Obvious gays and the state gaze: Cuban gay visibility and U.S. immigration policy during the 1980 Mariel boatlift

Journal of the History of Sexuality

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 482-514

  Pena, Susana ^a  

^a BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CIVIL RIGHTS; CUBA; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; GENDER IDENTITY; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HISTORY; HOMOSEXUALITY; HUMAN; JURISPRUDENCE; LEGAL ASPECT; MALE; MEN'S HEALTH; MIGRATION; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CONTROL; SOCIAL DOMINANCE; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; SOCIAL STATUS; UNITED STATES;

CIVIL RIGHTS; CUBA; CULTURE; EMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS; EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION; GENDER IDENTITY; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOMOSEXUALITY, MALE; HUMANS; JURISPRUDENCE; MALE; MEN; MEN'S HEALTH; PREJUDICE; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CONDITIONS; SOCIAL CONTROL POLICIES; SOCIAL DOMINANCE; STEREOTYPING; UNITED STATES;

EID: 63249095038     PISSN: 10434070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/sex.2007.0072     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Armando" is a pseudonym.
2. For a seminal discussion of the medical gaze see Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A. M. Sheridan-Smith (1963; New York: Vintage Books, 1975). For more on applications of Foucault's work to the study of immigration and sexuality see Eithne Luibhéid, Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
3. Most cases of immigrant homosexual exclusion documented in the scholarly literature deal with male homosexuals. Luibhéid's discussion of the case of Sara Quiroz, a Mexican national who was excluded because the INS determined that she was a lesbian, is one exception (Entry Denied, 77-101).
4. María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959-1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 57.
5. Fidel Castro, "Speech to a Fighting People," speech delivered 1 May 1980, translator unknown, in Fidel Castro Speeches: Cuba's Internationalist Foreign Policy, 1975-80, ed. Michael Taber (New York: Pathfinder, 1981), 278.
6. In the period immediately following the 1980 boatlift, the term Marielitos was used, often in a derogatory way, to refer to the Cuban Mariel entrants. The Spanish diminutive -itos could refer literally to "those from Mariel" but is also often used to refer to something small. The diminutive can also be used to convey affection or familiarity. In the period during and immediately after the boatlift, the derogatory connotations of the term were most common and reflected the widespread negative perception of this migrant group, including among the Spanish-speaking Cuban Americans who originated its use. With time, the stigmatization of the Mariel migration diminished as more members of that generation and Cuban American activists and scholars challenged negative perceptions of the migration. With this shift in perception, Marielitos was redefined as more descriptive than derogatory. Although I use the term here to highlight the racialized and class-based stigmatization of Mariel entrants, elsewhere I use it to mark the distinct identity and experiences of this wave of migrants.
7. For more on the construction of deviance of Mariel immigrants see Benigno E. Aguirre, "Cuban Mass Migration and the Social Construction of Deviants," Bulletin of Latin American Research 13 (1994): 155-83;
8. Benigno E. Aguirre, Rogelio Sáenz, and Brian Sinclair James, "Marielitos Ten Years Later: The Scarface Legacy," Social Science Quarterly 78 (1997): 487-507.
9. Homophobic attitudes and state practices existed in Cuba prior to the 1959 revolution, but a significant qualitative change occurred after 1959. Ian Lumsden argues that after the revolution repression of homosexuals became more systematic and institutionalized, the revolutionary state became more efficient and able to police private behavior, and homosexuals increasingly were persecuted as a group (Machos, Maricones, and Gays: Cuba and Homosexuality [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996], 57-75).
10. Changes made in laws concerning public scandal (escándalo público) adeptly illustrate how the revolutionary government built upon already existing public/legal policies. In the early years of the revolution, the Cuban state continued to use the 1936 penal code. After prolonged study and consideration the code was extensively revised in 1979: at this point, existing laws targeting homosexuals were updated, and new sanctions were added. These revisions give us some sense of the ways in which earlier laws aimed at homosexuals were already being interpreted by the new government. Both the 1936 and 1979 penal codes contained laws against public scandal, but the 1979 version updated older terminology like "active or passive pederasty" with modern equivalents like "homosexual condition." The revised portion of the law sanctioned anyone who "would make a public display of their homosexual condition or importune or solicit another for [homosexual] purposes" (haga pública ostentación de su condición de homosexual o importune o solicite con sus requerimientos a otro). In addition, the 1979 version of the public scandal law increased prison terms and fines and included new sanctions against homosexual public sex, penalizing homosexual acts conducted in public and homosexual sex conducted in private that could be involuntarily seen by others. As the title of the relevant sections of both the 1936 and 1979 penal codes (public scandal) suggests, this law was centrally concerned with visibility. The updates of the law clarified the association between escándolo público and homosexuals and expanded sanctions against visible homosexuality.
11. See Código de defensa social, 17 de abril de 1936 [1938], ed. Jesus Montero, obispo, 127, La Habana, Cuba, Artículos 486-88, 154;
12. Código penal, ley no. 21 de 15 de febrero de 1979, gaceta oficial de 1ro. de marzo de 1979 (La Habana, Cuba: Ministerio de Justicia, 1979), Artículo 359, 193.
13. Lesbians, masculine women, and women who had sex with women were not free from repression in Cuba. However, I believe that the forms of state persecution directed at homosexual men and lesbians were dramatically different. The visibility of gender-transgressive male homosexuality, in particular, was a concern for the state. The intense focus of the state gaze on gender-transgressive male homosexuals and the public discourse against effeminacy and male homosexuality were explicitly tied to emerging national discourse about a new virile, masculine, Cuban nation and society. My larger project focuses on the dialectical relationship between this state gaze and male homosexual politics of visibility that emerged in Miami, Florida.
14. For examples of visible markers associated with homosexuality used by the state see Marvin Leiner, Sexual Politics in Cuba: Machismo, Homosexuality, and AIDS (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994), 31-32;
15. Luis Salas, Social Control and Deviance in Cuba (New York: Praeger, 1979), 155.
16. Leiner, Sexual Politics, 31.
17. For example, Fidel Toboso-Alfonso reported that he received a notice to report to "the public order" (police station) at his hometown in Guines, Cuba. At the station the police chief gave him the choice of serving four years in a penitentiary for being a homosexual or leaving Cuba as part of the Mariel boatlift. INS officials also indicated that "those forced onto boats by the Cuban government were threatened with four years' imprisonment unless they left." Finally, Allen Young reports that Paris Match writer Nina Sutton was told that "imprisoned homosexuals were ordered to leave for Florida, and were told that if they did not go they would be given four additional years of imprisonment."
18. See Matter of Toboso-Alfonso, U.S. Department of Justice, Board of Immigration Appeals, 20 I. & N. Dec. 819 (BIA 1990);
19. Allen Young, Gays under the Cuban Revolution (San Francisco: Grey Fox, 1981), 42;
20. notes on interviews with Mike Tominski, Ray Morris, and James Smith attached to memorandum by Mario A. Rivera to James Giganti, 10 August 1980, "Tent City," Miami [file no. 2] folder, box 22, Cuban Haitian Task Force (CHTF) Public Affairs File, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia (hereafter cited as Carter Library).
21. Margarita Garcia, "The Last Days in Cuba: Personal Accounts of the Circumstances of the Exit," Migration Today 11, nos. 4-5 (1983): 13-22;
22. Félix Roberto Masud-Piloto, With Open Arms: Cuban Migration to the U.S. (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988), 100-101.
23. Garcia, "The Last Days," 20.
24. See also Masud-Piloto, With Open Arms, 100-101.
25. Castro, "Speech to a Fighting People," 282.
26. "Yo había ido preparado para la ocasión con una vestimenta diamativa [sic], el pelo alborotado y un poco de maguillaje [sic] en la cara y los ojos, además hablaba con una voz fingida exagerando los amaneramientos para que convencieran que yo era homosexual y entonces le hablé y le supliqué que me dieran esa carta. Dios entonces permitió que así fuera y me dieron la carta, donde decía que yo era una escoria de la sociedad que no trabajaba ni estudiaba, que había estado preso, que no estaba de acuerdo con el proceso revolucionario y otros horrores y calumnias más" (ibid., 28-29).
27. Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, trans. Dolores M. Koch (New York: Viking, 1993), 281. "Al llegar me preguntaron si yo era homosexual y les dije que sí; me preguntaron si era activo o pasivo, y tuve la precaución de decir que era pasivo⋯. El gobierno cubano no consideraba que los homosexuales activos fueran, en realidad, homosexuales. A mí me hicieron caminar delante de ellos para comprobar si era loca o no; había allí unas mujeres psicólogas. Yo pasé la prueba y el teniente le gritó a otro militar: 'A éste me lo mandas directo.' Aquello quería decir que no tenía que pasar por ningún otro tipo de investigación política" (Reinaldo Arenas, Antes que anochezca [Barcelona: TusQuets, 1994], 301).
28. Arenas, Antes que anochezca, 302.
29. For a review of the literature on Latino/a sexual migration and the challenges in evaluating the extent to which sexuality affects choices to emigrate see Susana Peña, "Latina/o Sexualities in Motion," Latino/a Sexualities Research Agenda Project and Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, University of Connecticut, Ford Foundation, 2007.
30. Only the very earliest arrivals from Cuba in 1980 were defined as refugees and covered under the provisions of the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980, a law that allowed for an annual quota of fifty thousand refugees from throughout the world. This quota could be exceeded by the president in consultation with Congress. The 1980 act adopted the United Nations definition of refugee as anyone who has fled his or her country due to persecution or a "well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion." Previously, a refugee had been defined as anyone fleeing a communist country or a Middle Eastern nation. After the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, those fleeing communist countries remained more likely to receive asylum. It soon became clear that the 1980 Refugee Act quota would be quickly exceeded by the scale of the Mariel migration. A small group of early Mariel immigrants were defined as refugees, but cumbersome asylum applications and review procedures quickly proved too time-consuming. Therefore, the majority of Mariel Cubans were defined not as political refugees or asylum seekers but as economic immigrants (Aguirre, "Cuban Mass Migration," 166).
31. Mark S. Hamm clarifies this status: "Under the terms of the Refugee Act of 1980, an excludable person paroled in the U.S.⋯ [is] considered to have no more rights than someone who is stopped at the border of a country. An excludable person on parole has no rights to a hearing and his parole may be revoked at any time. In contrast, a deportable person is entitled to certain hearing rights under federal law and INS regulation" (The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Mariel Boat People [Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995], 190 n. 4).
32. For more on the implications of the Cuban-Haitian entrant category and the legal repercussions for incarcerated Mariel immigrants see Mark Dow, American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 285-301.
33. Aguirre, "Cuban Mass Migration," 165.
34. Luibhéid, Entry Denied, 21. For an historical overview of immigration law in relation to sexuality see 31-54.
35. Ibid., 78.
36. Ibid., 23.
37. Telegraphic message, David Crosland to James Lounsbury, 8 September 1980, Immigration and Naturalization Procedures folder, box 14, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library. For more on clarified immigration procedures see Luibhéid, Entry Denied, 23.
38. Although national gay and lesbian rights activists did acknowledge that a real victory would have entailed dropping homosexual exclusion altogether, they still claimed that as a "practical matter" this new policy was "very close to a total victory." See National Gay Task Force, "Immigration Victory for Gays," press release, 10 September 1980, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Papers #7301, folder 164, box 36, Human Sexuality Collection, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York (hereafter HSC).
39. Approximately 49.8 percent of arrivals were placed directly with family from one of the processing centers in South Florida. See "A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 1 November 1980, Misc. Informative Materials [1] folder, box 15, 75, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
40. In my larger work I argue that, although Cuban American homosexual men managed their identities and cultural expressions in relationship to hypervisibility, Cuban American lesbians had to negotiate their identities and cultural expressions in relationship to invisibility. In Cuba gender-transgressive homosexual men were marginalized and persecuted, but they were also culturally intelligible in a way that Cuban lesbians were not. José Quiroga has argued that Cuban male homosexuals had meanings imposed upon them by the Cuban Revolution (such as that male homosexuals were a threat to the virile, masculine revolution), whereas from the point of view of the revolution Cuban lesbians were "apparitional, nonexistent, and inconceivable" (Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America [New York: New York University Press, 2000], 124). Disparate forms of persecution might have led more homosexual men than lesbians to be seen by the Cuban state as homosexual and therefore worthy of an exit permit. Although lesbians were part of the Mariel migration, they were not a central focus of the state gaze in the United States either. Gender-transgressive male homosexuals were identified in media reports and government data, but lesbians were rarely mentioned. Even when categories like "homosexuals" that could include both gay men and lesbians were used in government documents, further elaboration usually revealed that the term referred specifically to gay men. One of the most interesting exceptions to this rule is a Latitudes cover story on Cuban lesbians awaiting sponsorship at one of the resettlement camps in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. This story reiterates that media attention had focused on men. It also reveals how the reporter's definitions and expectations of lesbians were challenged by the women at the camp. For example, when Brooke Jones encountered two women walking together in an embrace, she was surprised that they said they did not identify as lesbian. On the other hand, when interviewing someone who did identify as lesbian, she was surprised that the woman asked for nail polish. In general, Jones described entering the camps "hoping to spot a lesbian" but learning after her interviews that "we wouldn't be able to tell them from the straight women" ("New Life for Cuban Lesbians: New Arrivals Possess Warmth, Vitality, Strength," Latitudes: Journal of the International Lesbian & Gay Association Liaison Office 1, no. 2 [1980]: 4-5, 14-16). This issue of Latitudes can be found in Larry Bush Papers #7316, folder 44, box 4, HSC.
41. After providing the disclaimer that "the sociodemographic data which follows was obtained under somewhat imperfect conditions from many sources [including the INS, the Public Health Service, and each processing center] and would not fulfill all the criteria for a controlled scientific study," the CHTF report stated that 8 percent of those resettled directly in South Florida were black and 92 percent were white ("A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 70-71). A November 1980 memo stated that "roughly" 10 percent of those resettled directly in South Florida were black and 90 percent were white and added that 50 percent of the camp populations were either black or mulatto. This memo also clarifies that the racial statistics for the camp population are "rough" estimates because "no hard data is available." See Department of State memorandum, Frederick M. Bohen to Eugene Eidenberg, 6 November 1980, "Monthly Entrant Report for October," Executive Summaries 10/27/80-11/25/80 folder, box 29, 8-9, CHTF Data Summaries File, Carter Library.
42. "A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 70-71.
43. See also Department of Health and Human Services memorandum by Frederick M. Bohen to Eugene Eidenberg, 11 December 1980, "Monthly Entrant Report for November," Executive Summaries 11/25/80-1/5/81 folder, box 29, 15, CHTF Data Summaries File, Carter Library.
44. Single adult males made up 93 percent of the postconsolidation population at Fort Chaffee.
45. According to Siro del Castillo, the director of Krome North, one of the South Florida Mariel processing centers located at the INS Krome Detention Center, a distinction was supposed to be made between Cubans who had committed a "blood crime" and those who had been incarcerated for acts not criminalized in the United States. Only those having committed serious crimes were to be held in the FCIs. However, del Castillo lamented that, "in practice, political prisoners, those who declared themselves to be prostitutes, deviants, or criminals to obtain permission to leave Cuba, and those who were 'criminals' only by Cuba's standards, as well as others merely suspected of having a criminal background have been given 2-C classification and detained in the FCI." See notes on interview with Siro del Castillo attached to memorandum by Mario A. Rivera to James Giganti, 10 August 1980, "Tent City," Miami [file no. 2] folder, box 22, CHTF Public Affairs File, Carter Library.
46. Most Mariel Cubans identified as having prison records were released from FCIs. By November 1980 1,769 remained in FCIs-a much smaller number than the "substantially larger number of Cubans [who] admitted to having prison records in Cuba." See "A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 1 November 1980, Misc. Informative Materials [1] folder, box 15, 55, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
47. "Fact Sheet: Release of Detainees from Talladega," draft, Talladega [Federal Correctional Institute] folder, box 9, CHTF Subject File, Carter Library.
48. Ibid.
49. For example, see Homosexuals [file no. 2] folder, box 22, CHTF Public Affairs File, Carter Library.
50. "A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 58.
51. Ibid., 37.
52. Department of State Memorandum by Arthur P. Brill to Christian R. Holmes, 22 August 1980, "Negative public reaction," Public Affairs-State Department folder, box 27, CHTF Public Affairs File, Carter Library.
53. Mariel homosexuals housed at the Orange Bowl or Miami's "Tent City" were another focus of these debates. Mariel Cubans held at these sites had suffered "broken sponsorships." In other words, they had already been resettled with either family or volunteer sponsors, but they had either left or been kicked out of their sponsor's home. While the Mariel entrants in general were often stigmatized as a group, broken sponsorship cases represented the most marginalized of the marginal within this population because of their apparent failure to have assimilated into normative U.S. society.
54. "Mensaje de salud," La Vida Nueva (Fort Chaffee newsletter), no. 88, 22 agosto 1980, La Vida Nueva 8/20/80-9/27/80 folder, box 37, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
55. Department of State memorandum by Donald E. Whitteaker to John Cannon, 2 September 1980, "Security/criminal activities/mental health," [Fort] Chaffee folder, box 21, CHTF Public Affairs File, Carter Library. Whitteaker also responded to concerns about unaccompanied minors by acknowledging that "there may be some young males or females 18 to 20 years of age that are victims of male and female homosexuals and prostitutes. However, as these are identified, action is taken to protect them by segregating them or moving them to a new area" (3).
56. In reference to an incident in which a gay man defended himself by knocking out another man with the lid of a garbage can, for example, a soldier explained: "They are faggots but they have man muscles." See Garry Lenton, "Cuban Gays in Web: Agencies Caught up in Alien Laws, Too," Lebanon Sunday Pennsylvanian, 6 July 1980, 1, 3A, News Clippings 6/27/80-7/19/80 folder, box 39, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
57. Michael Massing, "The Invisible Cubans," Columbia Journalism Review 19 (1980): 49-51;
58. Young, Gays under the Cuban Revolution, 50-58.
59. Massing, "The Invisible Cubans," 50. For an analysis of the treatment of gay Mariel in the mainstream media see Susana Peña, "Visibility and Silence: Mariel and Cuban American Gay Male Experience and Representation," in Queer Migrations: Sexuality, US Citizenship, and Border Crossings, ed. Eithne Luibhéid and Lionel Cantú (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
60. For more on the medical gaze see Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic.
61. Memorandum by Bill Schroeder to Nick Nichols, n.d., "Discussion with Dr. Harold Ginzburg, Mental Health Services," Mental Health [2] folder, box 38, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library. In addition, Ginzburg was especially concerned with homosexual rape and explained that "in some instances this occurs because some of the men are 'teasers' and, in the eyes of the aggressor, warranted the attack. Some rapes occur between two gays in circumstances where they are fighting due to a separation" (2).
62. "Report on the Status of Cuban Refugees at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin" by Rachel M. Schwartz and Peter D. Kramer, August 1980, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin folder, box 21,11, 22, CHTF Public Affairs File, Carter Library.
63. According to them, "jealousy over the homosexual love affairs" also led to stabbings, and homosexual rape was "apparently frequent, at least it [was] commented on frequently in conversation and [was] a constant fear of weaker homosexual youths." They also described homosexual prostitution in the camps, identifying a "male whorehouse" and a "homosexual whorehouse" (ibid., 11).
64. "Ginsberg's [sic] Statement," Fort McCoy [1] folder, box 4, CHTF Subject File, Carter Library.
65. Schwartz and Kramer, "Report," 16. This report has been described as a "briefly publicized, then suppressed, internal HHS [Health and Human Services] evaluation by medical officers" (Mario Rivera, Decision and Structure: U.S. Refugee Policy in the Mariel Crisis [Lan-ham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991], 129).
66. The 1977 Save Our Children campaign led by Christian entertainer and Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson Anita Bryant successfully challenged an antidiscrimination ordinance in Dade County, Florida, drafted specifically to protect gays and lesbians. This campaign marked the beginning of a national backlash against gay rights and gay visibility. Elsewhere I argue that prior to 1980 issues of visibility were centered on social control of male homosexuals and challenges to that social control in both Cuba and the United States. In other words, the Cuban state and Bryant's publicity campaign both identified visible manifestations of homosexuality as a threat. Bryant, for example, specifically targeted homosexuals who "flaunted" their sexuality. In turn, male homosexuals challenged these discourses with a politics of visibility.
67. See Susana Peña, "From UMAPs to Save Our Children: Gay Visibility and Repression in Cuba and Miami before the Mariel Boatlift," in Oye Loca: The Making of Cuban American Gay Miami, book manuscript in progress;
68. see also James T. Sears, Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
69. For the impact of this struggle on the national gay and lesbian rights movement see Tina Fetner, "Working Anita Bryant: The Impact of Christian Anti-Gay Activism on Lesbian and Gay Movement Claims," Social Problems 48, no. 3 (2001): 411-28.
70. Transcripts of "Fort Chaffee," in The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (WNET/Thirteen, 1980), 3, located in Public Affairs Releases 9/16/80-1/29/81 folder, box 61, CHTF Administrative File, Carter Library.
71. Warren Brown, "Cuban Boatlift Drew Thousands of Homosexuals; Thousands of Refugees from Cuba Are Homosexual," Washington Post, 7 July 1980, 1A. Reprinted as Warren Brown, "Gay Refugees Await Sponsors," Miami Herald, 7 July 1980, 1, 10A.
72. For example, see press guidance sheets dated 7 July 1980, 11 September 1980, and 12 September 1980 in [Reading Material Notebook] [3] folder, box 17, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
73. FEMA memorandum by John W. Macy to Eugene Eidenberg, 7 July 1980, "Executive Summary-Cuban Refugee Situation," FEMA Executive Summaries 6/21/80-7/14/80 folder, box 30, CHTF Data Summaries File, Carter Library.
74. Press guidance sheet, 12 September 1980.
75. For example, Siro del Castillo, the director of Krome North, acknowledged that Mariel Cubans were asked about their sexuality by camp psychiatrists and psychologists assisting in their relocation. Since del Castillo's statement focuses on mental health professionals working with VOLAGs, his assertion does not directly contradict the task force's public position. See Siro del Castillo, "A Plea to Destigmatize Mariel," Caribbean Review 13, no. 4 (1984): 7.
76. Schwartz and Kramer, "Report," 11.
77. It is unclear here what behavior verified their homosexuality. Throughout various types of government documents, gender transgression was read as synonymous with homosexuality. See Schroeder to Nichols, "Discussion," 2.
78. Ibid., 42.
79. Department of State Memorandum by N. G. W. Thorne to Victor H. Palmieri, 22 July 1980, "Report on July 18 Staff Briefing," Staffing Briefing 7/18/80 folder, box 18, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
80. The other three groups defined as "problem populations" were the "criminal element," "mental health," and "unaccompanied minors" ("A Report of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force," 55-64).
81. Press guidance sheet, 11 September 1980. Other sources have argued that the number of homosexuals was overestimated, if not entirely concocted, by the media. For example, Yohel Camayd-Freixas complained of the ongoing effect of the erroneous newspaper figure: "It is interesting to note that this is the only reported estimate-if grossly inaccurate-of a high proportion of homosexuals among the Mariel group. Yet many subsequent articles include the 'homosexual problem' as a characteristic of the Mariel group, even though these reports have no objective bases for such claims aside from this erroneous Herald article" (Crisis in Miami, Boston Urban Research and Development Group [Boston: Northeast Press, 1988], III-47). In addition, see del Castillo, "A Plea to Destigmatize Mariel," 7.
82. For example, an internal memo estimates the homosexual population awaiting resettlement at anywhere between 200 and 1,750. See Macy to Eidenberg, "Executive Summary-Cuban Refugee Situation," 2. A semiretraction printed on the day after Brown's article cites a series of conflicting estimates. Judy Weiss from Fort Chaffee asserted that only 94 of the 10,000 Cubans who had passed through her camp were known to be gay; in contrast, Bruce Brockway reported 900 homosexuals in Fort McCoy. Brockway estimated that 6,800 of all detainees were gay; Larry Mahoney of FEMA estimated this number at 4,000.
83. See Ethan Bronner, "Camp Personnel Deny Report of 20,000 Gay Refugees," Miami Herald, 8 July 1980, 1, 12A. After the media focus on Mariel homosexuals fomented by Brown's article, the number of homosexuals awaiting resettlement was consistently underestimated. For example, before consolidating those awaiting resettlement into one camp, officials estimated that there were only 260 homosexuals awaiting resettlement. See "Consolidation Data," n.d., Consolidation [file no. 2] folder, box 11, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library. An estimate of 1,000 is offered in "Briefing Materials, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings," 6 March 1981, Briefing Materials Senate Appropriations Committee 3/6/81 folder, box 11, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library. An estimate of 2,500 is proposed in "Fort Chaffee Resettlement Plan," attached to memorandum by Wilford J. Forbush to Jack Svhan, 10 March 1981, Fort Chaffee folder, box 14, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library; and "DHHS [Department of Health and Human Services] Role in the Consolidation of Cuban-Haitian Populations into One Camp," draft, 7 August 1980, Consolidation Plans PHS and HHS folder, box 35, 1, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
84. "Questions on Consolidation: Asked by Cuban Haitian Task Force, Washington," n.d., Consolidation [file no. 2] [1] folder, box 34, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
85. "Consolidation Data."
86. "Fort Chaffee Resettlement Plan," 4.
87. Press guidance sheet, 12 September 1980.
88. Press guidance sheet, 11 September 1980.
89. In Fort Chaffee, for example, two barracks housing one hundred men each were "given over to the homosexuals" (Massing, "The Invisible Cubans," 50). Ernie Acosta reported that at Fort Indiantown Gap the "openly gay refugees, ⋯ campy, flamboyant types who bore the brunt of Castro's persecution," were placed in barracks "in the middle of the camp's single men's area ⋯ surrounded by heterosexual refugees who view[ed] the gays with open hostility" (Acosta quoted in Young, Gays under the Cuban Revolution, 54).
90. For example, see Coordinating Council of Dade County memorandum by Silvia Unzu-eta to Eduardo J. Padron, 26 August 1980, "To Assess Existing Conditions at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and Evaluate Consolidation Plans," Cuban Community folder, box 11,2, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
91. "Fort Indiantown Gap after Action Report," vol. 1, 11 May 1980-15 October 1980, box 32, 67, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library. In October an INS memo recommended that separate facilities and minimal security barracks be used to house "hardcore criminals, insanes [sic], riot agitators, juveniles and homosexuals." See INS Task Force memorandum by Alfred Saucier to William Lang, Jr., 11 October 1980, "Problems at Fort Indiantown Gap-Border Patrol Suggestions," AA Today folder, box 33, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
92. Lenton, "Cuban Gays in Web," lA.
93. The press guidance sheet dated 11 September 1980 responded to the question "Do you think you will be able to resettle homosexuals?" with the answer that gay organizations "have come forward voluntarily."
94. "Lesbian and Gay Community Meets to Form Nationwide Network for Aiding Gay and Lesbian Cuban Refugees," press release, 8 July 1980, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Papers #7301, folder 159, box 36, HSC.
95. "Resettling Gay Cubans," Christian Century 98 (1981): 504-5.
96. Ibid.
97. "Minutes from CHTF Staff Meeting," Monday, 28 July 1980, CHTF-Staff Meeting Minutes folder, box 34, CHTF Fort Indiantown Gap File, Carter Library.
98. Department of State memorandum by Barbara Lawson to Christian R. Holmes, 26 September 1980, Camp Consolidation [2] folder, box 1, CHTF Subject File, Carter Library.
99. "Fort Chaffee Resettlement Plan," 4.
100. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary, CHTF, Office of Refugee Resettlement, "Management Tracking System," 6 February 1981, Camp Consolidation-Press folder, box 11,1, CHTF Director's File, Carter Library.
101. "Resettling Gay Cubans." According to the MCC, the Baltimore facility was destroyed by arson and never opened.
102. Frank Zerrilli, email to author, 15 December 2003.
103. National Gay Task Force, "Cuban Refugees' Status Clarified by Immigration Service," press release, 19 February 1985, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Papers #7301, folder 6, box 37, HSC.
104. As quoted in National Gay Task Force, "Cuban Refugees' Status Clarified by Immigration Service.
105. Luibhéid, Entry Denied, xi.
106. Ibid.
107. It is unclear whether Mariel Cubans were excluded due to homosexuality alone. Miller's clarification indicates that Mariel Cubans would not have been excluded based on declarations made upon their arrival. I have not found evidence that any Mariel Cuban was excluded explicitly due to his or her homosexuality. In the months before Mariel, the case of Ruben Lorenzo Prats, a gay Cuban denied citizenship because he was gay, received some media attention locally in Miami. See "Sex and Citizenship Are Not Connected," Miami News, 5 April 1980,14A. After Mariel the Cuban government refused to repatriate any migrants from the United States; thus, the homosexuality "exclusion" would have translated into indefinite detention, a costly endeavor for the federal government. Both the overall size of the Mariel migration and the costs associated with excluding gay entrants might have led to their not being singled out for exclusion.