We Were Here First: Black Nativist Response to the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and 1994 Balsero Crisis

This paper analyzes Miami black press coverage of one of the most controversial waves of Cuban immigration, the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, revealing the threads of unofficial conservatism appearing there. In the 1980s, Black Miamians were still fighting to reap the gains of the civil rights movement, and they contended with persistent racial violence and economic depression. They faced neglect from local politicians, who continued to ignore their voiced concerns. Cuban migrants in Miami, however, benefited from the generous aid the US government provided Cuban refugees starting with the Cold War. The contrast between the US government’s treatment of African Americans versus Cubans and of Cubans versus Haitians (who were also arriving in large numbers) was a major focus in the African American Miami Times. Voices in the newspaper expressed anger that Blacks, self-described as “real Americans” because they had been here longer, were being neglected in favor of Cuban “foreigners.” Part of the animus between Cubans and African Americans stemmed from the fact that the Cuban American community, staunchly aligned with the Republican Party, consistently voted against measures that African Americans--largely Democrats--supported. Yet, paradoxically, in their fight for black rights, many African American voices aligned themselves with a white conservative stance, which drew upon nativist constructions of citizenship and the zero-sum game of national belonging. The coverage of Cuban immigration reveals a nativist conservatism that emerged in the local African American community, wielded as a tool to more fully establish themselves and contest their exclusion by the white powerbase from a “true” American identity. The Miami Times coverage illuminates the political dilemmas Blacks faced during Miami’s dramatic demographic shifts, and provides more insight into the nuances of conservatism among Black Miamians and complexity of their views on US immigration policy more broadly.