A Historical and Regional Overview of Latinas in the United ... - CUNY

Introduction: A Historical and Regional Overview
penses of major appliances that they traded from
house to house. These networks of family and friends
were crucial to women who worked outside the home.
Although women expanded their roles to include wage
earning, their spouses did not expand their roles to include
housework. Elderly women, in particular, played
a crucial role in this network. In three-generation
households the elderly supplied an additional income
from either outside employment or public assistance,
which, in turn, helped assist their families financially.
More important, they played a pivotal role in child
rearing and home maintenance, allowing their daughters,
granddaughters, and neighbors to go out and find
work.
Some entrepreneurial women created lucrative
businesses that catered to the needs of women who
entered the workplace. They established housekeeping
and delivery services, laundries and dry cleaners,
home ateliers and dress shops, beauty parlors, daycare
centers, driving schools, and even subscription
home-delivery food services. Cubans discovered that
any business that made life easier for women who
worked outside the home had a good chance of succeeding.
The shift in roles and responsibilities has had a
tremendous impact on Cubans’ economic “success” as
a group. As early as 1980 Cuban American median
family income was almost equal to that of the total U.S.
population. This was an important accomplishment for
a community of predominantly first-generation immigrants.
Women’s high participation in the labor force
helped raise the median family income. Without their
contributions, these statistics would have been much
different. While women’s new roles brought them independence
and power, it also strained marriages because
many men felt threatened by these nontraditional
relationships. By 1980 census figures showed
that Cuban women had the highest divorce rates in the
United States: 9.3 percent of Cuban women aged fifteen
years and above identified themselves as divorced
in the 1980 census, as compared with 7.3 of the total
U.S. population.
While women’s participation in the labor force had
a notable impact on the economic success of both their
families and the larger community, their participation
in the political activities of the community was less obvious.
During the 1960s exile politics was concerned
more with Cuba than with the United States, and hundreds
of political organizations emerged in Miami,
Union City, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to
lead the counterrevolution. Since politics was generally
regarded as too hostile or violent an arena for
women, for the most part, they were excluded from
these organizations. The vast majority of women were
also too preoccupied with domestic and economic re-
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sponsibilities to be full-time advocates of la causa
cubana. Tradition cast them in a supportive role. They
could always be counted on to do the thankless and tedious
work of sewing or painting banners, preparing
food for protesters at demonstrations, writing letters
and making phone calls, and marching in demonstrations.
The handful of political organizations that
emerged exclusively for women, among them the
Union de Mujeres, the Cruzada Femenina Cubana, and
the Movimiento Femenino Anticomunista de Cuba,
functioned as auxiliaries, providing moral and financial
support to different men’s organizations by participating
in their rallies and fund-raisers, organizing public
relations campaigns and membership drives, and even
sponsoring memorial services for the men who died
for la causa. These organizations, however, offered no
real political alternatives.
The one political issue that drew a significant participation
from women was human rights. Numerous
coalitions emerged dedicated to calling world attention
to the plight of political prisoners in Cuba. Perhaps
the most notable of these groups was the nonprofit organization
Of Human Rights, founded in 1961 by Elena
Mederos González to monitor human rights abuses in
Cuba. Other groups that have emerged include the
Committee to Denounce Cruelties to Cuban Political
Prisoners, the Centro de Derechos Humanos del
Movimiento Demócrata Cristiano, and El Movimiento
Mujeres pro Derechos Humanos. Women played a crucial
role in this political campaign, since it was their fathers,
husbands, sons, and sisters who were imprisoned
in Cuba. They wrote letters and sent petitions to
Amnesty International, Americas Watch, the International
Red Cross, and the PEN clubs, and they met with
presidents, congressmen, and foreign dignitaries. They
organized fund-raising banquets to raise money for
their publicity campaign, arranged special memorial
services to pray for the prisoners, and helped erect
monuments honoring the prisoners in parks and public
areas to keep them in the community’s consciousness.
It took years, however, to see the fruits of their work. It
was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the
Castro government finally began to release thousands
of political prisoners.
Younger women who came of age in the United
States and studied at U.S. colleges and universities
tended to have greater opportunities for political expression
than their mothers. Influenced by the civil
rights movement, the feminist movement, and the student
activism of the 1960s and early 1970s, they joined
various student political groups and staged protests
and demonstrations on college campuses. Some of
these younger women, influenced by the radicalized
milieu of the 1960s, came to adopt a more tolerant
view of the revolution and began to work for the nor-