certificate Program in Translation. Cover photo: Reuters/Archive Photos. Cover design by James F. Brisson. Arte Publico Press - University Of Houston - Houston, TX 77204-2174 http://www.arte.uh.edu - Order by phone: 800-633-ARTE – “ADRIFT The Cuban Raft People” $14.95 More Books: La Fisura - Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña Cubriendo y Descubriendo - Carlos Wotzkow & Agustin Blazquez
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