“But Castro wasn’t just sending the politically oppressed. By the end of the first week, when many new arrivals were already on the streets of Miami, an entirely new type of immigrant was recognized, pushed to America alongside desperate families: the common prisoner.”
“The Herald’s Guillermo Martinez was the first to take note. After a day of watching arrivals spill onto American soil, Martinez found himself alone at the dock as a lobster boat pulled up, brimming with young men. The Coast Guard was playing Tom Perry’s “Refugee.” Martinez studied the men., with similar haircuts and hands marked by tattoos. He called out over the music…”how many of you have come directly from jail?”
“He counted dozens of raised arms. What was Castro up to? After the ship docked, Martinez walked beside the refugees on their way to being processed. He followed one man wearing pants and a shirt made out of burlap sacks. He held his trousers up. The captain had removed his belt as a precaution.”
“Why did you decide to come?” Martinez asked. The refugee started laughing.
“Were you in jail?”
The man nodded.
“Why’d they put you in jail?”
“Because I had a gun.”
“Why’d you have a gun?”
“He looked up at Martinez as if he’d asked why the sky was blue. “To kill the cockroaches.” Castro had added not one but two new types of refugees to Mariel: the contents of his jails and the men and women held in Cuban mental institutions.”
“He was nothing if not deliberately in the timing of his torture of Jimmy Carter. On Mother's Day, Castro released 420 convicts and mental patients jammed alongside ordinary family family members on a hundred-foot-long red, and white, and blue catamaran called…America.”
The Year of Dangerous Days
Riots, Refugees, and C_o_c _a_i_n_e
in
Miami 1980
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