Public health concerns--mostly over yellow fever and chickenpox---provided a scientific legitimation for controlling Cuba's ports and neighboring shores. The enforcement of US quarantine regulations in Havana bay quickly evolved into one of the first Latino American migratory detention camps, Triscornia. Known as the Ellis Island of Cuba, the camp was located in the Havana harbor on the opposite shore of the city, where newly arrived migrants, mostly from Spain and the Canary Islands, were prevented from entering the city and "thereby contracting yellow fever and distributing it through the country districts"*. By the end of the first US occupation in 1902, there were five quarantine stations throughout Cuban shorelines, a newly designed coast guard system, and a tailored Immigration Law promulgated by the US Military Government.
This paper analyzes the reconfiguration of the Cuban migratory system under the first US occupation as part of their early investment in regional border control. It locates Triscornia as part of the regional genealogy of immigration control, conceived as a labor force’s distribution system. However, its institutionalization was far from peaceful and generated contradicting discourses on migration, race, gender, and national identity. The paper draws on several sources, including health reports * from the US Navy Hospital Service, documents and enacted legislation under the military occupation of Cuba, and newspapers that recorded reactions toward the process of reinvention of immigration control under US occupation.
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