On Immigration to the U.S.

An excerpt from the book:
CUBA: A Short History
Drawn from the Cambridge History of Latin America
Edited by Leslie Bethell, Cambridge University Press
Page 100

From 1960 to 1962 net out-migration from Cuba amounted to about 200,000 people, or an unprecedented average of well over 60,000 per year. Most emigrants came from the economic and social elite, the adult males typically being professionals, managers and executives, although they also included many white-collar workers. On the other hand, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers were under-represented relative to their share of the work force, and rural Cuba was virtually absent from this emigration. This upper-middle- and middle-class urban emigration was also disproportionately white. Henceforth, a part of the history of the Cuban people would unfold in the United States. The first wave of emigrants, in part because they could transfer their skills to new workplaces, would experience relative economic and social success over the next thirty years. Politically, they would constitute a strong anti-communist force often sharply at odds with prevailing political opinion among other Spanish-speaking communities in the United States.

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