The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami [Paperback]

David Rieff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 1994

"The Exile" is a fascinating portrait of Miami's Cuban population, the most successful group of immigrants to settle in the United States since the Jews of the nineteenth century. David Rieff, whom the San Diego Tribune called our "modern Alexis de Tocqueville", has provided an engrossing look at a group exiled from its homeland, showing how America has affected these immigrants, and what it means to become an American in the late twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this sensitive and engrossing discourse, Rieff ( Going to Miami ) describes the 33-year-long exile in Miami which many Cubans are beginning to recognize may actually be immigration. For these Cubans, Havana is still the center of the world, but their nostalgia is for the spiritual capital of la Cuba de ayer , that sophisticated, chic, intellectual, artistic and, most importantly, pre-Castro city they now mythologize and try to reconstitute in the streets of Miami. Though cleaving fiercely to their Cuban origins and constantly dreaming of return, many have become more American than they realize, and there is now a second generation whose native home is Miami, observes the author. Rieff accompanied one couple on a brief visit to Havana, and he describes their surprise on finding that they had become Americans after all. "We Cubans have become a different people in America," says the wife, "and what I learned during our trip to Cuba is that they have become different down there too . . . the truth is that we are never going back." While his subject is the Cubans in Miami, Rieff uses the differences between their migration and that of other immigrants--particularly the Jewish diaspora--to give striking insights into the common pain of all exiles.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Updating Thomas D. Boswell and James R. Curtis's The Cuban-American Experience ( LJ 6/1/84), journalist Rieff ( Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World , S. & S., 1991) assesses the present social processes in Cuban American Miami. Past immigrants had come to the United States to stay, but Rieff shows that the motto of Miami's Cubans was "Next year in Havana." More economic than political refugees (Castro's "New Man" demanded sacrifice from the more successful), their success here depended on their doing what they did best--making money. As Rieff demonstrates, they also saw to it that we heard only their side, not about the excesses of Batista. Although most Cuban immigrants are or will become U.S. citizens, their sympathies lie elsewhere, and one is left to wonder if the balkanization of America by such groups is good. A thorough investigation for current events collections.
- Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (August 31, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671886274
• ISBN-13: 978-0671886271
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,491,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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