ABSTRACT
The 1996 election, more than any other to date, may come to be viewed as a harbinger of enhanced cooperation among Cuban Americans and other Latino groups in fashioning political agendas that are in some important respects unified. As a group, Cubans have often been viewed or have self-identified as being different from, if not at odds with, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and many other Latinos in the United States. Though Cuban American politics has often been viewed as anomalous to that of other Latino groups, some more recent accounts of Cuban American social, political, and economic life have contributed substantially to the understanding of community's diversity. Florida's Hispanic population has continued to grow in both actual and proportional terms, increasing from approximately 860,000, or 8.9 percent of the total, in 1980 to 2,015,000, or 14.2 percent of total state population of 14,166,000, in 1995. The 1996 election saw Cuban Americans gain enhanced status as a major source for fund-raising.
