Havana on the Hudson

Havana on the Hudson is a nickname derived from the capital of Cuba, Havana, and the geographic proximity to the Hudson River to describe the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, in the United States. During the latter half of the 20th century, Cuban émigrés and exiles left their country and relocated to Union City, West New York, and surrounding communities in search of economic opportunity and political freedom. Although the area during this period became significantly influenced by Cuban culture, over the course of the decades that followed, many Cubans spread into adjacent towns and many other Hispanic groups also moved into the area, resulting in a widespread and diverse Latino culture, commerce and identity that is non-exclusive of any people of Hispanic descent, though Cubans remain a powerful voting bloc. Numerous towns on the Hudson Palisades in northern Hudson and southeast Bergen counties have populations where more than 50% of the residents are foreign-born, often with a Hispanic majority, as well as being among those places in the United States with some of the highest population densities.

Prior to the Cuban Revolution, approximately 150,000 Cubans lived the United States, with concentrations in New York City and in Key West and Tampa in Florida. There was a small community of about 2,000 people living in Union City, who had originally arrived after the 1940s, many from Fomento or the semi-rural province of Villa Clara. North Hudson had urbanized and seen massive population growth in the early 20th century and was considered to be the Embroidery Capital of America, due to that and other textile industries which had been developed by the German speaking immigrants who dominated around the start of the 20th century and were later followed by waves of Irish, Slavs, Jews, Middle Easterners and Italians. By the 1960s, North Hudson was feeling the shift in demographics as urban decline and post-war prosperity of the 1950s led to greater suburbanization in New Jersey. Relatively stable, the population was decreasing. In many ways, influx of new residents led to a changing of the guard that helped save the area from the more severe downward spiral being experienced in older urban areas throughout the New York metropolitan area.

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