Research Catalog

Escape to Miami : an oral history of the Cuban rafter crisis

Title

Escape to Miami : an oral history of the Cuban rafter crisis / Elizabeth Campisi.

Author

Campisi, Elizabeth, 1961-

Publication

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]
©2016

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 16-10816	Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121

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Details

Description

xii, 214 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"Escape to Miami is an oral history of the experience of detainees from Guantanamo during the 1994-1996 Cuban Rafter Crisis. Through life history interviews, the book offers the gripping stories of twelve rafters while also providing a study of group-level trauma and coping. Though important as an oral history, the examination of camp culture makes the project an innovative contribution to the field of anthropology as Campisi argues that coping with trauma experiences as a group can create new cultural forms"--
"While the Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is well-known for its infamous prison camp, few people are aware of its prior use as an immigrant detention center for Haitian and Cuban refugees. Beginning in August 1994, the United States government declared that thousands of Cubans who had launched themselves into the Florida Straits on rickety rafts were 'illegal refugees' and sent them to join over fifteen thousand Haitians already being held on Guantánamo after fleeing a violent coup in Haiti. Escape to Miami recounts the gripping stories of the rafters who were detained in Guantánamo during the 1994-1996 Cuban Rafter Crisis. After working in the camps for a year as an employee of the U.S. Justice Department, Elizabeth Campisi conducted life history interviews with twelve of the rafters, chronicling their departures from Cuba, their rafting trips, life on the base, and their initial experiences in Cuban Miami. Through these remarkable narratives, the book details the ways in which the rafters used creative expression, such as performance and artwork, to cope with the traumas they experienced in the camp. Campisi explores these coping mechanisms, showing that, when people work through individually-traumatic experiences as a group, the new meanings they create during that process can come together to change existing cultures or create new ones. Vivid and engaging, Escape to Miami gives voice to the untold stories of Guantánamo. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in policy, Latin American history, and human rights"--

Series Statement

Oxford oral history series

Uniform Title

Oxford oral history series.

Subject

Genre/Form

Biography.
Case studies.
History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-206) and index.

Contents

No more Mariels: history and the rafter crisis -- Post-Cold War Cuba: the special period, disaffection, and esape -- GITMO: from Navy base to immigration detention center -- Coping in the camps: toward individual and collective resilience -- Creative expression in the camps -- Resolving a different kind of rafter crisis.

Call Number

JFE 16-10816

ISBN

9780199946877
0199946876

LCCN

2015044421

OCLC

932116091
932116091

Author

Campisi, Elizabeth, 1961- author.

Title

Escape to Miami : an oral history of the Cuban rafter crisis / Elizabeth Campisi.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]

Copyright Date

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Oxford oral history series

Oxford oral history series.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-206) and index.

Chronological Term

Since 1990

Research Call Number

JFE 16-10816

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