i < a t. ETHNIC BLOC VOTING IN MIAMI

become one of the most diverse arpas ill th.. lJllitl·d St a t es. This e;I',,\Vi,, ~ diver-sity largely resulted from political anrt "\~()Ilnl\li( ' "vpnts which t 1>,1nsl,j I'"d in (. Latin America and the Caribhean in t ho past Ihr'e<: decades (Roswell 1%3; Boswell and Curtis 1984). Though Hispanics t'flmprispd under 7 percent of Dade County's population in 1960, today people of Latin and Car-ibbean heritage are estimated to constitute over 42 percent of the SMSA's total population. The Cuban minority alone numbers one-half million, or 2(; percent of the county's estimated 1983 population of 1.9 million. The "Latinization " of Dade County has further in-volved substantial numbers of Colombians (50,000), Puerto Ricans (45, 000), Nicaraguans (25,000), Dominicans (25,000), Mexicans (14, 000), and Argentines (6, 000) among others (Boswell 1984, pp. 4-8). The SMSA also has a sizable and growing black population which constituted 17 percent of the county's 1980 population. Since 1980, the metropolitan area's black population has been aug-mented by significant in-migration from the Caribbean. The SMSA's Haitian popu-lation alone was estimated at 50,000 in 1983 (Boswell 1984, 8; see also Boswel