The Exile by David Rieff

From the Publisher

David Rieff

David Rieff is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of seven previous books, including the acclaimed At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention; A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis; and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He lives in New York City.

Publishers Weekly

In this sensitive and engrossing discourse, Rieff ( Going to Miami ) describes the 33-year-long exile in Miami which many Cubans are beginning to recognize may actually be immigration. For these Cubans, Havana is still the center of the world, but their nostalgia is for the spiritual capital of la Cuba de ayer , that sophisticated, chic, intellectual, artistic and, most importantly, pre-Castro city they now mythologize and try to reconstitute in the streets of Miami. Though cleaving fiercely to their Cuban origins and constantly dreaming of return, many have become more American than they realize, and there is now a second generation whose native home is Miami, observes the author. Rieff accompanied one couple on a brief visit to Havana, and he describes their surprise on finding that they had become Americans after all. ``We Cubans have become a different people in America,'' says the wife, ``and what I learned during our trip to Cuba is that they have become different down there too . . . the truth is that we are never going back.'' While his subject is the Cubans in Miami, Rieff uses the differences between their migration and that of other immigrants--particularly the Jewish diaspora--to give striking insights into the common pain of all exiles. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Updating Thomas D. Boswell and James R. Curtis's The Cuban-American Experience ( LJ 6/1/84), journalist Rieff ( Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World , S. & S., 1991) assesses the present social processes in Cuban American Miami. Past immigrants had come to the United States to stay, but Rieff shows that the motto of Miami's Cubans was ``Next year in Havana.'' More economic than political refugees (Castro's ``New Man'' demanded sacrifice from the more successful), their success here depended on their doing what they did best--making money. As Rieff demonstrates, they also saw to it that we heard only their side, not about the excesses of Batista. Although most Cuban immigrants are or will become U.S. citizens, their sympathies lie elsewhere, and one is left to wonder if the balkanization of America by such groups is good. A thorough investigation for current events collections.-- Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville

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