BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO
More so than any other wave, the Mariel exodus included a significant number of blacks from the island. As many as 22 percent of the new refugees were black, according to some scholarly studies -- a higher proportion than ever before.
``That's what defines our exodus,'' says Natividad Torres, a black Cuban who left with her husband and 7-year-old son. ``Before Mariel, people in the United States didn't know there were blacks in Cuba. Most of the immigration had been white.''
Until 1980, blacks had remained largely faithful to the Cuban revolution, which constantly boasted of the social benefits it had brought them.
``In Cuba, we were hammered with the exaggerated propaganda of the racial discrimination in the United States. They told us that when a black arrived here, they would let the dogs loose at the airport,'' says Torres, who worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Education in Havana. ``But the Cuban crisis came to such a point that we said, `No more,' and we left in droves to see for ourselves.''
Her view of the United States? ``I found the dogs tied and bound,'' she says. ``Some were loose, but they had been vaccinated. I found a great deal of discrimination, and a great deal of rejection.''
She says she felt the sting of disapproval of her mixed-race marriage (her husband at the time was white). And she had difficulties landing a job in Miami that would match her university education in information technology.
In exile, Torres has turned to her religion, santeria, and now earns a modest living as a consultant on the Yoruba culture. She is often called to speak at conferences.
Torres says black Cubans and their contributions are not given enough of a voice in discussions about the exile community.
She calls it ``the white silent noise.'' ``It's as if we didn't exist,'' Torres says. ``A lot of emphasis is placed on the Hispanic angle, but the origin of our music is black and our soul and our roots are black.''
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald