Word: marielito
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...many in the milling crowd of 5,000, the cavernous airplane hangar in Miami's Tamiami Park had a symbolic significance. In the spring of 1980, the structure served as one of the first receiving centers for the tattered cargo of the "freedom flotilla," the 125,000 Marielito refugees named after the Cuban port of Mariel from which they fled to the U.S. Last month the immigrants organized a daylong festival to thank Miami for its support and to display the talents of the boatlift's artists. Said Choreographer and Dancer Pedro Pablo Peña, who washed...
Ironically, the Cubans themselves are a divided community. La Comunidad, as the older Cubans are called, fears the Marielitos will tarnish the reputation they have labored so hard to build in South Florida. "I tell my employees that if a black comes here asking for money, give it to him," says one prosperous Cuban gas station owner in Little Havana. "If an Anglo comes to rob us, give it to him. But if a Marielito comes here, kill him. I will pay for everything." The older Cubans also find themselves in a cultural and political split with the younger ones...
...crimes Marielitos commit are sometimes remarkable for their viciousness. Says Lieut. Robert Murphy, head of the Miami police department's homicide unit: "One of them killed two victims, one with a lead pipe, the other by stomping him to death with his feet. Marielitos shot at an eleven-year-old boy simply because he was a witness to a robbery. These criminals have a ruthlessness without any parallel that I've ever seen." The refugees who go wrong tend to be slight young men, gaunt and hollow-eyed, who dress in sneakers, jeans and T shirts. Many wear...
Miami's 500,000 earlier Cuban immigrants, most of whom are now well assimilated, are growing increasingly hostile to the new arrivals. The term Marielito itself has become a fighting word in "Little Havana," the teeming, prosperous Cuban community in Miami; there are bumper stickers proclaiming NO ME DIGAS MARIELITO (Don't Call Me a Marielito). Says Bernardo Benes, a Cuban-émgré banker: "When I see Marielitos, I see numbers on them like the Jews in the concentration camps. There is a terrible lack of compassion for these people...
Exclusionary hearings, part of a standard process for immigrants whom the INS finds undesirable, have been held for 1,559. A mere 38 were granted asylum. Some 90% of the prisoners have been judged "excludable" and await deportation. Yet Cuba refuses to accept any Marielito, criminal...