So, we made it to Miami in 2008 after all, just under the December wire. We were surprised and delighted to discover that in doing so, we’d actually traveled to Central America and the U.S. all at the same time.
In December 2008, we’d settled on Florida as our tropical winter vacation because the places we’d have preferred to see — Panama, Cuba, Colombia and Puerto Rico — were all too complicated to navigate with only a few days on hand. It was a joy to find that warm, breezy Miami is not only bright, crayon-colorful, and gorgeous, but so heavily immersed in Central American culture that in many parts of town, speaking fluent Spanish is all but a prerequisite.
But let me clarify: In Miami, it’s best to know the slangy, rapid-fire Spanish that’s spoken in Central America. Since college, Adam’s been fluent in Spanish, but in the formal, Castilian dialect of central Spain; he often struggled to follow what Miami locals were saying. For instance, where a Spaniard would carefully enunciate an evening’s greeting, “buena sera,” a Spanish-speaker in Miami would go with “buen ser” and be through a full sentence in the same amount of time.
This article from MSNBC states that almost 60% of city residents use Spanish as their primary language. This story on CNN weighs both sides of the English-Spanish debate in Miami…and it would seem that for many local Latinos, English is found wanting.
We found this integral aspect of the city’s culture pretty fascinating, but as longtime residents of segregated Los Angeles, it wasn’t nearly as exciting to us as the sheer number of wealthy Latino people in Miami.
L.A.’s history is, like Miami’s, tightly intertwined with Central America — most specifically, with Mexico. While L.A. also boasts fair-sized populations of other Central Americans, whole neighborhoods in the city are geared towards Mexican immigrants, replete with Spanish signage. Mexican-Americans are present in every public aspect of local culture, from politics to the arts to the local news. But in L.A., wealthy Latinos are rare; the average millionaire there is more likely to be Persian or running the sheer gamut of European whiteness.
What we found in Miami gives Whitey a run for his money. Edging up on philanthropic Jews in self-exile from New York, African American sports stars, and old money WASPs, Latino Americans are increasingly Miami’s alpha dogs of wealth.
Everywhere we went we saw whole generations of affluent Cubano and Colombian families in and out of fancy cars, sparkling with jewels and designer clothes. Well-heeled Latinos outnumber anyone else two-to-one at the über-tony Bal Harbour Shops, a mall of such lavish excess that Beverly Hills can only weep with envy in its diamond-studded wake. Cuban, Colombian, Honduran, and Puerto Rican flags fly outside many of Miami’s finest mansions, and Latino surnames grace some of the city’s most lavish construction sites and office buildings.
While L.A.’s Latino cultures remain largely fragmented and increasingly polarized in terms of privilege, Miami’s largely powerful Latino population has created what amounts to the society of a whole other country – one that, albeit, doesn’t require a long flight or even a passport to visit.
*To see more of our photos from Miami, click here.
See related posts
Our Miami Top 10
Miami: A Mid-Week Wander
Death by Cubano Cuisine
Adventures in Layover Land: Miami
TWT Travel Binder: Florida
Miami is like a world of its own with so many things to offer culturally. I’ll pass this post on to my readers. Nice post. I look forward to reading more.