Defining the Haitian boat people as economic rather than political refugees allowed the United States to refuse asylum to thousands of Haitians and raised serious questions about human rights standards and treatment of refugees in the United States.

What may have been the world’s most closely watched custody battle became a cause célèbre that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, strained U.S.-Cuba relations, and had future political repercussions.

The first person of African descent to galvanize black people throughout the world with the idea of returning to Africa, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which sought to deliver African Americans from injustice, encourage racial self-improvement, and promote a back-to-Africa movement.

The airlift of hundreds of thousands of Cuban migrants to the United States increased the size and political strength of the Cuban American community while furthering the Cold War foreign policy goals of the United States.

Although the West Indian island nation of the Dominican Republic had a close relationship with the United States through much of the twentieth century, significant Dominican immigration into the United States did not begin until the latter part of the century.

The leading writer of the Haitian diaspora, Danticat memorably conveys the struggles and identity crises of Haitian immigrants, the grim poverty and political oppression of their homeland, their mistreatment in the United States, and their vibrant language and popular culture.

The overwhelming majority of Cubans who have immigrated into the United States have settled in Florida, whose political, economic, and cultural life they have transformed.