Cultural Geography: The Cuban People

Cultural Geography – Activity 3

Cuban’s have a very strong culture that helps them stand out from typical American ways. Cuban people speak Spanish and generally practice Roman Catholicism. In Cuba, the typical Spanish food brought to the country by European settlers is influenced by the island’s Caribbean location. Music on the island is strongly influenced by West-African, Caribbean and European or Spanish Culture. For this reason, Cuban’s often listen to a wide variety of music, including; merengue, salsa, calypso and reggae.

Large waves of emigration began after 1869, where hundreds of workers arrived in Key West, Florida. This arrival of many Cuban businessmen and workers is linked to the manufacture of tobacco. In the early 1900’s, around one hundred thousand Cubans arrived in America for economic reasons, settling and finding jobs in large cities like New York. After the Cuban Revolution, the government was overthrown and replaced with a dictatorship. Cubans, unhappy with the political change, sought to leave the country, and fled to Florida, only 90 miles north of the island. The American government took in Cuban refugees who fled from Cuba, passing the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966, granting $1.6 billion in financial assistance to the immigrants as well as public assistance. In the fifteen year span after the revolution, about half a million Cubans had settled into Miami, setting up businesses and receiving assimilation aid from the government. After 1980, another 400,000 Cubans settled in Miami, leaving Cuba for economic reasons as well as to escape the communist government. Migration from Cuba was voluntary, many Cubans left the island illegally, as the communist government in place forbid people from leaving the c...

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... may seem as though Cubans have acculturated in the city of Miami, the population is mostly Cuban Americans. Cubans living outside of Little Havana have very much assimilated into American culture. While Miami has very much been changed over the years by Cuban influence, the rest of America has not, as Miami is one of the places that Cuban Americans can call a little piece of home.

Works Cited

Firmat, Gustavo Pérez. "The Desi Chain." Introduction. Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way. Austin: U of Texas, 1994. 1-19. Print.

Masud-Piloto, Felix Roberto. From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959-1995. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. Print.

Mchugh, Kevin E., Ines M. Miyares, and Emily H. Skop. "The Magnetism of Miami: Segmented Paths in Cuban Migration." Geographical Review 87.4 (1997): 504. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.