Oye Loca: From the Mariel Boatlift to Gay Cuban Miami

256 Pages·2013·2.699 MB·English

by  Susana Peña

OYE LOCA
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OYE LOCA
From the Mariel Boatlift
to Gay Cuban Miami
SUSANA PEÑA
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance for
the publication of this book from Bowling Green State University’s Building Strength
Program.
A different version of chapter 2 was originally published as “‘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 16, no. 3 (2007): 482–514; copyright by
the University of Texas Press; all rights reserved. A different version of chapter 4 was
originally published as “Pájaration and Transculturation: Language and Meaning in
Miami’s Cuban American Gay Worlds,” in Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization
and Gay Language, ed. William L. Leap and Tom Boellstorff (Champaign: University
of Illinois Press, 2004), 231–50; copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of
Illinois; reprinted with permission of the University of Illinois Press.
Copyright 2013 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-
copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peña, Susana.
Oye loca : from the Mariel boatlift to gay Cuban Miami / Susana Peña.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-6553-2 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8166-6554-9 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Gay men—Florida—Miami. 2. Gay men—Cuba. 3. Cuban Americans—
Cultural assimilation. 4. Immigrants—Florida—Miami. 5. Gay culture—
Florida—Miami. I. Title.
HQ76.2.U52M5257 2013
306.76'609759381—dc23
2013014539
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Para Mami
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CONTENTS
introduction ix
1 From UMAPs to Save Our Children:
Policing Homosexuality in Cuba and Miami before 1980 1
2 Obvious Gays and the State Gaze: Gay Visibility
and Immigration Policy during the Mariel Boatlift 25
3 Cultures of Gay Visibility and Renarrating Mariel 59
4 Pájaration and Transculturation: Language
and Meaning in Gay Cuban Miami 77
5 Narratives of Nation and Sexual Identity:
Remembering Cuba 95
6 Families, Disclosure, and Visibility 117
7 Locas, Papis, and Muscle Queens:
Racialized Discourses of Masculinity and Desire 133
8 ¡Oye Loca! Gay Cuba in Drag 157
conclusion 177
Acknowledgments 183
Notes 187
Index 221
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INTRODUCTION
The 1980 Mariel boatlift was a turning point in Miami’s
Cuban American and gay histories. During just a few months, approxi-
mately 125,000 Cubans entered the United States in a massive and
highly publicized migration that garnered national and international
media attention. Among them were many homosexual men and women
who migrated partly as a response to a particularly repressive era in
Cuba in relation to homosexuality.
During a period of tense U.S.–Cuban relations and at the begin-
ning of a U.S. presidential election year, a Cuban bus driver drove his
bus full of passengers into the Peruvian embassy in Havana. As the
driver and passengers sought and waited for asylum, Cubans around
the island became increasingly restless. Many were hoping for an
opening to leave the island—after years of very limited emigration op-
tions. Others, still supportive of the regime, sought to publicly express
their disdain for those wanting to leave. This started a series of events
that culminated with Cuban leader Fidel Castro announcing that all
Cubans wishing to leave the island would be allowed to depart—but
only through the port of Mariel. He invited Cuban Americans to come
to Mariel with boats to pick up any relatives wanting to leave Cuba.
When Cuban Americans arrived in the port of Mariel, they found that
they were expected not only to transport the relatives they came for but
also to take other Cubans who wanted to leave the island and had been
given permission by the Cuban government. The day after Castro’s in-
vitation, the first 55 Cubans disembarked in Key West via what would
eventually become a massive flotilla. The images of boats of all sizes,
in various conditions, filled with Cubans of all colors and ages became
ix