INT 388 – Cuban Migration
You will be responsible for writing a substantial (4,000-5,000 word) research paper in the form of a case study of voluntary or forced migration. This paper will be due on Wednesday, March 18, no later than 9:15 p.m. There are a number of stages in the production of this paper:
First, select a suitably narrow research topic that focuses on a manageable case or a set of related events. See the appendix to this syllabus for exemplary topics and chapters 1 and 2 of Turabian for help in choosing a topic. Narrowed research topics are to be turned in by the beginning of class on Wednesday, January 14. This assignment will count for five percent of your final grade.
Once you have found a topic, you need to find quality sources for your research. Quality sources include HYPERLINK “http://www.princeton.edu/refdesk/primary2.html” primary sources, books published by academic presses and substantial articles published by peer-reviewed journals. Assemble as complete a bibliography as you can on your topic and turn it in by the beginning of class on Wednesday, January 21. DO NOT limit your bibliography to sources you know you will use. The aim here is to assemble as complete a bibliography as possible, then select the most pertinent sources from that bibliography. See chapters 3 of Turabian on how to find sources and chapters 15, 18, and 19 for assistance with proper citation. This assignment will count for ten percent of your final grade.
Begin to read your sources and select the most important ones for your paper. As you read, think about the argument you want to make in your research paper. What is your main point, and why do you think its true? Craft a concise (no more than 250 word) explanation of your main argument. Turn in this statement of your main thesis by the beginning of class on Wednesday, January 28. This assignment will count for five percent of your final grade.
Then create an outline for your paper that develops your main argument. Someone who reads this outline should be able to figure out how you plan to develop and present your argument. At each step in your outline, indicate the main sources of evidence for that part of your argument. Turn in your outline by the beginning of class on Wednesday, February 4. See chapters 4-6 of Turabian for help. This assignment will count for ten percent of your final grade.
Now is the time to write a rough draft of your paper. Do not worry at this point about uncorrected grammatical mistakes, mistakes in punctuation, or imperfect citation. The point of this draft is to get the results of your research on paper. The rough draft should be not less than 2,000 words long. Turn in your rough draft by the beginning of class on Wednesday, February 18. This assignment will count for ten percent of your final grade.
I will return your rough drafts with comments no later than Wednesday, February 25. A second draft of your paper is due by the beginning of class on Wednesday, March 4. This is not to be a rough draft. It should be complete, grammatically correct, formatted in proper academic style, and not less than 2,500 words long. See chapter 7 of Turabian for help. This assignment will count for ten percent of your final grade.
I will return your second drafts with comments no later than Wednesday, March 11. The final version of your paper is due by 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18. See chapters 9-11 of Turabian for help. This assignment will count for twenty percent of your final grade.
These were the instructions for the paper; the paper is already done just need fixing which i will post on the writer board ASAP.
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Added on 05.03.2015 10:44
Here is the paper to be edited – here is what my doctors wants me to fix.
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Added on 05.03.2015 10:45
Wow! This is one big brain dump! That”s appropriate at this stage. Now the question is how to focus and structure this.
Let”s start with your executive summary, which does pose a central question: why did so many Cubans try to leave during the Mariel Boatlift? The answer you give in the executive summary (freedom and ideology) is different from the answer you give in your conclusion (freedom and economics), whereas the analysis in your paper focuses on economics.
The figures in your paper propose one clear answer to the question of why so many people left Cuba during the boatlift. Decade after decade following the revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have left for the United States. The U.S. destination is easy to understand. The U.S. is close, offers the prospect of a high standard of living, and welcomes migrants from Cuba (though that has changed a bit over time). Why the spike in 1980? Again, there is a ready answer – for several months in 1980 the Cuban government waived its stringent exit requirements, inviting anyone who wanted to leave to get on a boat and do so.
So there wasn”t really some big change in the level of political freedom or in Cuban standards of living in 1980 that accounts for the spike in emigration. What it really reflects is pent-up demand for emigration, previously blocked by the requirement to gain permission to leave.
The question then becomes – why this longstanding demand for emigration from Cuba to the US? It probably varies over time. The early wave (1959-62) couldn”t plausibly be attributed to economic difficulties. Assuming you”re right that the Castro regime wrecked the Cuban economy, it didn”t do so right away. So perhaps the motivation of the first migrants was political: they didn”t like the new government”s ideology (which was in transition during this time, since Castro”s political movement was originally distinct from Cuba”s communist party), or they were part of the elite and used to running the place and objected to sharing power, or they saw their economic prospects as less bright (different from already experiencing economic difficulty), etc.
The question then is – what about later? The Cuban government has always been repressive, but it has not been at a constant level of repression. Repression was worst in the earliest years, as the new regime was settling scores with holdovers from the Batista regime or consolidating power in the face of potential internal contenders.
(Note, by the way, that the Batista regime was also a dictatorship, so it would be wrong to say that the people who fled in the early years left because they were ideologically opposed to dicatatorship per se. They managed to accommodate themselves to an earlier dictatorial regime, after all).
Repression never went away, but it lessened in force as the Castro regime consolidated power. It was always a presence in people”s lives, to be sure. Committees for the Defense of the Revolution were found everywhere, and they were liable to report dissenters to the authorities, so people felt the pressure. At the same time, the number of political prisoners gradually declined into the dozens, so it couldn”t be said that Cuba was one of the most brutally repressive regimes on the planet.
Economic effects over the long term were also varied. You”re right that Cuba had a high average standard of living in the 1950s, but it wasn”t evenly distributed. The elite lived very well, and the poor lived very badly. Cuba may have been able to feed everyone on the island and more, but that doesn”t mean that everyone ate adequately, or had adequate health care, housing, education, etc. One of the early changes in the Castro regime was the opening up of a basic standard of living to everyone. Some of those gains of the revolution never went away. Cuba still has very good indicators when it comes to education and health, even though average income is low.
When it comes to average income, it”s more accurate to say that it has stagnated since the revolution than to say that it has fallen. Still, if your income stagnates while incomes rise in other countries, you”re going to feel poor. There were also periods of real economic hardship, especially the years after 1990 when Cuba lost its sub
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