THE Cuban CONNECTION
SAM FRY TRACKS THE INFLUENCE OF CUBAN CULTURE IN MIAMI: FROM LITTLE HAVANA TO SOUTH BEACH
In Miami weeks of clear, hot days and nights are broken by short spells of driving rain. Clouds build unseen, high above the city where rising heat meets cooler air. The skies break without warning, pounding the roofs of high rises with thunder and warm rain – the kind of rain that seems almost to fall away, then return again and again, keeping time with a far off Latin rhythm. The lightning is a paparazzi light show for those up before dawn: the night shift desk clerk and the gum-chewing Uber driver. Two-hundred-and-twenty-eight miles south, the skies above Havana fill with stormclouds in much the same way, and Cubans gather along the Malecón sea wall to watch the sky as it rips and folds. Miami has much more than tropical climes in common with this Caribbean neighbour. The Floridian city moves, shakes and dines to an unmistakably Cuban beat, yet the story of Cuba in Miami is far more than one of cultural exchange. Beyond the Spanishlanguage music blasting from cars and shop windows, behind the advertisements for Cuban sandwiches and sickly-sweet coffee, there is a compelling history worthy of a Latin American telenovela – as mercurial as Miami’s infrequent thunderstorm. An attempted landing at Playa Girón on Cuba’s south coast was the last time the veterans of Brigade 2506 set foot on their homeland. The Bay of Pigs fiasco, on April 17th 1961, saw a force of CIA-backed Cuban exiles – recruited from Miami – attempt to retake the island from Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government.
The invasion was a disaster. The brigade was promised United States Army air cover which was suddenly withdrawn on the orders of President Kennedy. The exiles were outnumbered and outgunned, fighting for three days before surrendering. Their story is told in The Bay of Pigs Museum, a single-story building in Miami’s Little Havana – the district in which many of the survivors returned to settle with their families. Nearly 70 years later, Little Havana is home to a thriving Cuban-American population, many of whom are third and fourth generation descendants of those who fought at Playa Girón. These young Cuban-Americans are the smiling faces of Little Havana’s tourist hotspots. They wait tables, serve ice cream and sell tickets at the arty Art Deco cinema: Tower Theatre. Scratch beneath the surface of Little Havana though, and you can still feel the presence of the first generation of Cuban exiles in Miami.
Maximo Gomez Park is where the old men of Little Havana gather for the most Cuban of pastimes: dominoes. Games play out among groups of four stone-faced men, while two or three others look on, keeping score on a scrap of paper. The atmosphere is serious but not oppressive, broken now and again by an outburst: an accusation of cheating, tiles slapped hard on the table, a loud Spanish curse in contravention of the signs forbidding malas palabras (bad words). “Three chickens are the park’s only permanent residents,” says an elderly Cuban-American, waiting for a game. The pollos live off scraps from the player’s packed lunches. “We also have a couple of old goats too,” he jokes, gesturing at a friend who is hunched over the latest copy of Libre – an anti-Castro Spanish language newspaper, published in Miami. There are 11 tables for dominoes in Maximo Gomez Park, and five smaller tables for chess. On every vinyl tabletop there is a map of Cuba, worn away by years of scrabbling for tiles. These fading maps depict a homeland that has long been out of reach for most of the elderly players.
The domino park opens onto Southwest 8th Street, the main artery of Cuban life in Miami. Residents use the street’s Spanish name, ‘Calle Ocho’, interchangeably with ‘Little Havana’ to describe this part of the city. The district is bookended by two popular eateries on 8th Street: Versailles Restaurant to the west at 3555, and Azucar to the east at 1503. In Versailles Restaurant the decór is French – mirror walls and glass chandeliers – but the cuisine is unmistakably Cuban. Ropa vieja (shredded beef in garlic) and chicharrones (fried chicken) are two Havana streetfood staples served up in Versailles by waiting staff in white dress shirts and green cravats. Versailles Restaurant also has a bakery, café and a takeaway window where locals come to gossip and buy cortadito (sweet Cuban coffee) and pastelitos (pastries filled with guava jam and cream cheese) for the road.
Azucar, at the other end of 8th Street, is a slim Cuban ice-cream parlour with a 20-foot plastic ice cream cone above the shop door. Few nations enjoy helado as much as Cuba – Coppelia, the state-owned ice cream parlour in Havana, serves over 4,000 gallons per day. Miami’s Azucar may serve a considerably smaller volume, but they stock a greater array of flavours than Havana’s ‘ice cream cathedral’. Regulars’ favourites include cuatro leches (four milks) and their signature recipe: Abuela Maria (Grandmother Maria), which mixes the traditional pastelito fillings of guava jam and cream cheese into homemade vanilla ice cream.
A wealth of shops, galleries, cigar shops and street art promoting Cuban culture and creativity are to be found between
Americans visit South Beach to party and cut loose
Versailles Restaurant and Azucar. Futurama Art Building on 1637 8th Street is a gallery and workspace for 12 local artists, including second generation exile Annie Pino who has a studio on the ground floor. Pino’s pop-art-influenced prints explore the different ways generations of Cubans experience life in Miami: abuelos (grandfathers) buy lottery tickets; chicas (girls) kiss American boys. “Life is very different for our parents; they always thought they would go home to Cuba one day. For us, Miami is home,” says Pino.
Beyond the gallery there is art on almost every street corner of Little Havana. Futurama itself has a large mural on its western wall, a giant trumpeter releasing Latin dancers from his instrument, painted by street artist Daniel Fila. There is also the iconic ‘Welcome to Little Havana’ mural on 2614, and a brood of large chicken sculptures at various points along 8th Street – frequently repainted in the bright colours of the Cuban flag by local artists.
It is more than 60 years since Cuba’s exiles first made Miami their new home, and their influence has spread far beyond Calle Ocho. In Miami Beach, there are few hotels that won’t serve up a Cuban sandwich, and fewer barmen who can’t knock up a Cuba Libre or a Hemingway Daiquiri. “The Daiquiris here are better than in Havana’s Floridita, where Hemingway used to drink,” says Alexis Sanchez, who grew up in Cuba and now manages Traymore Gin Bar on Miami Beach. But the most pervasive Cuban influence on Miami Beach is the music. Latin beats and Spanish lyrics blast out of nightclubs and late night bars all along the strip, from places such as Mango’s Tropical Cafe and Larios on the Beach. The owner of Larios, Gloria Estefan, helped bring Cuban music from the sitting rooms of Little Havana to the clubs of Miami Beach in the 80s and 90s.
Estefan grew up in Little Havana, a second generation Cuban exile – her father fought at the Bay of Pigs – and her band, Miami Culture Club, started life performing traditional Cuban boleros at local weddings and parties. Sometime in the late 70s however, the band began fusing their Cuban rhythms with all-American pop; it wasn’t long before their music was getting major play time in Miami Beach’s biggest clubs, and gaining national recognition. Their single Dr. Beat (1984) climbed to 16th in the US Dance Club charts, then Conga (1985) went multi-platinum with over 2,000,000 sales in the United States. In 1990, Rolling Stone magazine wrote, “Miami Sound Machine was always more than just another pop band; it became a symbol of the new bilingual, multicultural Miami, and of the aspirations of its huge Cuban community.” Miami Sound Machine combined bongo drums with electronic synthesisers and maracas with power ballads. In the process they created a brand of Americanised-Cuban culture that fled over the MacArthur Causeway and made its home in glitzy, upmarket Miami Beach.
“You’ll find Cuba everywhere on Miami Beach,” says Sergio Van Pongel, concierge at COMO Metropolitan Miami Beach. Cycling along the boardwalk is a sure way to spot these signs of Cuban influence. As crowds of beachgoers head towards the South Beach sands, a group of young men make their way to the ocean loaded with cool bags of beer and cigars in their top pockets – everything they need for a day on the beach. Their accents are Floridian, their beers Mexican, and their cigars Cuban. Although it remains illegal to sell habanos (Cuban cigars) in the United States, rules banning the import of cigars for personal use were relaxed in 2015. Since then a steady flow of Cuban brands such as Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta have flowed in through the Miami International Airport arrivals lounge. A little further along the boardwalk, two young women at a pool bar sip cortaditos, foamy
espressos brewed with cane sugar. These shots of sweet Cuban coffee have become the stimulant of choice on Miami Beach.
In Havana, Cubans also go to the sea to drink coffee. They walk along the Malecón sea wall and share around paper cups of cortadito poured from plastic flasks. The coffee and the ocean however, are where the similarities between Miami Beach and modern-day Havana end. Americans visit South Beach to party and cut loose. Cubans visit the Malecón to read and fish and dream. There is no sand beach in Havana, the waves spray up against the sea wall and onto the road where 60s Chevrolets cruise alongside Soviet-era Ladas. Young boys pull snappers onto the pavement and pin them down with a flipflop while they release the hook. On a short stretch of the wall, no more than 50 metres long, there is public Wi-Fi access from a nearby hotel. Cubans of all ages huddle over phones and laptop screens to manage their Facebook accounts or video chat with family members in other places. ‘Hola tia, como esta Miami?’ Private Wi-Fi is almost non-existent in Cuba.
Though the sun sets just nine minutes apart over Miami and Havana, the two cities feel worlds apart. Much of the Cuban food, culture and music found in the clubs, beaches and hotels of Miami Beach are products of an idealised version of the Caribbean island, fostered by Miami’s tropical melting pot, of which Joan Didion wrote: “I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere.” The ‘Cuba’ to be found on Miami Beach is like the music of Miami Sound System: authentic Cuban culture that has been jacked up on the flash and glamour and excess of American capitalism. And when you’re in the mood for a fiesta, that’s no bad thing.
Little Havana is a 20-minute drive from COMO Metropolitan Miami Beach. To arrange transport, restaurant bookings and gallery tickets, contact the concierge during your stay, or at fo.met.mia@comohotels.com.