The population of South Florida today contains a large contingent of exiles and refugees from Castro's Cuba, part of a mass exodus of disaffected and politically persecuted Cubans who have left their homeland since the Cuban Revolution. Many of those who came here in the first wave after the revolution believed they would be returning home, perhaps within a few months, but as the years have passed the Cuban population has become more socially and economically integrated into the U.S. culture in Florida even while maintaining ties with Cuba and while trying to keep alive the hope that Castro could be overthrown and democracy restored in Cuba. The presence of this large exile group has had a profound effect on South Florida, especially in terms of politics given the dedication of this group to influencing U.S. policy toward Cuba, but also in the social and economic structure of the region.
What has developed in South Florida is actually a two-tiered social structure for Cuban refugees, with the long-term Cuban population more integrated into the economy and with newer refugees often straining social services in the early years after their arrival. The Cuban refugees have come in waves, and the fear of another wave of such refugees caused Florida officials to seek assistance from Washington. Florida already has stretched social services, hospitals, schools, and charities, and in April 1994 Governor Lawton Chiles sued the federal government for $2.6 billion to cover the costs of legal and illegal immigration. The people of Florida are expressing the view that the state has absorbed enough, with influxes of both Cubans and Haitians over the past four decades. South Florida has long been a point of destination for refugees fleeing the economic and political problems of the Caribbean and Latin America. The first wave came in planeloads of Cubans on "freedom flights" in the 1960s and 1970s. They were followed by the Mariel boatlift...