Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Creator: Britt Aamodt

Stephen Kulieke (center bottom) with Cuban refugees at Fort McCoy, WIsconsin. Printed in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: "GayLife's Stephen Kulieke became the darling of the refugees. They followed him all day as he shot all the photos of Fort McCoy." From the Thom Higgins papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Founded in Minneapolis by activists Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway, the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force helped ninety gay Cuban men fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro find new homes in Minnesota in the summer of 1980.

In the spring of 1980, thousands of Cuban refugees streamed into Miami as part of a mass emigration known as the Mariel Boatlift. These Marielitos (so called because they departed from Havana’s Mariel Harbor) were fleeing political persecution and economic hardship under Fidel Castro and seeking asylum in the United States. Miami couldn’t handle all the refugees—125,000 would make the crossing between April and October 1980—so the federal government set up refugee camps around the country. One such camp was Fort McCoy, a little-used army base in western Wisconsin that was rapidly outfitted with tents, a portable hospital, a chain-link fence, and concertina wire for its new purpose.

Minnesotans Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway, who had been following the story of the Mariel Boatlift in the newspaper, drove through the gates of Fort McCoy in June. The fort was located just hours from Minneapolis, where the two friends lived. But more significant to these gay activists, it was reported that thousands of gay men numbered among the Marielitos.

Under Castro, gay people were imprisoned and sent to labor camps. In April, when Castro announced that anyone who felt dissatisfied with his government could leave, many felt they had no choice but to join the exodus to America.

Higgins and Brockway wanted to help the gay men detained at Fort McCoy. No refugee could leave the fort without an American sponsor. Religious organizations were drumming up sponsors in the Twin Cities, but their priority was resettling Cuban families. That doomed single gay men to indefinite detainment in a facility with rampant sexual assault.

In response, Higgins and Brockway formed the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, named after Brockway’s newspaper Positively Gay (later renamed the GLC Voice by its new publisher). They printed up flyers asking for volunteers to sponsor one or more gay Cubans and posted them at Minneapolis gay bars, the Locker Room bathhouse, and the Women’s Coffeehouse. The task force screened and trained sponsors before finalizing matches.

On June 12, the friends drove to Fort McCoy and, with the help of a refugee, identified and signed up seventy gay Cubans willing to be sponsored through Positively Gay. A month later, on July 15, Higgins and Brockway reappeared at the fort with a borrowed RV and a car to take refugee Rene Valdes and others to their new homes in Minneapolis. Along the way, they encountered a tornado whipped up by a severe weather system, the Western Wisconsin Derecho.

As turbulent as the storm was, it was nothing next to the culture shock that was about to hit the Cubans. Most could not speak English. Some had spent the last few years in prison because of their homosexuality. Still, the American government expected them to look for work immediately.

The sponsors felt the pressure. John Yoakam had signed up with Positively Gay to sponsor twenty-year-old Fidel Guerra. He quickly realized there was little guidance for sponsors beyond connection to English-language classes and some access to medical care. Guerra did get dentures for his missing teeth, but his sponsor spent frustrating weeks working his own contacts to find him a job. In the end, Guerra decided Minneapolis wasn’t for him. In September, he said goodbye to Yoakam and moved to Oklahoma with a friend. Other Marielitos also left—many for Miami and its established Cuban community.

Rene Valdes liked Minneapolis. He was thirty-two and had a talent for foreign languages, a college degree, and a former career in the Havana Sugar Ministry. Within six months, Valdes found a job at Control Data Corporation working with computers. He’d also fallen in love with Brockway and would remain with him until just before Brockway’s death from AIDS in 1984.

Higgins and Brockway had begun the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force with a sense of purpose. As gay men, they wanted to help gay Cubans live the open, free life in America that had been denied them in Cuba. But the pressures of the task force soon drove a wedge between the friends. Some Cubans didn’t like their sponsors. Some had no interest in learning English. Some sponsors begrudged houseguests who wouldn’t do chores. There were claims of theft.

In the end, Higgins and Brockway couldn’t fix the problems or their friendship, and the task force was inactive after late 1980. But for ninety Cubans, it offered a way out of detainment by connecting them to sponsors. And it offered a first step in the challenging journey to American citizenship that lay ahead.

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Aamodt, Britt. "Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/group/positively-gay-cuban-refugee-task-force

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First Published: August 09, 2019

Last Modified: April 11, 2025

Bibliography

Campbell, Tim. “Bienvenidos A Los Cubanos: Minnesota Gays Aiding Refugees.” GLC Voice, August 1980.

——— . “Cuban Refugees: Where To Now?” Twin Cities Reader, July 9–16, 1980.

De la Rosa, Elena O. “Sponsors Find Themselves Poorly Prepared For Cubans.” Minneapolis Tribune, March 9, 1981.

“Fort McCoy: What Are The Responsibilities Of A Sponsor?” GayLife, August 8, 1980.

Interview with Gustavo Gomez at his condo in Minneapolis, May 7, 2019
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Gustavo Gomez immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1961. In the 1970s, he moved to Minneapolis to work for 3M. He discusses his work helping the newly arrived Marielitos in 1980 and his long-term friendship with one of the Marielitos, Rene Valdes.

Gonzalez, Diana Ettel, and Randy Furst. “Many Problems Follow Cuban Refugees To State.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 12, 1984.

P2155
Thom Higgins papers, 1950–1994 (bulk 1970–1989)
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Personal papers and miscellaneous related material.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00715.pdf

Higgins, Thom, and Bruce Brockway. “The Cubans In Wisconsin: This Country Is A Land of Marvels.” Rough draft of “Cuban Refugees: Where To Now?,” Twin Cities Reader, July 9–16, 1980. Private collection of Kristen and Anthony Trelles.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gQah_1xc3g8idMJBbJGBA-LUnzi5FUKI

Kulieke, Stephen. “‘Homosexuals Por Favor!’: Cuban Refugees Trapped In Waiting Game For Freedom.” GayLife, August 8, 1980.

Interview with Alan Lessik by phone (San Francisco and Elk River), October 8, 2018
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Lessik discusses the life of Rene Valdes, his partner from 2000 until Valdes’ death in 2012. This includes a discussion of the events that led to Rene’s decide to flee Cuba on the Mariel Boatlift, his time at the Fort McCoy detention center, and his relationship with Bruce Brockway.

Lijo, Lydia Villava. “Minnesota’s Cubans Travel Hard Road In Years After Mariel.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 10, 1990.

Positively Gay. “Gay Refugees From Cuba Face Obstacles.” GLC Voice, June 1980.

Positively Gay. Press conference announcement, July 23, 1980. Thom Higgins papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. Editor’s note: Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway held the event at the Hennepin County Government Center to brief media on the Cuban refugees detained at Fort McCoy and their task force’s efforts to find sponsors to get the Cubans out of detainment.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gIMJAgm5k27HwpXWCPLdvdwPwI7cG8BM

Richey, Walt. “Cuban Resettlement Unsettling.”GLC Voice, October 1980.

Interview with Anthony and Kristen Trelles at their home in Minneapolis, May 18, 2019
Britt Aamodt interview collection, Elk River
Description: Husband and wife Anthony and Kristen Trelles discuss their friendship with Thom Higgins from ca. 1978 to Higgins’s death in 1994. Anthony and his mother Jeanne (pronounced Jean) Sanders went with Higgins on his first trip to meet the Cubans detained at Fort McCoy.

Valdes, Rene. “Talking To Bruce.” Personal essay, August 19, 1998. Personal collection of Alan Lessik.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q_JIX8VmeEsong5xpyd4d1VZ3KpIH5kH

John R. Yoakam papers, 1947–2010
Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Description: Personal diaries and papers related to Yoakam’s work in Christian ministry and counseling.
https://archives.lib.umn.edu/repositories/13/resources/2008

Related Resources

Primary

Associated Press. “Fort McCoy Marshal Recalls ‘Horrible’ Actions By Cubans.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, June 3, 1985.

Bibus, Marie, Susan Conley, Karen Ellingson, Barbara Frey, Ray Meyer, and Mary Setter. The Freedom Flotilla Six Years Later: From Mariel to Minnesota. Minneapolis: Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee, 1986.

“Castro’s Cuba, 1975 To 1979: Events From The Life Of A Gay Cuban.” GLC Voice, October 1980.

De la Rosa, Elena O. “Hustlers, Survivors, Victims: Truth Of Cuban Refugees Resides In Eye Of Beholder.” Minneapolis Tribune, March 8, 1981.

Gonzalez, Diane Ettel. “Special Status Of Cubans In Boat-Lift Puts Some Lawbreakers In Legal Limbo.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, July 22, 1985.

Ketchum, Craig. “Most Gay Cubans ‘Promised’ Asylum.” GLC Voice, July 1980.

Podvin, Richard. “To Integrate Cubans Into Society.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, July 12, 1986.

“Refugee Says Cuba Worse Now.” GLC Voice, November 1980.

Von Sternberg, Bob. “Cuban Inmate’s Suicide Points Up A Dilemma Over Refugees.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, June 25, 1986.

Secondary

Arenas, Reinaldo. Dolores M. Koch, trans. Before Night Falls: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

Capó Jr., Julio. "Queering Mariel: Mediating Cold War Foreign Policy and US Citizenship Among Cuba's Homosexual Exile Community." Journal of American Ethnic History 29, no. 4 (Summer 2010): 78-106.

Hamm, Mark. The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Mariel Boat People. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

Hawk, Kate Dupes, Ron Villella, and Adolfo Leya de Varina, with Kristen Citers. Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980: The First Twenty Days. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2014.

James, Ian Michael. Ninety Miles: Cuban Journeys in the Age of Castro. Lanham, MD: Bowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006.

Kent, Deborah. Cuban Refugees: Cuban Roots, American Freedoms. Chanhassen, MN: Child’s World, 2005.

Lessik, Alan. The Troubleseeker. New York: Chelsea Station Editions, 2016.

Ocasio, Rafael. A Gay Cuban Activist in Exile: Reinaldo Arenas. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007.

Related Audio

Alan Lessik interview (part 1 of 2) | Details

Alan Lessik interview (part 2 of 2) | Details

Anthony Trelles interview | Details

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force
Over the Rainbow: Queer and Trans History in Minnesota
Minnesotanos: Latino Journeys in Minnesota

Related Images

Bruce Brockway, ca. 1980. Brockway co-founded the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force with Thom Higgins in 1980. The name of the task force was adopted from the Minneapolis newspaper Positively Gay, which Brockway published between 1979 and 1980. From the Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Announcement of a meeting of sponsors of Cuban refugees at Hennepin County Government Center, July 23, 1980. Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway, founders of the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, organized the evening information session for people interested in becoming sponsors of Cuban refugees. From the Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force roster

Roster of Cuban refugees detained at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, interested in finding sponsors. Created by the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, June 12, 1980. From the Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. For a closer view, open the link below.

Thom Higgins and Jeanne Sanders at the Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival, June 1980. Sanders and her son Anthony Trelles accompanied Higgins to Fort McCoy that same month to meet with the Cuban refugees detained there. Used with the permission of Kristen and Anthony Trelles.

Inside Fort McCoy after the Mariel Boatlift

A guard and a Cuban refugee inside Fort McCoy (Wisconsin). Published in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. From the Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Calixto Martinez, Mike Bergeron, and Edwardo Rodriguez at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Printed in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: "Calixto Martinez (left) and Edwardo Rodriguez (right) pose with Gay Life's managing editor, Mike Bergeron. Calixto and Edwardo are lovers. Calixto cut all his pants into shorts only to discover that the other refugees in the camp recognized him as being gay. Several of the non-gay refugees tried to rape Calixto and lover Edwardo stepped in to protect him. Edwardo was stabbed. A Minneapolis sponsor attempted to get both Calixto and Edwardo out together. Ultimately, they were represented by two different agencies. The agency representing Calixto allowed him to leave with the sponsor. The agency representing Edwardo would not allow him to go. Calixto refused to leave without his lover. Eventually, Calixto was convinced that he should leave and they would continue the attempt to get Edwardo released. A tearful moment came for the GayLife staff members when Calixto boarded a bus for Minneapolis. Edwardo just sat down in the corner of the yard, sighed, and watched his lover leave without him." Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Ira Jones with Cuban refugees at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. Printed in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: "Ira Jones (second from left) chats with refugees and sponsors from Minneapolis. Communication was sometimes a problem, but the universal language of gay love always prevailed."

Photograph of Cuban refugees at Fort McCoy (Wisconsin) after the Mariel Boatlift. Published in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: "'Get us a job.' 'Please get us a job,' the refugees cried out as GayLife proceeded through the compound. Do you have a job for a refugee? Please call 922-5822."

Photograph of Cuban refugees at Fort McCoy (Wisconsin). Published in GayLife, Friday, August 8, 1980. Original caption: "The refugees told of rape and beatings in the camp by non-gay refugees. It's important to get the gay refugees out as quickly as possible. Fort McCoy, Wisc. and Indian Gap, Pa. will close in a month. All refugees will be herded into the already crowded and most turbulent camp of all: Fort Chafee, Ark." Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

The cover of the issue of GayLife published on Friday, August 8, 1980. The issue focused on the Cuban refugees detained at Fort McCoy (Wisconsin) after the Mariel Boatlift. Thom Higgins papers, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Bruce Brockway and Rene Valdes at Bde Maka Ska in the summer of 1980. Valdez met Brockway when the latter came to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, where Valdes and other Cuban refugees of the Mariel Boatlift were being detained. Valdes and Brockway became partners and remained together until shortly before Brockway’s death from an AIDS-related lymphoma in 1984. Used with the permission of Alan Lessik.

Rene Valdes at Control Data (his employer) in Bloomington in 1981, at the dawn of the personal computing revolution. Valdes landed his job after fleeing Cuba in 1980 as part of the Mariel Boatlift. He devoted much of his life to the computer industry, later taking a job with Microsoft. Used with the permission of Alan Lessik.

Alan Lessik (left) and Rene Valdes (right), 2000s. Lessik met Valdes in San Diego in 2000, the same year in which Valdes left Minneapolis to begin his life on the West Coast. Valdes eventually got a job with Microsoft. Used with the permission from Alan Lessik.

Stephen Kulieke with Cuban refugees

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

More Information

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00715.pdf

Bruce Brockway

Holding Location

Minnesota Historical Society

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force
Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP)

More Information

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00715.pdf

Sponsorship meeting announcement

Holding Location

Minnesota Historical Society

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force roster

Holding Location

Minnesota Historical Society

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

More Information

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-tw5EDbk6fKIh0r723JWuy_9_eTNisRL

Thom Higgins and Jeanne Sanders

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Camp McCoy (Fort McCoy), Wisconsin

Bruce Brockway and Rene Valdes at Bde Maka Ska

Holding Location

Minnesota Historical Society

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Rene Valdes at Control Data

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Alan Lessik and Rene Valdes

Articles

Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force

Indochinese Refugee Resettlement Office, 1975–1986

Immigrants and Refugees in Minnesota: Connecting Past and Present

HIV/AIDS Crisis, 1981‒1997

Minnesotanos: Latino Journeys in Minnesota

Over the Rainbow: Queer and Trans History in Minnesota

Turning Point

In June 1980, Minneapolis gay activists Thom Higgins and Bruce Brockway form the Positively Gay Cuban Task Force to help release gay Cubans detained at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, by connecting them to sponsors in the Twin Cities area.

Chronology

April 1, 1980

A bus crashes into the gates of the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Its passengers request political asylum, which, when words gets out, encourages 10,000 more Cubans to squeeze into the compound over the next few days, also requesting asylum.

April 20, 1980

Cuban President Fidel Castro announces that any Cuban citizen who wants to immigrate to the United States may do so through the port of Mariel Harbor in Havana. The next day, the first boatload of refugees, called Marielitos, arrives in Miami.

May 1980

The influx of Marielitos is so great that Miami can’t handle them. The federal government upgrades military bases around the country to serve as temporary detainment camps. Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin is selected as a site.

May 29, 1980

The first 127 Marielitos (of an eventual total of some 14,000) arrive at Fort McCoy to begin in-processing, which includes medical and dental exams and interviews with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI.

June 1980

With a press pass from the Twin Cities Reader, Minneapolis gay activist Thom Higgins enters Fort McCoy with Jeanne Sanders as Spanish interpreter and her son Anthony Trelles as photographer to find and talk to the gays among the Cuban detainees.

June 12, 1980

Higgins returns to Fort McCoy with Bruce Brockway, the co-organizer of the Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force, to take down the names of gay Cubans interested in having the task force find them sponsors, a prerequisite for leaving the fort.

July 9, 1980

Higgins and Brockway publish their co-authored article, “Cuban Refugees: Where to Now?” on the Fort McCoy Marielitos in the Twin Cities Reader.

July 15, 1980

In one of many trips, Higgins and Brockway pick up Cubans at Fort McCoy and drive them to Minneapolis and their waiting sponsors. Among the passengers is Rene Valdes, whose first taste of American life outside the fort includes a tornado.

July 23, 1980

The Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force holds a 1 p.m. press conference and a 7 p.m. informational session for potential sponsors at the Hennepin County Government Center. To date, the task force had resettled thirty gay Cubans.

October 1980

The Mariel Boatlift ends. Altogether, 125,000 Cubans immigrate to the United States between April and October. Rumors that Castro emptied his prisons and asylums during the Mariel Boatlift continue to hurt Marielitos looking for work.

December 12, 1984

An article in the Minneapolis Tribune estimates that, after the Mariel Boatlift, between 700 and 1,200 Cubans resettled in Minnesota.

November 1986

The Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee publishes The Freedom Flotilla Six Years Later: From Mariel to Minnesota. The report examines the plight of Marielitos who ended up in the limbo of indefinite detainment in prison.

June 10, 1990

Ten years after the Mariel Boatlift, Thom Higgins tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press that his friendship with Brockway had fallen apart over disagreements about the task force in 1980. The work, he recalls, had sometimes been overwhelming.

February 2, 2016

After a distinguished career at companies like Control Data and Microsoft, former Minneapolis resident and Marielito Rene Valdes dies in San Francisco.

August 2016

Alan Lessik, Rene Valdes’ partner from 2000 until Valdes’ death, publishes The Troubleseeker, a fictionalized re-imagining of Valdes’ life. It describes the Mariel Boatlift, Valdes’ relationship with Brockway, and his history in Minneapolis.