Working Hard Against an Image

By Susan Tifft.

For America's Marielitos, the adjustment has been no easy trip

The festival site was roomy, if unorthodox. But for 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 Pena, who washed up on the shores of Key West in a shrimper and now directs the 14-member Creation Ballet in Coral Gables: "This is the other face of Mariel. It shows we are succeeding and contributing to this country."

The concern with image is understandable. Three years after the Mariel boatlift hit South Florida, the struggling refugees have a reputation that is decidedly mixed. The majority of Marielitos are hard-working and peaceful; some are former political prisoners and professionals. But an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Marielitos are violent criminals and former mental patients, forced by President Fidel Castro to leave the country. "Two groups were on the boatlift: those who came and those who were sent," explains Miami-based Painter Victor Gomez, who says he arranged to be falsely classified as a delinquent to join the exodus. "It was Castro's diabolical strategy to give all Cuban exiles a bad image and get rid of antisocials."

Most Marielitos have found life in the U.S. rough going. Many have only a halting command of English and few marketable skills. Moreover, Cuba's cradle-to-grave welfare system left many refugees ill prepared for America's ways. "In Cuba the state takes care of you," says Artist Luis Valdes in the flawless English he learned listening to U.S. radio stations. "Here you have to struggle."

That effort seems well worth it to the boat people's artists, who find their new freedom thoroughly rewarding. Guitarist Juan de Dios Jose was denied a musician's license in Cuba because he refused to join the Communist Party. In Hialeah, a suburb of Miami, he plays gigs at local restaurants and is completing training in auto-body repair. "It's like a dream come true, being able to say what I feel," he comments. Says New York-based Novelist Reinaldo Arenas, who drove 26 hours to the festival to avoid any chance of being on an airplane hijacked to Cuba: "I feel that I am a writer for the first time."

Miami has by far the largest Marielito population. But many of the boat-borne refugees have fanned out across the country, settling in cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, that already had well-rooted latino communities. Some, like legions of immigrants before them, simply went where job prospects seemed brightest. Jose Martin and his wife Lina settled initially in Los Angeles, where Martin had an uncle. But established Cubans there advised him to move to Chicago or New York. "They told me there were more factories in those cities," he recalls. As a machine-shop operator in Havana, Martin could not afford even a bicycle. But as a salesman for a Chicago chemical-products company, he was able to buy a car and sign up for driving lessons. Says he: "I miss Cuba, but this is the country for opportunity."

The most successful refugees have had a network of relatives and friends to help cushion the shock of resettlement. Several weeks after stepping off a crowded fishing boat in Key West, Teresita Hernandez, 24, came to Chicago under the sponsorship of her uncle. "At the beginning it was hard for me," she admits. But with the money she earns as a part-time clerk, Hernandez has been able to rent a small studio apartment, buy a serviceable used car and enroll in classes at Northeastern Illinois University. Her goal: to become a pharmacist.

Jesus Sarmiento lived with relatives in Miami while he learned English and prepared for an entrance exam to Florida International University. Last April, Sarmiento became the first Marielito to earn an FLU. engineering degree. When he is not out looking for work, like any new graduate, he fiddles with programs on his home computer. "To think," marvels Sarmiento, "back in Cuba I didn't own even a pocket calculator."

The greatest frustration Marielitos face is separation from loved ones, whether in Cuba or a third country. The newcomers' current state of legal limbo has added to their sense of disorientation. "Mariel was chaos," says a Miami city official. "Many husbands, wives and children were separated. The tragedy is that they cannot be reunited." If the Simpson-Mazzoli bill now pending in Congress passes, that will change. The bill would permit Marielitos, as permanent resident aliens, to bring their families to the U.S. after a three-year waiting period.

With family reunions a distant hope, some frustrated Marielitos have suffered bouts of drinking and depression. A few have taken desperate measures to get back home: nine of the twelve successful hijackings to Cuba since May were committed by Marielitos. Still others--usually the criminals and sociopaths of Castro's prisons and asylums--resorted to crime, helping to make "Marielito" for many a catchword for terror. Typically, the Mariel misfits are young men between the ages of 18 and 34, unemployed, with the equivalent of a ninth-grade education and a history of emotional and mental problems. Many wear tattoos made from colored toothbrushes melted down in prison. Some of the designs, hidden in the webbing between the thumb and forefinger, are emblems of criminal specialties: Madre and an arrow for murder, a star under three vertical bars for kidnaping.

Wherever the lawless Cubans have migrated, crime has soared. In Las Vegas, where there are an estimated 3,500 boat people, Marielitos account for 25% of the cocaine trade. In New Orleans, over a ten-month period ending last April, there were 15 Cuban homicides involving 29 Marielitos as either murderers or victims. This criminal element tends to prey on other Cubans; its tastes run to brutal crimes of random opportunity. A chilling example is a Marielito who specializes in assaulting Miami Beach's elderly. One 90-year-old victim was hurled from his bed, kicked in the face so hard he lost his left eye, choked, smothered with a pillow and left for dead.

Hundreds of Marielitos are behind bars in state and local prisons. But many more elude proper sentencing. Judges lack knowledge of their criminal histories in Cuba and without that guidance, or up-to-date information on their activities in the U.S., tend to give them probation. Nonetheless, about 1,080 Marielitos are in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Nearly one-third have been in jail since their arrival in the U.S. Under Immigration procedures, Marielitos who admitted to a criminal record at the processing centers three years ago were frequently imprisoned, though often temporarily. Many street-smart Cubans did not own up to their pasts, however, and have been at liberty. "The Government locked up people who confessed to minor crimes and political offenses," asserts Attorney Myron Kramer, one of the lawyers representing the detained Marielitos. An estimated 100 of the imprisoned Marielitos may be Cuban intelligence agents.

The dark face of Mariel continues to overshadow the scene. In December, Universal Studios will release Scarface, a film featuring Actor Al Pacino as a Marielito drug dealer. Despite that land of negative image, the honest Cubans working hard in their new home seem to have faith that the true picture of the Marielitos will emerge. "The spirit of the Cuban boat people has not been beaten," says Cuban Artist Alberto de Lama. "They are not an amorphous mass. They are a much suffering people, with deep fears, desperate hopes and dreams of freedom." Says Miami Assistant City Manager Cesar Odio: "The miracle is that the vast majority of Marielitos are out there working, making ends meet like anyone else." --By Susan Tifft. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Miami and Don Winbush/Chicago

With reporting by Bernard Diederich, Don Winbush This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.