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Normalizing Cuban refugees

Representations of whiteness and anti-communism in the USA during the Cold War

Walla Walla University, USA, ctbrewer{at}wsu.edu

This article examines the representation of Cuban refugees during the 1960s and 1970s in the USA. Positioning the Cuban refugees as `ideologically' valuable, the US government undertook a substantial public relations campaign that sought to secure public mandate for incoming refugees. In order to avoid a national anti-Cuban backlash, the US government and the popular media alike constructed `positive' portrayals of incoming Cuban refugees. These representations played up the refugees' purportedly universal anti-communist stance and the socially and racially desirable qualities of these `good immigrants', who were perceived as `white' and middle to upper class. In order to contextualize these representations, a history of US—Cuban relations and mid-20th-century refugee policies are discussed. Thus anti-communism, whiteness, and middle-class attributes were strategically linked and broadcasted by the US government and public media sources alike.

Key Words: K E Y W O R D S anti-communism and Cold War • immigration and refugee studies • racialization

Ethnicities, Vol. 8, No. 1, 42-66 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1468796807087019


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