Word: marielitos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Caribbean and South America. He forays among Cuban exiles and their U.S.-born children to talk to writers, artists, intellectuals and yuccas (young, up-and-coming Cuban Americans). He is impressed by their energy, ambition and sense of humor. Among the local jokes is this one about the marielitos, jailbirds and misfits that Fidel Castro unloaded on the U.S. in | 1980: "A marielito is driving along on Interstate 95 when he gets a flat tire. He pulls over and starts to change it. A second marielito stops behind him, gets out, and asks: 'What's up? Need any help...
...hads" (los tenia) because so many of their sentences supposedly begin "In Cuba, I had . . ." These Cubans in turn contrast themselves with others who fled in the 1980 boatlift from the port of Mariel, a minority of whom had been inmates of prisons or mental hospitals. The word Marielito, flung by one Cuban American at another, can be a fighting insult...
...dark face of Mariel continues to overshadow the scene. In December, Universal Studios will release Scarface, a film featuring Actor Al Pacino as a Marielito drug dealer. Despite that land of negative image, the honest Cubans working hard in their new home seem to have faith that the true picture of the Marielitos will emerge. "The spirit of the Cuban boat people has not been beaten," says Cuban Artist Alberto de Lama. "They are not an amorphous mass. They are a much suffering people, with deep fears, desperate hopes and dreams of freedom." Says Miami Assistant City Manager Cesar Odio...
Violent crime Marielito-style came to dominate the district slowly, as Castro's ex-inmates moved in from Miami. The new arrivals overran a 25-block area around the intersection of Wilshire and Alvarado. Their criminal specialties are small time: purse snatchings, storefront stickups, car thefts, burglaries. What distinguishes the offenses, however, is the viciousness with which they are carried out. When a robbery victim gave up his wallet to Cuban attackers but refused to yield his ring, they hung him from an iron fence by his hand. The ring came off; so did a finger. When...
...Marielito arrests are so numerous and so frequent that police have given up trying to keep track of them. Last year Los Angeles police had to abandon a purse-snatching stakeout across from the park 20 minutes after setting it up. They caught so many offenders that they ran out of arresting officers. Even those who are apprehended show surprising fearlessness and contempt for the law. "For guys used to standing in a four-by-four cell all day, our prisons are like country clubs," observes Detective Alvarez. Many in the police force feel overwhelmed. The situation, says Plainclothes Patrolman...