The Colombian Diaspora in South Florida
A Report of the Colombian Studies Institute’s Colombian Diaspora Project
Florida International University
Latin American and Caribbean Center
Principal Investigators:Michael W. CollierEduardo A. GamarraResearch Team:Cristyn CaseyJesus FelizzolaNatalia FrancoAlejandro GarcíaJohn Britt HuntPatricia MicoltaBetilde MuñozHeather Robertson
Prepared for delivery at the 2003 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Dallas, Texas, March 27-29, 2003
1Introduction.1Colombia is in crisis.2An ongoing undeclared Civil War, encompassing widespread guerilla and drug-related violence, combined with economic recession during the late-1990s, have brought turmoil to this South American state. Colombia’s political and economic instability has resulted in tens of thousands of Colombian citizens being displaced from their home communities. Many Colombian peasants are fleeing rural areas, where fighting between guerillas, paramilitaries, and government forces is the most intense. Many of these rural residents are relocating to internal refugee camps or to the shantytowns surrounding Colombia’s largest cities. Other Colombian peasants are escaping the instability by crossing international borders to become refugees in neighboring Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. Additionally, Colombians with financial means are migrating to other states, principally Costa Rica, Spain, and the United States. A significant number of Colombians, estimates ranging as high as 200,000 to 300,000, have migrated to the United States in just the past few years. Three significant conditions characterize the Colombian migration to the United States in the last few years. First, the migrants include a proportionally larger percentage of persons from the middle and upper-middle classes, including professionals from all sectors of Colombian society.
Second, a larger proportion of the Colombian migrants are remaining in South Florida (Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties). Third, the latest wave of migrants does not intend to return to Colombia until the political and economic instability subsides. The impact of the increasing number of Colombian migrants in South Florida raises significant policy issues that U.S. federal and State of Florida decision-makers cannot long ignore.South Florida is no stranger to large influxes of political and economic migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. The recent arrival of increasing numbers of Colombians is similar to several influxes of migrants experienced by South Florida over the last 40 years. Cuban migrants began flooding the region after Fidel Castro’s 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. Over 650,000 Cubans now reside in South Florida. The 1980s politicalunrest in Central America led to tens of thousands of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans migrating to South Florida. The region is also a favorite destination of migrants from Haiti and other Caribbean island states. Significant numbers of Peruvians and other South Americans, including Brazilians, have also chosen South Florida as their final destination. More recently, socio-political unrest in Ecuador and Venezuela has resulted in the flow of their citizens toward South Florida. The “push” of Latin American political and economic instability, combined with the “pull” of South Florida as the “Gateway to the Americas” has changed the region’s demographics to one of a vibrant patchwork of ethnically segregated Latin American and Caribbean neighborhoods.31This study is based on research conducted in 2000-2001.2See Summit of the Americas Center, Colombia, Conflicto armado, perspectives de paz y democracia (Miami, FL: FIU Latin American and Caribbean Center, 2001) and Independent Task Force, Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue, Bob Graham and Brent Scowcroft, Co-Chairs and Michael Shifter, Project Director, Toward Greater Peace and Security in Colombia (Washington DC: Inter-American Dialogue, 2000).3See Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge, The Transformation of Miami (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993).
2The latest Colombian migrants arriving in South Florida compare their situation to those of other groups escaping political and economic turmoil. Many see the personal threats to Colombians from their home state’s guerillas, paramilitaries, common criminals, and government security forces, as more severe than the threats under which other Latin American and Caribbean groups came before them. Others blame the current turmoil in Colombia on failed U.S. counter-drug policies and widespread corruption in the Colombian government. Caught in the bureaucratic debate of whether they are political or economic migrants, the Colombians arriving in South Florida are becoming increasingly frustrated as they attempt to establish their U.S. legal status and rebuild their lives in South Florida.This paper is a preliminary report on a larger research project on the Colombian Diaspora in South Florida.4It begins with a description of the conditions within the Colombian Diaspora in South Florida. Colombian-American service organizations and members of the latest Colombian migrant wave to reach South Florida provided the majority of this information. The paper then addresses the potential economic, political, and social impacts of the Colombian Diaspora on SouthFlorida. Finally, it assesses whether the Colombian Diaspora in South Florida presents a case of normal “push-pull” immigration, where the migrant group breaks most ties with the home state, or is the Colombian Diaspora a case of transnational migration, where migrants maintain strong economic, political, and social networks in both their home and new host states.5The Colombian Diaspora in South Florida.Colombian migration to the United States and South Florida can be characterized in three periods or inter-related waves.The first wave of Colombian migration to the United States corresponded with the 1950s’ La Violencia, the political war between the Colombian Conservative and Liberal political parties that cost over 200,000 lives. This initial wave continued after the end of La Violencia in the late-1950s and lasted until the late-1970s. All socio-economic classes were involved in this initial wave; however, the majority was from the lower and lower-middle classes who were looking to escape the political violence and searching for economic opportunities. Migrants in this period were primarily young male adults who were either accompanied by or later joined by their families. Once La Violencia ended in 1958, the migration continued at a slower pace, but was still mainly from the lower and lower-middle classes as they sought economic opportunity in the United States. Those migrating from the middle, upper-middle, and upper classes during this period were not only in search of economic opportunity, but were also reportedly risk-takers looking for “adventure” in the United States. Most migrants during this period came from the larger interior 4The majority of the material in this paper was collected from extensive interviews and focus groups. Interviews were conducted from October to December 2000 by FIU graduate researchers with approximately 40 Colombian community leaders residing in South Florida. These leaders included the Miami Colombian Consul, heads of several Colombian-American service and business organizations, and managers of Colombian media outlets in South Florida. Focus groups were conducted in March 2001 with Colombian migrants arriving in South Florida within the last 3-4 years.5See Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo, and Patricia Landolt, “The study or transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (March 1999), pp. 217-237.
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http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/Lasa2003/CollierMichael.pdf
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