Dear Sticky Wicket,
Are the majority of Cuban Americans affiliated with the Cuban Mafia in Miami? If not, how do those who are not part of the Mafia survive in that environment?
~Sam in Los Angeles
Dear Sam
Saying that the majority of Cuban-Americans are associated with the Cuban Mafia is like saying all Italian-Americans are part of the Sicilian Mafia. Sweeping generalizations about any race or group of people are always wrong. Most Cuban-Americans in Miami live peacefully and work hard to achieve the American Dream like anyone else.
More than 40,000 Cuban Refugees were living in the Miami-Dade County area by the late 1960s according to information on the newcriminologist.com website. Many worked hard to become respectable America citizens, but some communities in Miami and parts of south Florida became havens for organized crime networks, called the Cuban Mafia, with much of their business relating to importing drugs to America.
Cuban Mafia is actually the term Cubans in Cuba use to refer to the entire Cuban-American community living in the United States says Juan Santamarina, director of international studies at the University of Dayton, as well as the author of several books and three documentaries on Cuba.
What many call the Cuban Mafia is actually a vocal political group called the Cuban American, America National Foundation, he says. Its organization is essentially a Cuban exile organization whose main mission is to overturn the Cuban government.
"Some of it is just Cubans that have been vocal on issues with Cuba,” Santamarina says. “Calling it a mafia is probably signaling that it is more organized than it is.”
Many Cuban Americans today are more interested in economic opportunity than politics he added.
“The majority of Cuban-Americans aren’t vocal, aren’t participating in all of it,” Santamarina says. “They are just sort of standing by, not participating in any sort of dialogue or anything like that.”