For over half a century the US granted Cubans, one of the largest immigrant groups in the country, unique entitlements. While other unauthorized immigrants faced detention, deportation, and no legal rights, Cuban immigrants were able to enter the country without authorization, and have access to welfare benefits and citizenship status. This book is the first to reveal the full range of entitlements granted to Cubans. Initially privileged to undermine the Castro-led revolution in the throes of the Cold War, one US President after another extended new entitlements, even in the post-Cold War era. Drawing on unseen archives, interviews, and survey data, Cuban Privilege highlights how Washington, in the process of privileging Cubans, transformed them from agents of US Cold War foreign policy into a politically powerful force influencing national policy. Comparing the exclusionary treatment of neighboring Haitians, the book discloses the racial and political biases embedded within US immigration policy.

Winner, 2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles

'Susan Eckstein has given the first comprehensive account of U.S. immigration policy’s treatment of Cubans, who for more than half a century enjoyed incredible privileges compared to other immigrants. Her account is an indispensable road map for understanding the growth of the Cuban diaspora in the United States and how it came to enjoy a powerful place in American politics.'

William M. LeoGrande - American University

'A fascinating account of how Cuban immigrants’ success resulted from decades of policies that worked to their advantage. Eckstein also convincingly reveals how immigration policies do much more than regulate entrance and exit. They double as foreign policy and social welfare policy and once they are in place, they are very hard to reverse. Rigorously researched and historically grounded, this book adds a new, important twist to debates on why immigrant integration and social mobility come easily to some groups and evade others.'

Peggy Levitt - Wellesley College and Harvard University

'In Cuban Privilege, Susan Eckstein lays bare the political origins of Cubans’ preferential access to immigration visas and federal entitlements in America’s Cold War politics, enabling them not only to create a prosperous economic enclave but also a potent electoral block that compelled successive governments to maintain and even expand their privileges over nearly six decades. After reading the book, one is compelled to ask not why other immigrants can’t be more like Cubans, but why the government can’t treat other groups like Cubans.'

Douglas S. Massey - Princeton University

'Cuban Privilege is the story of how eleven presidents from Eisenhower to Obama accorded Cuban immigrants privileges denied to all other immigrants. By contrasting the different treatment afforded to Dominican and Haitian immigrants, Eckstein demonstrates the interplay of race, foreign policy and politics in our immigration system. A terrific history and sociology of immigration policy, this book is a window into the realities of America’s messy and unequal immigration policies. Must reading for the immigration expert and the general reader alike.'

Mary C. Waters - Harvard University

'an exhaustive, authoritative study'

Richard Feinberg Source: Foreign Affairs

‘… Cuban Privilege is an exceptionally well-researched work and it will no doubt become the book of record concerning Cuban immigration to the United States.’

César J. Ayala Source: ReVista

‘Cuban Privilege will likely be the authoritative text on the making of immigrant inequality in the US and will be an exceptional complement to Latin American studies literature and ethnic studies courses. … Highly recommended.’

T. M. Montoya Source: Choice

‘[Eckstein] help[s] explain why Cuba is today teetering on the brink and to signal the urgent need to chart a new way forward.’

Jean Stubbs Source: New West Indian Guide