COMRADES-IN-ARMS
Stepick, Alex
AT THE END OF 1988, THE U .S.-SUPPORTED Contra war was winding down and thousan of Nicaraaans began flowing upthroughGuaternala andMexico, to Texas and onto Miami. By the beginning of 1989, the...
...The Nicaraguans did, however, have assistance...
...Nicaraguans had atal option ofreturn, an option thatconfused their local priorities and prevented the emergence of a second distinct Latino voice in Miami...
...Most notably, the U.S...
...Elio requested that the INS temporarily reverse its policy of denying work permits to the Nicaraguans...
...Odio had flown to Washing ton to meet with INS Director Alan Nelson...
...The 1988-89 Nicaraguanrefugee crisis, much like the I 98OMariel Cuban refugee crisis, was the culmination of a multi-phased migration that began with the elite, then incorporated the professional and middle classes, and lastly brought the working classes...
...but because the Miami-Cuban cornmunity welcomed them and had the power to effect a generous welcome...
...government was not welconiingto the Nicaraguan immigrants as it had been to the Cubans...
...Now they understand they have the full support of the city...
...But as the Nicaraguan community divexified and the Contra war dragged on, crevices slowly appeared in the Miami-Cuban and Nicaraguan anti-Communist solithuity network...
...Twodays afterOdio promised Miami's "full support" for the homeless Nicaraguans, County Manager and Miami Cuban Joaquin Aviflo declared, "We're pulling out all the stops...
...Rather they were the immigrant Miami Cubans...
...There are a lot of people in this community who are close to the President...
...Miami Cuban city aides Hiram Gome and Edgar Sopo raced from a telephone to the parking lot, calling names in rapid Spanish: "Centro Vasco, Centro Asturiano, Islas Canarias...
...The federal government classified most arriving Nicaraguans as illegal aliens, actively tried to prevent them fromentering the United States, and offered them no benefits...
...staffed a green telephone that rang incessantly...
...Within a week...
...The moral community failed to prevail over the political and class divisions among the Nieiu-aguans...
...in spite of the pleas of Florida's senators to regain control of the borders, Nelson acceded to Ckllo's request...
...Rather, political ideology miliutnt opposition to a Leftist regime cemented this alliance, When the Nicaraguan refugee crisis arose in late 1988, uban-rn City of Miami Manager esar Odio, criticizing "inhuman" conditions at a private shelter for homeless Nica-raguans in Miami, ordered it shut down and bused more than 150 refugees to Bobby Maduro Miami Stadium...
...As City of Miami employees, they assumed the task trying to find jobs for the Nicaraguan refugees...
...The Nicaraguan flow closely paralleled the earlier Cuban migration...
...Latin ness" alone was not the reason for the Cubans' support of their Nicaraguan brethren, just as "Cuban-ness" was not enough for membeihip in the old exiles' moral conununity...
...donating focsl...
...a baseball stadium built by Cuban exiles in the 1950s, Odio assured the refugees that they would receive the same consideration that Cuban Mariel refugees got in 1980...
...Theywere fielding pledges from restaurants, nearly all Miami- cuban...
...But there were also important differences...
...Those "close to the President" were not the traditional Anglo leaders of Miami...
...By the beginning of 1989, the stream of new immigrants became a flood...
...I think it's impoitant for those people to be messengers for us...
...In a matlerof days, Nicaraguan refugees settling in Miami had secured space on the agendas of local governments that had long argued that the refugees were a federal concern...
...At the beginning of 1989, Grey-hound assigned special buses to run continuously between the Texas-Mexico border and Miami...
...INS officials estimated that as many as 3(X) refugees a week settled in Dade County during the last half of 1988...
...The Miami Cubans powerful comrades in-arms became their benefactors...
...In the second week of January, 1989, ten buses arrived in Miami in just one day...
...Doctors from Miami" s Pasteur Clinic, run and staffed primarily by Cuban immigrants set up an examination room under a stairway at the Miami Stadium...
...Ignacio Mattinez, a Miami-Cuban exile arid retired grocer, showed up with a cigar in his mouth and a sack of clothes in his hand, "We had our time of need, and now it's their turn," he explained...
...They achieved this not simply because of the magnitude of the migration problem...
...The defeat of the Sandinistas then split the Nicaraguan community's loyalties...
...promising to prixess the asylum applications of all Nicaraguans in the baseball stadium in three to five days...
...Underneath the stadium seats, two former Cuban political prisoners, Alfrcdo Menocal and Antonio Candales...
...He told reporters...
Vol. 26 • September 1992 • No. 2
