Cubans have also been immigrating to the U.S. for a long time. Thousands of Cuban settlers immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1802 and Texas during the period of Spanish rule. Since 1820 the Cuban presence was more than 1000 people. In 1870 the number of Cuban immigrants increased to almost 12,000, of which about 4,500 resided in New York City, about 3,000 in New Orleans, and 2,000 in Key West. The causes of these movements were both economic and political, which intensified after 1860, when political factors played the predominant role in emigration, as a result of deteriorating relations with the Spanish metropolis.
After the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959, a Cuban exodus began as the new government allied itself with the Soviet Union and began to introduce communism. From 1960 to 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left Cuba and began a new life in the United States. Most Cuban Americans that arrived in the United States initially came from Cuba's educated upper and middle classes.
According to a U.S. Census 1970 report, Cuban Americans as well as Latinos lived in all 50 states. But as later Census reports demonstrated, the majority of Cuban immigrants settled in south Florida.
