Latin American & Caribbean Studies

A Selected Bibliography

Compiled by Holly Ackerman, Ph.D., Librarian for Latin America & Iberia

This bibliography can be found on the Internet at:  http://balseros.miami.edu

Books      Dissertations      Films & Videos     Public Documents

Journal Articles      Occasional Papers      Selected Archives

Content of the Bibliography
A primary selection criterion for inclusion in this bibliography was the extent to which each item treated the subject of rafting. All or a very substantial portion of the work needed to be dedicated to some aspect of the post-1959 rafter phenomenon. Excluded were many otherwise worthy academic publications, particularly texts and overviews of U.S./Cuban relations, that include a few paragraphs giving very general description of the 1994 crisis and offering speculation about what caused it without providing supporting data.  

Second, the material needed to be based in direct experience or, for non-participant authors, to be well grounded theoretically and methodologically. In the first grouping, testimonies of rafters, service providers and, in smaller numbers, officials/policy makers were selected regardless of their perspective or the quality of their prose. Basically, any participant in events who has published has been included. The reason for this was simply to give readers exposure to detailed description by the rafters themselves and to draw attention to hard to find materials that researchers might otherwise be unable to locate. Naturally, most of these accounts are in Spanish. Testimonial accounts are marked with an asterisk (*).

Academic treatments needed to be more rigorous, presenting strong methodological grounding and analysis. This second criterion was tempered by an effort to be comprehensive and to include a variety of theories and perspectives.  The formats included are non-fiction books, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, video/film, selected archives, government publications, occasional papers, reports & proceedings.

Journalistic production on this subject is so extensive that it was impossible to gather and evaluate this category in the time available for this bibliography. The same is true of the extensive literature on the case of rafter Elián González.  With the exception of the film category, fiction is not included. This bibliography is a living thing and readers are encouraged to submit citations that may have been overlooked to holly.ackerman@duke.edu . The author will update the bibliography at intervals. 

 Books
* Indicates a book of testimony written by a rafter or social services provider who worked directly with rafters.

Abella, Rosa M. and Dolores F. Rovirosa. 1999. Febrero 24, 1996 Derribo de dos avionetas: Bibliografía. Miami: Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami.

Ackerman, Holly, and Juan M. Clark. 1995. The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty. Miami, FL: Policy Center of the Cuban American National Council.

Antón, Alex, and Roger E. Hernández. 2002. Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile. New York: Kensington Books.

*Arbelo, William. 1989. Más allá de mis fuerzas. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal.

Bardach, Ann L. 2002. Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. New York: Random House.

*Casañas Martín, Wilfredo. 2000. La gran verdad de una desilusión. Madrid: Edición personal.

Castro, Max J. 1999. Free markets, Open Societies, Closed Borders?: Trends in International Migration and Immigration Policy in the Americas. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center Press.

Centro de Estudios de Alternativas Políticas, ed. 1996. Anuario CEAP: Emigración Cubana. Havana: CEAP.

Clark, Juan M. 1990. Cuba, mito y realidad: testimonios de un pueblo. Miami, FL: Saeta Ediciones.

*Concepción, Julio Antonio. 1993. Odyssey or Calvary? Miami, FL: Nadir Publishing.

Cruz, Nilo. 2004  A Bicycle Country. New York: Dramatists Play Service.  

de Acha, Eduardo. 1995. La inocencia de los balseros. Miami, FL, USA: Ediciones Universal.

De la Campa, Román. 2000. Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation. New York: Verso.

Díaz Mantilla, Daniel. 1996. Las palmeras domésticas. La Habana: Casa Editora Abril.

*Díaz, Tomás. 1994. Balseros en Guantánamo: su historia y su testimonio. Miami, FL: Nuevos Horizontes Internacionales.

Fernández, Alfredo A. 2000. Adrift: the Cuban Raft People. Houston, TX: Arte Público Press.

Fibla, Alberto. 1996. Barbarie: hundimiento del remolcador "13 de marzo." Miami, FL: Rodes Print.

García, María C. 1996. Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959-1994. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gay, Kathlyn. 2000. Leaving Cuba: From Operation Pedro Pan to Elián. Brookfield, CN: Twenty-First Century Books.

Gonzáles Valdéz, Alberto D. 1999. Las noventa millas interminables. Puerto Rico: s.n.

Grenier, Guillermo J., and Lisandro Pérez. 2003. The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Hernández Díaz, Alejandro, and Dick Cluster. 1998. The Cuban Mile. Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press.

Herrera, Andrea O. 2001. Remembering Cuba: Legacy of a Diaspora. Austin: University of Texas Press.

LeoGrande, William M. 1995. The United States and Cuba After the Cold War: The 1994 Refugee Crisis. Washington, D.C: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

López Blanch, Hedelberto. 1998. La emigración cubana en Estados Unidos: descorriendo mamparas. La Habana: Editorial SI-MAR.

*Lorenzo, Omar. 1995. Reflexiones prohibidas. George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands: Casa de Cultura.

Martínez, Milagros. 1996. Los balseros cubanos: un estudio a partir de las salidas ilegales. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Mason, T. K. 1984. Across the Cactus Curtain: The Story of Guantánamo Bay. New York: Dodd Mead.

Masud-Piloto, Felix R. 1996. From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959-1995. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

*Morales, Roberto. 2004. 65 Horas con la muerte. Miami: Minitman Press.

Morgado, Marcia, and Juan Abreu. 1993. Rafts. Miami, FL: LOMA Publishers.

Ochoa, Ernesto. 1995. Balseros. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami, Iberian Studies Institute.

Ortega, Luís. 1998. Cubanos en Miami. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

*Perera González, Domingo M., and Jorge Portuondo Jorge. 2001. Encierro, incertidumbre y sexo. Miami, FL: Spin Quality Printing.

*Perera González, Domingo M. 1998. Fraternidad entre alambradas: Guantánamo 1994-95. Miami, FL: Ediciones Plaza d'Praha.

*Puentes, Enel F. 1996. Guantánamo Bay 94': dos caras de la misma moneda. Miami, FL: Ediciones Plaza D'Praha.

Ricardo Luis, Roger. 1994. Guantánamo: The Bay of Discord. New York, NY: Ocean Press.

*Rodríguez, Marisol S. 1997. Guantánamo el último paso hacia la libertad. Miami, FL: D'Fana Editions.

Rodríguez Chávez, Ernesto. 1997. Emigración cubana actual. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

*Rothe, Eugenio M. 2004. Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms in Cuban Children and Adolescents During and After Refugee Camp Confinement. In Thomas A. Corales, Ed. Trends in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research. Hauppauge NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Soderlund, Walter C., R. C. Nelson, and E. D. Briggs. 2003. Mass Media and Foreign Policy: Post-cold War Crises in the Caribbean. Westport: Praeger.

Stepick, Alex, and Max J. Castro. 2003. This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Tobar, Héctor. 2005. Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-speaking United States. New York: Riverhead Books.

Triff, Soren. 2001. Cultura sin miedo: antología de la revista 'Catálogo de letras' 1994-1999. Miami, FL: Catálogo de Letras.

*Valdez, Zoe, Prólogo. 1995. En fin, el mar: cartas de los balseros cubanos. Palma de Mallorca, España: Bitzoc.

*Vázquez Fernández, Carmen. 1999. Balseros cubanos. Madrid, España: Editorial Betania.

Zapater, Fernando A. 2003. Cuentos cortos y poemas de un balsero. Philadelphia : Xlibris.

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Dissertations
Ackerman, Holly. 1996. Mass Migration, Nonviolent Social Action, and the Cuban Raft Exodus, 1959-1994: An Analysis of Citizen Motivation and International Politics. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Miami.

Álvarez, Sandra Dalis. 2001. Getting a Head Start on Assimilation: An Analysis of Cuban American Women in a Head Start Program. Ph.D. Dissertation, Kansas State University.

Clark, Juan M. 1976. The Exodus from Revolutionary Cuba (1959-1974): A Sociological Analysis. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida Gainesville.

Greenhill, Kelly. 2003. People Pressure: Strategic Engineered Migration as an Instrument of Statecraft  and the Rise of the Human Rights Regime. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Henken, Theodore A. 1998. Cuban and Mexican Migration to the United States: Refugee Flows and Labor Migration in the Modern World System. M.A. Thesis, Tulane University.

Lima, Maritza. 1997. Day Treatment Program for Cuban Rafter Refugee Children-focus: Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Prevention of Acculturation Stress. Psy.D. Dissertation, Caribbean Center for Advanced Studies. Miami Institute of Psychology.

Miller, Gretchen.  2003.  A Cuban Refugee Raft Memorial Museum. Masters Thesis. University of Florida, School of Architecture.

Neske, Robert. 1999. Assumption of Adequacy: Operation Safe Haven: A Chaplain’s View. Masters Thesis. U.S. Army Command and Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/p4013coll2&CISOPTR=636

Simantirakis, Christina. The Cuban Shoot-down of Two United States-registered Civil Aircraft on 24 February 1996: Study of a New Case of Use of Weapons Against Civil Aircraft. Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University, Canada.

Timmel, Jill L. 2001. Creativity and Acculturation: Psychological and Cultural Effects on the Divergent Thinking of Cuban Preadolescent Immigrants Entering the United States. Ph.D. Dissertation., Cornell University.

Vicente, Andrea Cristine. 2004. The Cuban-U.S. Transnational Relationship: The Impact of Recent Migration on Cuban and Cuban-American Society. Master’s thesis. Florida State University. http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11042004-143801/

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Films & Videos
Anton, Alex and Joe Cardona.  1996. Adios patria? El éxodo cubano.  Miami. Malecon Films (80 mins.).

Bosch, Charles and Josep Domenech. 2002. Balseros. Barcelona: Lauren Films, VHS & DVD. (120 mins.).

Dystra, Jorge. 2003. En fin el mar. Spanish with English subtitles, Film. (102 mins.).

Gilpin, Margaret, Luis F. Bernaza. 1994. Estado del Tiempo (Changing tides) Spanish with English subtitles, VHS. (34 mins.).

Hogar de Transito. s.n. En busca de la libertad: hogar de tránsito para los refugiados cubanos. VHS. (27 mins.).

Journeyman Pictures, Inc. 1998. A New Cuban Crisis. VHS. (37 min.).

Leff, Neil M., Mario Ortiz, Norton Rodriguez  2001. Libertad. Miami, FL : Bougainvillea Films, Video & DVD. (110 mins.).

Lopez, Carmen. 2003. Black & Blue: A Rafter’s Journey. Film. ( 59 mins.).

Oller, Rafael. 1995. American Purgatory: 90 Days Behind the Wire at Guantánamo USNB. VHS. (90 mins.).

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Public Documents
Ackerman, Holly. 2006. Cuba: Potential Refugee Crisis? An Assessment. A Writenet Report commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Emergency and Security Services, June 2006. Available from http://www.unhcr.org/home/RSDCOI/44eb2fd44.pdf

Allen, Arthur A. 1996. The Leeway of Cuban Refugee Rafts and a Commercial Fishing Vehicle. Springfield , VA: U.S. Coast Guard Office of Research and Development,

Potocky-Tripodi, Miriam. 2002. Needs Assessment of Cuban and Haitian Refugees, Entrants, and Parolees in South Florida. Contract # LK054, Refugee Services, Florida Department of Children and Families and the Institute for Public Opinion Research, Florida International University. Miami, FL.

Reynolds, Nicholas E. 2003. A Skillful Show of Strength: U.S. Marines in the Caribbean, 1991-1996. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps

State of Florida, HRS:OSRA. 1994. 1994: The Status of Florida's Refugee/Entrant Population, Entrants: Florida's Unique Population.

United States Coast Guard. Alien migrant interdiction statistics. http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opl/amio/AMIO.htm

United States. Congress. House. Committee on International Relations. Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. 1996. The Clinton Administration's Reversal of U.S. Immigration Policy Toward Cuba: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, May 18, 1995. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.

United States. Congress. House Committee on International Relations. Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. 1995. The Cuban March 13th Tugboat Incident: Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, January 25, 1995. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. 1994. Situation in Cuba: Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Third Congress, second session, August 25, 1994. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.

United States. Joint Statement on Normalization of Migration, Building on the Agreement of September 9, 1994; International Legal Materials 35 (March): 327-330. 1996.

United States. Joint statement with the Republic of Cuba on Normalization of Migration, May 2, 1995. Weeky Compilation of Presidential Documents 31 (May 8): 752-753. 1996.

United States. The President's News Conference, August 19, 1994. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 30 (August 22): 1682-1690. 1994.

United States General Accounting Office. 1995. Cuba: U.S. Response to the 1994 Cuban Migration Crisis: Report to Congressional Requesters. Washington, D.C; Gaithersburg, MD.

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Journal Articles
Ackerman, Holly, Guest editor. 2005. Special section, The Cuban Balsero Crisis Ten Years Later, Latino Studies. Vol 3:3, November, 372-428.

______________. 2005. Los balseros: antes y ahora. Encuentro de la cultura cubana 36, no. Spring: 131.

______________. 1996. The Balsero Phenomenon, 1991-1994. Cuban Studies 26: 169.

______________. Protesta social en la Cuba actual: Los balseros de 1994. Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana 3, no. Winter 1996/97: 125.

Aja Díaz, Antonio. 2000. La emigración de Cuba en los años noventa. Cuban Studies 30: 1.

Andrews, Thomas C. Et al. 1997. Self-mutilitation and Malingering Among Cuban Migrants Detained at Guantánamo Bay. The New England Journal of Medicine. 336 No.17 (Apr 24).

Blanco, Juan A. Emigrantes, desterrados, exiliados e opositores: la excepcionalidad de la política migratoria cubana. Encuentro en la red , no. Monday, May 17, 2004: May 23, 2004.

Bonnin, Rodolfo, Chris Brown. 2002. The Cuban Diaspora: A Comparative Analysis of the Search for Meaning among Recent Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 24, no. 4: 465.

Brenner, Philip, P. Kornbluh. 1995. Clinton's Cuba Calculus. NACLA Report on the Americas 29, no. 2: 33.

Campisi, Elizabeth. 2005. Guantánamo: Safe haven or Traumatic Interlude?, The Cuban Balsero Crisis Ten Years Later, Latino Studies. Vol 3:3, November 372.

Colomer, Josep. 2000. Exit, Voice, and Hostility in Cuba. The International Migration Review 34, no. 2: 423.

del Valle, Patricia, Adriana G. McEachern, and Maria Q. Sabina. 1999. Using Drawings and Writings in a Group Counselling Experience with Cuban Rafter Children, 'Los Balseritos'. Guidance & Counseling 14, no. 4: 20.

Falcoff, M. 1995. The Other Cuba. National Review. XLVII, no. 10 (JUN 12): 34-38, 43.

Fowler, Victor. 2002. A Traveler's Album: Variations on Cubanidad. boundary 2 29, no. 3: 105-119. 3407.

Greenhill, Kelly. 2002. Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis. International Migration 40, no. 4: 39.

Henken, Ted. 2005. Balseros, boteros y el bombo: Persistencia de un trato migratorio especial. Encuentro de la cultura cubana 36, no. Spring: 142.

Howe, James C. 1994. Coast Guard Rescues of Cuban migrants. North-South: The Magazine of the Americas 4, no. 2 (09//Sep/Oct94): 48.

Hughes, Joyce. 1999. Flight from Cuba. California Western Law Review. Vol 39 (Fall).

Little, Cheryl. 1999. Inter-group Coalitions and Immigration Politics: The Haitian Experience in Florida. University of Miami Law Review 53, no. 4: 717.

Lyons, David. 1994. Asylum Rule Change Decried. National Law Journal 17, no. September 5: A6.

Masud-Piloto, Félix. 2005. Bienvenidos a Guantánamo: Una perspective histórica. Encuentro de la cultura cubana 36, no. Spring: 121.

McCready, Siobhan. 1994. The Science of Saving Rafters. Sea Frontiers 40, no. 6 (12//): 14.

Nackerud, Larry. Alyson Springer and others. The End of Cuban Contradiction in U.S. Refugee Policy. International Migration Review. 33, no. 1: 176.

Palmer, Gary W. 1997. Guarding the Coast: Alien Migrant Interdiction Operations at Sea. Connecticut Law Review. 29:1565.

Pérez, Marta. 1997. The Varela Centers: An Immigrant Education Program in Response to Cuban Guantánamo Bay Crisis. Migration World Magazine 25, No 3:23.

Pitts, W. D. 1995. A Guantánamo Diary - Operation Sea Signal. JFQ. Autumn 114.

Rieff, David. 1995. From Exiles to Immigrants. Foreign Affairs 74: 76.

Rosendahl, Bruce. 1994. Awaiting Rafters. Sea Frontiers. 40, no. 6: 8.

Rosendahl, Bruce R., Thomas N. Lee. 1993. Roulette in the Straits of Florida. Sea Frontiers. 39, no. 3 (05//May/Jun93): 8.

Rothe, E.M., H. Castillo and others. 1998. Sintomatología post-traumática en niños y adolescentes balseros Cubanos: Una synopsis de tres estudios. Monografias de Psiquiatria. 10, no. 1: 18.

Rothe, Eugenio M., Hector Castillo-Matos, Kim Brinson, John Lewis. 2000. La odisea de los balseros cubanos. Médico Interamericano 19, no. 12: 578.

Rothe, Eugenio M., Hector Castillo-Matos, Ruben Busquets. 1996. Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Cuban Adolescent Refugees During Camp Confinement. Annals of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. 26.

Rothe, Eugenio M., John Lewis, Hector Castillo-Matos and others. 2002. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Cuban Children and Adolescents After Release From a Refugee Camp. Psychiatric Services. 55, no. 8: 970.

Rumbaut, Rubén G. 1976. The Family in Exile: Cuban Expatriates in the United States. The American Journal of Psychiatry.133, no. 4: 395.

Sartori, Mara E. 2001. The Cuban Migration Dilemma: An Examination of the United States' Policy of Temporary Protection in Offshore Safe Havens. Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. 15, no. 1: 319.

Solomon, B. 1994. Clinton's Fast Break on Cuba. National Journal. 26, no. 36: 2044.

Suarez, Virgil. 2000. The Culture of Leaving: Balsero Dreams. Hopscotch: A Cultural Review. 2:2, 2-13.

Turner, Elisa. 1991. Mythic Presence. ARTnews 90. no. 10: 20.

Vanderbush, Walt and Patrick J. Haney. 1999. Policy Toward Cuba in the Clinton Administration. Political Science Quarterly. 114, no. 3: 387.

Vicent, Mauricio. 1994. Éxodo y exilio para los balseros desde Cuba, con dolor. Crónica centroamericana. 341, no. September: 58.

Occasional Papers
Amnesty International. Cuban "Rafters" - Pawns of Two Governments. 1994. Internet on-line. Available from <http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=7916C7D99ECA8040802569A600605620>. May 24, 2004.

Castro, Max J. 2002. The new Cuban immigration in context. North-South Agenda Papers; no. 58, Dante B. Fascell North-South Center, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.

Castro, Max J. 1995. Cuba: the continuing crisis. North-South Agenda Papers ; no.13, Dante B. Fascell North-South Center, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.

Center for Migration Studies. 1984. In defense of the alien: proceedings of the annual National Legal

Conference on Immigration and Refugee Policy.  New York: Center for Migration Studies.

Clark, Juan M. 1977. Why? The Cuban exodus: background, evolution and impact in U. S. A. Miami, FL: Union of Cubans in Exile.

Human Rights Watch/Americas. 1994. Cuba: repression, the exodus of August 1994, and the U.S. response. 18.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo. 1995. Cuba's raft exodus of 1994: causes, settlement, effects, and future. North-South Agenda Papers;  no. 12, Dante B. Fascell North-South Center, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.

Quintana, Míriam. 1995. Migración cubana: crisis de los balseros en el verano de 1994. Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios sobre América, Sección de Información Científica.

Solomon, William S. 1995. Covering Cuba: the balseros crisis, August-September, 1994. In . Washington, DC: Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

U.S. Committee for Refugees. 1996 Following Controversial Repatriation, The Bahamas Permits Cuban Boat People to Apply for Asylum. Refugee Reports 17:5.

Selected Archives -Newspapers from the Refugee Camp at Guantánamo 1994-1996 - Available at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida

El Balsero –One digital copy is available of the first issue at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.

El Bravo – A total of five issues were distributed. All five are available at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.

El Futuro – Original manuscripts available at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.

el éxodo – Twenty five editions were published between November 20, 1994 and September 10, 1995. All original manuscripts are held at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.

Que Pasa? – A weekly, bi-lingual paper edited by the U.S. Military Information Support Team (MIST) for circulation to the rafters. U.M.’s Cuban Heritage Collection has many issues.

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Last updated July 1, 2007