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Fort Chaffee collection
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Gastón A. Fernández: Security Reports and Memoranda

Note on folder: "Contains info on security measures to isolate camp [population] from community and internal control procedures/operations in camp. Discussion of inter-[bureau?] conflicts over security measures and role of Clinton in pressuring for militarization. Also, there is health [statistical] data that could be put in table form."

Gastón A. Fernández: Federal Control Center Documents

Note on folder: "FEMA, Federal [Control] Center, memoranda" Note in folder: "Memoranda detail (1) the causes leading to riots at Camp Libertad similar to Ft Chaffee a few weeks later, (2) prejudice against [homosexuals], prostitutes and petty criminals, other undersirables lumpled together as cause of problem/disturbances, (3) details operational problems, bottleneckes overlapping roles and insufficiently clearly defined [administrative] roles, responsibilities, and authority contriubte to sense of [administrative] crisis. Shows concerns over public support of perpection of handling situtation and how leads to inaction, failure to assume responsibilities for 'fence jumpers' escaping Cubans at Libertad - sets stage for Ft Chaffee."

Fort Chaffee collection

  • CHC5175
  • Collection
  • undated, 1980-1995

The Fort Chaffee Collection brings together two sources of materials relating to Cubans who arrived in the U.S. during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and were detained at refugee camps at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

Barbara Lawson was director of the Cuban-Haitian Task Force from 1980 to 1981, and she donated reports, correspondence, memoranda, artwork by Cuban refugees, and recordings of news interviews she gave during her tenure with the Task Force. These materials document the operations and policies of Fort Chaffee from 1980 to 1981, discussing, among other topics, security issues in Fort Chaffee and difficulties in placing entrants who were considered not suitable for sponsorship. Lawson donated additional materials in 2018, including correspondence, postcards, newspaper clippings, greeting cards with artwork by Cubans held in Fort Chaffee, and press and Army Public Information photographs related to the Boatlift.

Gastón A. Fernández donated the research materials he collected and used for his book The Mariel Exodus Twenty Years Later: A Study on the Politics of Stigma and a Research Bibliography (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 2002).  These materials consists primarily of photocopies of reports and interagency correspondence of the various U.S. government agencies responsible for the processing and settlement of Mariel refugees and for administering Fort Chaffee and other camps.  The Fernández donation also includes photographs by the U.S. Army and snapshots of refugee activities at Fort Chaffee. The photocopied documents seem to have been obtained by Fernández primarily from the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, although they are not clearly identified as such.

Issues of La Vida Nueva, a newsletter published by the Cubans detained at Fort Chaffee with the support of the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion of the U.S. Army, and Crossroads, a newspaper published for Fort Chaffee personnel were transferred to the CHC Exile Journals collection.

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