The Magnetism of Miami: Segmented Paths in Cuban Migration

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Miami is the primate city in a system of urban settlements that make up a Cuban ethnic archipelago in the United States. The city is also a national magnet, attracting Cuban migrants from metropolitan regions across the archipelago. Four large secondary cores of Cubans outside Florida serve as major “feeders” to the Miami enclave: northern New Jersey, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Currents of migration to Miami are especially strong among older, foreign-born, and disadvantaged Cubans, an indication of segmented paths in Cuban assimilation. Although concentration in Metropolitan Miami has been the Cuban story over the past three decades, processes of deconcentration now may well be under way.