Abstract
This thesis focuses on Cuban emigration as a driving force behind the transnational relationship existing between Cuba and the United States, as it has served as the basis for relations between the two countries since 1959. This thesis will emphasize the impact that the emigration of Cubans, in the post-1980 period, affected and altered both Cuban society and the Cuban-American community in the United States. In particular, the analysis focuses on answering questions such as how do Cubans, on and off the island, maintain ties with one another and at the same time maintain a transnational link between countries through emigration? A larger question, and one that figures central to the field of Cuban studies, is how have these mass migrations of Cubans affected and forever changed Cuban identity and society? Emigration, since 1959, but more so after the 1980s, is an important part of the ways in which emigration has influenced notions of Cuban identity. These waves are an important part of the narrative, a factor which oscillates back and forth between the United States and Cuba. This thesis emphasizes the ways in which both U.S. migration and Cuban emigration are reciprocal components of a much larger Cuban transnationality.
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