Miami 1980
A history research project into the year of the Mariel boatlift and the McDuffie riots by Journalist John Dorschner.
This photo appeared in the July-August 1980 issue of BOLO, the magazine of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association. No photo credit given, but apparently taken by a fellow police officer in a devastated section of Liberty City.
I’ve updated the 1980 timeline, mostly adding Mariel-Cuba-US dates that seem to show that the McDuffie case and Mariel were two powerful forces, heading along parallel tracks. One example: Saturday, May 17: In the morning hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched against the U.S. Interest Section in Havana. U.S. Customs announced seizing 97 ships in…
My Miami 1980 research has led to a Miami Herald story: “The tumultuous Mariel refugee influx of 1980 is back in the news — this time at the core of a roiling debate about whether immigrants hurt less-educated native-born workers. The heated arguments focus on the new work of a Cuban-born Harvard…
Were Mariel and the riots of 1980 related? Was it possible for two huge events to hit a city in a single year that were completely unrelated, and if they were unrelated, what does that say about the city? Some keen observers, such as author Marvin Dunn, don’t believe that the riots were sparked by…