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Article: The Tampa Cubans and the culture of exile.(Biography)
- Article from:
- The Antioch Review
- Article date:
- September 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Antioch Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It is common belief that the period of exile that began in 1959 and has continued to the present is unique in the history of Cuba. A quick glance backward, however, reveals that Cuban history, at least from the nineteenth century on, is in many ways the history of exile, and emigration very much part of the Cuban ethos. In fact, the diaspora known today as el exilio cubano, or "the Cuban exile," is but the latest and most profound installment in a series of social and political displacements without which there would be no concept of Cuba as an autonomous, independent nation and no sense of a Cuban character as distinct from others in the Caribbean region.
As the ...