or Congratulations Eileen Higgins, first Democratic Mayor of Miami in 30 years!!

An Actual, real Live Miami Native

I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Whenever I tell anyone that, they look at me as if I’m kidding, or like I’m a grand oddity. It’s true, Miami is a city of immigrants. But back in the 60’s, as I was growing up, I was keenly aware that the two neighborhoods I lived in were heavily populated by liberal Northern Jews who had moved South for warmth. Boy, did they get that! Anyway, just to drop myself into history , as Kennedy was enacting his plan for the Bay of Pigs, the planes were soaring by directly above our house in Coral Gables when I was one.

Castro and Jimmy Carter

We moved to Kendall, a quiet suburb with cow fields at its westernmost boundary, and again, it was a liberal bastion. In about 1980, the first Cuban girl (that I knew of) enrolled at my high school. During the subsequent years, the entire personality and culture of the city was transformed into large pockets of Cubans, Marielito’s I should say, when Castro emptied out his prisons and sent those folks away. Although Jimmy Carter was a President with one of the best hearts and brains this country ever did see, he did make some terrible and bone-headed decisions. Allowing Castro to send so many miscreants into South Florida was not a good thing. Drug wars began to occur daily and out in the open at the Dadeland mall right down the street from my house in Kendall. Not to mention that the sheer number of immigrants entering the Dade County public schools during the next several decades made for so many way overcrowded classrooms.

Don’t forget that these problems began with the Cuban influx, a group who have fully supported trump’s anti-immigration policies. They are here, ain’t they??????

Miami Turns Republican

The Cubans became the driving political force in Miami when I was away at college in Gainesville. It seemed like every time I came home from University of Florida to visit, there were fewer and fewer English speakers wherever I went. Besides that though, something else was happening: Miami was turning Republican for the first time. The Cubans hated anybody who made any type of compromise or even had a discussion with their much despised dictator, Fidel Castro. Since the Cubans perceived Kennedy as someone who had somehow strengthened Castro’s position, they hated not only Kennedy, but all Democrats.

This despising of anyone or anything that does not destroy or attempt to destroy Castro was the Cuban M.O. (modus operandi). Cubans yet again hated Janet Reno, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State (from Miami, by the way) since she sent a child. Elian Gonzalez, back to his father in Cuba. Therefore, Reno, Clinton, and all Democrats were still the enemy.

And so the long and frustrating journey of the political climate in Miami seems to had permanently been embedded into the deep red part of the maps. I was living in South Dade when the Bush/Gore happened, and there were literally wars on the streets with the Cubans (primarily) flying the Bush flags and ripping down every Gore sign in my neighborhood. This was the election with the “hanging chads.” Remember?

Ironically, I had many Cuban friends during my twenties and thirties, and so very many of my students were also Cuban. My ambivalence towards Cubans lies between my adoration for Cuban food, my great friendships with hilarious and fun Cuban people, and the horrid politics of the majority of their community.

Trump and Cubans and the Restaurant Versailles

In 2015 and 16, Trump made sure to visit a true Cuban hub, the restaurant in Little Havana Versailles. I used to love that place! I do not go in there any more since it has trump flags everywhere. I died inside every time I saw the political maps showing that Miami went farther and farther red every election since 1980, while it’s direct Northern county, Broward has remained a strong Democratic bastion. Let’s not discuss Palm Beach County yet. That’s where I live now….just South of the home of that piece of shit country club residence mar-Lago. I even have a cousin who went to a fucking party there. It’s weird that I can’t NOT curse when I discuss him.

MIAMI-Return to Democrats??!!!

So it is with great hope and joy that I learned about Miami electing a progressive Democrat as Mayor for the first time in over 30 years, and by a 20 % lead. This was no small feat, and I do not think it can be ignored or chalked up to any kind of fluke.

Frankly, I fear that Democrats will not take advantage of this moment, as they have not done for so many significant moments which have passed us by. I don’t want to get my hopes up because the Democrats have been such a heartbreaking disappointment for me.

But for now, let me celebrate the possibility that my Miami will revert back to being a Democratic bastion like it was when I was a mere toddler listening to the Bay of Pigs planes roaring above our little house in Coral Gables.