Voices from Mariel. Los Marielitos, Then and Now

Description

In 1980, five people in need of political asylum crashed a bus through the gates of the Peruvian embassy in Havana, where they were quickly joined by more than 10,000 additional asylum-seekers. Fearing a coup, Fidel Castro proclaimed that any Cuban who wished to emigrate to the United States could board a boat at the nearby port of Mariel and leave. Over the next few months, nearly 125,000 people fled the country in hundreds of boats, including convicts and homeless people forced to go along as well - Castro's "parting gift" to the emigrants and America. Told through the previously unrecorded stories of ten Cuban-American families, Voices from Mariel examines the legacy of Los Marielitos and considers where that short but dangerous trip across the Straits of Florida has taken them in the decades since the Mariel boatlift.

Runtime

80 min

Subjects

Geography

Genre

Date of Publication

[2012], c2011

Database

Films on Demand

Direct Link