ABSTRACT

The Mariel Boat-lift represents the largest immigrant humanitarian crisis to ever hit an American city. This paper traces the history of this humanitarian crisis in the City of Miami to consider how comprehensive planners were involved in the collection of demographic data and the empowerment of Cuban Americans. Comprehensive planners had to confront the absence of demographic data as they sought to deal with the physical and social impacts of the refugee influx. The Boatlift took place immediately after efforts to conduct the 1980 U.S. Census, and its effect was to dramatically disrupt any new understanding of Miami’s urban population, its locations and needs. Nevertheless, the collection, recording, and interpretation of demographic data during and after the Mariel Boatlift eventually played a crucial role in energizing an apparatus of Cuban-American community development and a new framework that justified not only political-asylum policies but also provisions and services empowering new trends in political representation at the local level. Miami thus offers a historical case study of how the work of comprehensive planners may become politicized through episodes of humanitarian crisis, community response, and ethnic empowerment. The history of the Mariel Boatlift and the response of comprehensive planners advance understanding of political change in cities and the role of urban spaces, immigrant groups, and comprehensive planners in bringing about ethnic empowerment.

摘要

Mariel Boat-lift 是美国城市有史以来最大的移民人道主义危机。本文追溯了迈阿密市这场人道主义危机的历史，以考虑综合规划者如何参与人口数据的收集和古巴裔美国人的赋权。综合规划者在设法应对难民涌入的身体和社会影响时，不得不面对人口数据的缺失。在努力进行 1980 年美国人口普查之后，Boatlift 立即发生，其影响是极大地破坏了对迈阿密城市人口、位置和需求的任何新理解。尽管如此，收集、记录、Mariel Boatlift 期间和之后的人口数据解释最终在激发古巴裔美国人社区发展机制和新框架方面发挥了至关重要的作用，该框架不仅证明了政治庇护政策的合理性，而且还证明了赋予政治代表权新趋势的规定和服务地方层面。因此，迈阿密提供了一个历史案例研究，说明综合规划者的工作如何通过人道主义危机、社区响应和民族赋权事件而变得政治化。Mariel Boatlift 的历史和综合规划者的反应促进了对城市政治变革以及城市空间、移民群体和综合规划者在实现民族赋权方面的作用的理解。