• Submitted by: admin
• Caribbean
• international
• North America
• United States
• Politics and Government
• 06 / 18 / 2009

---

Another question could be posed. Why is there emigration from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador or Turkey? Or why did Italians and Spaniards emigrate at some point in history? Emigrating is a feature of the human race. And the root causes for it are very much varied – going from individual and purely psychological to economic, social and political reasons.

From Cuba, of course, there is emigration. But in the United States, a country that is manifestly interested in the emigration from the Cubans, the causes determining the trend of migration are distorted and demonized.

They are manipulated as a dirty war against the Revolution. But, despite the propaganda brouhaha, such emigration is not as high as trumpeted around. According to recent figures, Cubans account for nearly 5% of all immigrants based in the United States. Miami is home to 56 different nationalities, although Cubans enjoy exclusive benefits. Unique.

For example, when any Mexican citizen, hundreds of them per day, attempts to go through the new Berlin Wall erected on the banks of Río Bravo, he or she is referred to as undocumented. In turn, when a Cuban runs the risk, sometimes naively and recklessly, of crossing the Florida Straits on a boat or yacht manned by alien smugglers from Miami or Key West, and touches land, he or she is immediately branded as a refugee. Even if neither, with legends and gruesomeness apart, qualifies under such UN definition. And this is so whether they are persecuted because of their political or religious ideas, or if fleeing a devastated or war-stricken territory.

The price for such migratory privilege is to view emigration as taking sides against the “Castro regime.” And it is also a program to drain Cuba. To deprive it of its professionals little by little. Of its intelligence. Today like yesterday, a degree in medicine or engineering carries more weight for the possible visa, or in the so-called “lottery,” than a work record showing only ninth grade from high school.

It is increasingly seen, and with more clarity every day, that Cuban emigration has been, and still is, mostly economy-oriented. And family-centered – with the exception of the waste from Batista’s tyranny, those who fought the revolutionary government and the former owners with confiscated property.

There is no denying either that Cuba’s precarious situation at the moment is also the result of internal mistakes, as there is an exceedingly rigid economy, with very little skill to generate wealth and provide incentives to labor.

That is, in my opinion, the balanced reasoning to the emigration that is harming the country. Whoever wants to emigrate should be able to do so. But they should be aware of their exact motivation. And they should not be led to believe that they are doing something that Cubans did not engage in before 1959.


(www.cubanow.net)