We took a short walk today across the road from our campground. Here we saw this boat,
with this motor
and this sign.
17 people crowded into this tiny, almost unseaworthy, boat? A sobering reminder of he Mariel Boat lift, the mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Mariel Harbor in Cuba heading 90 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to the US, between 4/15/1980 - 10/31/1080.
It began when 4 Cubans drove a bus into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, Cuba. When the Peruvians refused to give them back to the Cuban government, 10,000 Cubans in all entered the Embassy grounds asking for asylum. 2 weeks later, Fidel Castro said that anyone could leave from Cuba if they had someone to pick them up. And, thus, began the Mariel Boat Lift in which, eventually, 125,000 Cubans migrated to America in 1700 boats. Though most made it to America, 27 died, including 14 on an overloaded boat that capsized in May of 1980. Unfortunately about 2% of them were ‘undesirables’ such as criminals released from Cuban jails to make the boatlift. However, most were ordinary citizens who wanted a better life for themselves and their children.
This boat was not a part of the boatlift since it took place in 2013 but Cubans are still risking their lives trying to cross the Gulf to get to America. The rule is if they can get 1 foot on land here they can stay. We also saw 2 boats in the Dry Tortugas that were just as homemade and just as unlikely looking craft as this one was. But, I’m sure, that if we had looked more, we could have seen many more.
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