Reflection Post #3

After hearing the second lecture from Professor Stern about HIV/AIDS in the Latino community I was able to draw a lot of connections to the topic of the Cuban migrations presented by Professor Pedraza earlier this semester. These connections deal mainly with the third wave of Cuban migrations (Los Marielitos) and the AIDS outbreak that followed shortly in the 1980s. The third wave of the Cuban exodus was dominated by single males, many of them being homosexual. These men wanted to leave Cuba mostly because of political persecution much like the people in the other waves, but also probably because of some discrimination based on sexual orientation. Reinaldo Arenas follows this pattern because he mainly wanted to leave Cuba to escape the Communist government that didn’t allow him to openly write and publish his works. A less significant, but still important reason for his wish to depart from Cuba was because he was labeled as a dissident for openly declaring his homosexuality. Arenas and many of the other Marielitos left Cuba to escape one type of persecution only to be faced with another potent type of discrimination in America. Instead of being political prisoners, the Marielitos along with the rest of the homosexual community in America was stigmatized by the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. The fear that followed the outbreak of HIV/AIDS had very negative affects for the homosexual community and especially for the Marielitos. It must have been almost impossible for the Marielitos to adjust to new culture, language, and set of values, while being basically quarantined by heterosexual Americans. So little was known about HIV/AIDS when the outbreaks first occurred and I think that many people probably avoided openly homosexual males at all costs for fear of contracting the disease. People like Reinaldo Arenas were allowed to speak, publish, and record their ideas freely, but at the cost of being alienated from the very people that they were trying to reach with their message. Arenas was eventually able to obtain critical acclaim, but only after his death and after the initial hysteria surrounding HIV/AIDS had died down. All of the people involved in the four waves of Cuban migrations experienced extreme hardship both before and after the migration, but I think that Marielitos had to overcome more discrimination than any other wave. The fear of the unknown in America crippled the Marielitos in terms of both ignorance towards the culture and lifestyle of the immigrants as well as the lack of education surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic.