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Fleeing Fidel & Finding Florida:
The Mariel Boatlift an Immigration Breakthrough

Penalver's Perspective

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"Image of Dr. Rafael Penalver" (Penalver, Video Interview).

 Our Interview with Dr. Penalver

Dr. Rafael Penalver: "I am a human rights actvist who targeted discrimination and violation of freedoms through my 15 years of pro bono legal efforts that led to the future challenging of indefinite detention in Clark v. Martinez." 

Amanda Mickler, Amy Heaton, Julia Lubitz 

"Mr. Rafael Penalver with the knives used by Cubans who took officers captive" (Penalver, Video Interview).

❝Oh my gosh, it broke so many barriers. It broke so, so many barriers in the Cuban Exile Community."

-Dr. Rafael Penalver

Dr. Rafael Penalver Interview Transcript

❝It broke the barrier of the artist's population. A new form of art has developed in Cuba over the years of the revolution between 1916, 1959, and 1980 that was transposed here."

-Dr. Rafael Penalver

"Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center is home to one of the largest privately owned Cuban art collections in the world" (Hunter McRae, Exploring Little Havana’s Calle Ocho, The New York Times, 7 April 2016).

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❝I felt that the United States in the long run was trying to do the right thing. They didn't understand the human community here that don't understand the whole situation, the Washington authorities. And it took a person like Bishop and perhaps me because I was ignorant to the bigger picture. If I had known the details of immigration, perhaps I would not have entered this because I would have been perhaps also bogged by the technicalities of the immigration law."
- Dr. Rafael Penalver 

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

"Stephen Kulieke (center bottom) with Cuban refugees at Fort McCoy, WIsconsin. Printed in  GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: 'GayLife's Stephen Kulieke became the darling of the refugees. They followed him all day as he shot all the photos of Fort McCoy.' From the Thom Higgins papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul" (Britt Aamodt, Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, MNOPEDIA, 9 August 2019).

❝There were many gays in the existing Mariel population. People who express themselves, you know, waste the exile  community, had not seen much of before extravagant...gayness...dress, something that Cuba despised and that's why they were placed on those boats to get rid of them."

-Dr. Rafael Penalver

"Higgins and Brockway wanted to help the gay men detained at Fort McCoy. No refugee could leave the fort without an American sponsor. Religious organizations were drumming up sponsors in the Twin Cities, but their priority was resettling Cuban families. That doomed single gay men to indefinite detainment in a facility with rampant sexual assault."

"Founded in Minneapolis by activists Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway, the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force helped ninety gay Cuban men fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro find new homes in Minnesota in the summer of 1980"

(Britt Aamodt, Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, MNOPEDIA, 9 August 2019).

"Sponsorship meeting announcement" (Britt Aamodt, Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, MNOPEDIA, 9 August 2019).

"Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force roster" (Britt Aamodt, Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, MNOPEDIA, 9 August 2019).

"Inside Fort McCoy after the Mariel Boatlift" (Britt Aamodt, Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, MNOPEDIA, 9 August 2019).


"Just because it is legal does not make it right."- Christine Dahl Federal Public Defender

Court Cases