The Mariel Boatlift
Near Miami, Florida
In April of nineteen eighty, after thousands of Cubans crowded into the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking asylum, Fidel Castro made a stunning announcement. Anyone who wanted to leave could go, from the port of Mariel. Cuban Americans in Miami piled into boats and sailed south to collect their relatives.
Over roughly six months, about one hundred twenty five thousand people crossed the Florida Straits in an armada of shrimpers and pleasure craft. The journey was dangerous, and dozens died at sea when overloaded boats swamped in rough water. Castro used the exodus to empty prisons and mental hospitals, mixing a small number of criminals into the crowds and branding all the refugees escoria, or scum.
That stigma dogged the Marielitos for years, even though the overwhelming majority were ordinary families. Miami strained to absorb them. A tent city rose beneath the Interstate Ninety Five overpass, and thousands were detained at the Krome facility on the edge of the Everglades.
The Mariel boatlift reshaped Miami almost overnight, and its arrivals, once scorned, became woven into the city's Cuban soul.
