Boarding The 3:10 To Yuma

By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum

Now Randy, who has never travelled anywhere, is preparing to leave for the United States to join his New York girlfriend, who he met through friends while she was on a student visit to Cuba.

Randy, who has no job at the moment and has only held jobs sporadically in the past, is not anti-Castro. He is telling everyone he is in love, and that's why he's going. He also believes the economy is so bad that he has no future on the island.

"Sure I'm going to miss my family and friends here but I'm not getting anywhere. I can't get into a good college here. I can't find a job that I like. I spend every day alone at the computer. It's got to be better once I get married there," he said.

Cubans headed to the U.S. say, "Me voy por la Yuma." (I'm going to the Yuma). "La Yuma" is the slang expression for the United States. It was inspired by an excellent '50s Western called "3:10 to Yuma," starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. (The movie follows the struggles of hero/farmer Heflin to get captured outlaw/villain Glenn Ford on the 3:10 train to Yuma, Arizona.)

Randy - not his real name because he fears drawing attention to himself while awaiting his Cuban travel papers - is one of an estimated million to a million-and-a-half Cubans who want to immigrate to the United States, according to a Cuban government think tank.

While there is no question about that fact that many Cubans are eager to come to America, their reasons are a matter of dispute between Havana and Washington.

Miriam Rodríguez, director of the Center for Migration Studies at the University of Havana, thinks young Cubans - like their counterparts in any poor Latin American or Third World country - want to leave because of the island's economic difficulties and their desire to better their standard of living or, in some cases, to reunite with relatives who emigrated earlier.

She even credits plain curiosity for some of the movement, "It's an island mentality. If we lived on a continent it would be easier to travel more."

Rodgriguez also blames the U.S. economic embargo for many of the country's woes: "That tremendously limits trade and the country's development ... leading to South-North migration toward developed countries that offer a greater opportunity for personal development."

However, she is quick to point out that the rate of Cubans immigrating to the United States or elsewhere lags behind those of the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and other countries wracked by economic troubles or political violence.

Based on the center's studies, Rodriguez estimates that while a majority of Cubans immigrating come from the capital, people are also leaving other areas experiencing economic difficulties or where sugar mills have been closed, such as the central provinces of Camaguey and Ciego de Avila and the eastern provinces of Holguin and Las Tunas.

Taking issue with Havana's explanation of why Cubans want to leave, Oliver Garza, a U.S. State Department adviser on Western Hemisphere Affairs, said, "If Cubans are jobless, hungry, or lack medical care, as the regime admits, it is because of the failings of the current government."

Garza spoke at the United Nations General Assembly prior to the vote on a Cuban-sponsored resolution condemning the U.S. embargo against the island. The resolution passed by 179 votes to 4, with one abstention.

Garza said that Cuba was trying to blame its "failed economic policies" on the United States "and divert attention from its human rights record." Garza went on to say: "The Cuban Government is not a victim, as it contends. Rather, it is a tyrant, aggressively punishing anyone who dares to have a differing opinion."