What is "balseros"

n. (plural of balsero English)

Balseros (Spanish: Rafters) is a 2002 Catalan documentary co-directed by Carles Bosch and Josep Maria Domènech about Cubans leaving during the Período Especial.

As a consequence of the widespread poverty that came with the end of economic support from the former USSR, 37,191 Cubans left Cuba in 1994, unimpeded by the Cuban government, using anything they could find or build to get to Florida in the United States. Most left with improvised rafts, which were often not seaworthy, and some even hijacked a ferry.

The documentary consists largely of interviews with the rafters ("Balseros"), over the course of seven years the lives of seven of those refugees, from the building of their rafts to their attempts at building new lives in the United States, giving insight into daily life in Cuba and the USA in those days.

The documentary is 2 hours long. The first half is filmed in Cuba, with in the end some scenes of the rafters' months long detention in Guantanamo Bay, where lotteries were used to decide who would be allowed to go to the US. All the while, their families didn't know their whereabouts. The last hour is about the lives of those who managed to get to the USA. These people were filmed again five years later, showing their difficulties adapting to a new type of society and the resulting homesickness, a "human adventure of people who are shipwrecked between two worlds".

Balseros (Rafters, from the Spanish "Balsa", Raft) is the name given to the persons who emigrate illegally in self constructed or precarious vessels from Cuba to neighbouring states including the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and, most commonly, the United States. The Cuban Rafters, almost always disagree with communism and the Cuban government of the Castro Family. On July 31 1964 5 cubans leave cuba on a home made raft consisting of only 8 truck inner tubes and bamboo poles tied together.

Mass Cuban emigration to the United States is seen as having had four waves. The first wave before the Cuban Missile Crisis ended travel. The second wave was 1965-1973. The 1980 Mariel Boatlift was the third wave.

Some scholars regard the August 1994 Cuban Rafters Crisis as the fourth wave of Cuban immigration. The 1994 Balseros Crisis was ended by the agreement of the Wet feet, dry feet policy between Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro.

During the 1994 Cuban Rafter Crisis, the most commonly observed raft from the US tanker Coastal New York was constructed of 2 doors atop large truck tire inner tubes, with the doors connected by 2"x4" wooden beams. A rudimentary 2-3m mast was improvised that supported a small white cloth as a flag or banner that would increase the raft's visibility to vessels traveling nearby. The Coastal New York observed over 75 abandoned rafts in a 4 hour daylight period near the Gulf Stream off Florida's east coast. All the abandoned rafts had been marked with fluorescent orange paint, presumably marked by USCG personnel involved in rescue/recovery operations. USCG documentation would be a more thorough depiction of this event.