3
Nonaffil iation
Cubans and Cuban-Americans have very strong, persuasive feelings
about the Cuban Revolution. Much of what they say is colored by their
experiences, as well as their political perspective. While the dominant
position of the Cuban-Americans in the U.S. is one of opposition to the
Cuban Revolution, there are also pro-Revolutionary forces within the
Cuban-American and the larger U.S. population (Azicri, 1981-82). These
opposing political positions act like opposite polarizing magnets
within the Cuban-American community. Because field research brings
one into close, direct contact with the research population and other
significant people, the researcher soon becomes aware of these con
flicting political positions. In spite of the tendency to identify
with the group in which one is working, this researcher maintains a
politically neutral position and seeks only to report and interpret
the research evidence in the most comprehensible way possible. Any
political interpretations placed on this work are erroneous. The purposes
of this research are to study the relationship between first language
ability and second language learning, to explore some other factors
that influence the learning of a second language, and to share this
knowledge with other interested persons.
Historical-Demographic Overview
Cuba is by far the largest island in the Caribbean in terms of:
population with 9,865,000 inhabitants; land mass, 43,533 square miles;
and length, 745 miles (Lowenthal, 1982). It has about the same amount
of land under cultivation as Japan, but only one-tenth the population