Yahoo! News. By Laura Wides-Munoz, Associated Press Writer. August 31, 2007.
MIAMI (AP) -- Travel guides list Little Havana as the heart of the Cuban
exile community, the symbolic hub of opposition to Fidel Castro and a
must-see neighborhood for its galleries, cigar shops and espresso stands.
But with so much of its identity steeped in anti-Castro activism, one
question lingers: Can this Miami enclave survive the eventual death of
the very man whose existence helped define it.
A handful of shopkeepers, artists and city officials are betting it can.
Over the last eight years, they have slowly staged a renaissance in a
neighborhood once awash in "Miami Vice" crime.
"I don't have a crystal ball of what will happen when Fidel and Raul
Castro go, but I believe the exchange will only increase," said painter
and former Cuban political prisoner Augustin Gainza, one of the first
artists to return to the neighborhood in 2000. "After Fidel there will
be Havana -- and Havana del Norte," or Northern Havana.
The neighborhood that became Little Havana wasn't always a slice of the
Caribbean. It was a thriving Jewish community in the 1930s, until the
Jews began moving to the suburbs and the beach. In 1959, Castro and his
rebels ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and established a
communist government. Cuban exiles poured in.
Pablo Canton was among them. His family settled in the area in 1961 when
he was a teen. But like the Jews before them, Canton and other Cubans
moved to the suburbs in the 1970s and '80s as their families and income
grew.
Poorer immigrants from Cuba and Central America took their place, drawn
by the neighborhood's central location, public transportation and cheap
rentals.
Canton returned to Little Havana years later, taking a job in the 1980s
with the city's code enforcement office that involved demolishing crack
houses, one block at time.
"Everybody has a piece of their heart in Little Havana," said Canton,
who is now the neighborhood's outreach coordinator, as he sipped cafe
con leche at a local bakery.
Even when the region deteriorated in the 1980s and 1990s, one thing
never went away: Domino Park, the corner lot where old Cuban men in
guayabera shirts came to play their favorite game, smoke cigars and
trade gossip. And it was this corner that continued to attract tourists,
even as the rest of the neighborhood decayed.
Cuban native Jackie Sarracino discovered this phenomenon almost by accident.
Her family settled in New York but later moved to Miami to be closer to
relatives who came during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when Castro allowed
125,000 Cubans to flee the island. One afternoon in 1999, she drove to
Little Havana on a whim.
"I found absolutely nothing except for a tour bus in front of Domino
Park, and there's all these German tourists with cameras hanging from
their neck looking at the flies," she said. "They left. Another bus
stopped. I'm going, 'What is the attraction here?' But in my New York
capitalist mentality, I thought maybe I can make a dollar."
A week later, she signed a lease for her first store on Calle Ocho, the
neighborhood's main drag. At first people thought she was crazy.
"It was probably one of the scariest places I'd ever been to: the
prostitution, the drugs, the homeless, the streets were dirty," she
recalled from her upscale Cuban memorabilia shop. "Across the street
there was a store that sold funeral equipment with a funeral casket in
the window."
But Sarracino, who soon lost her father, was determined to celebrate the
history of his country. She sold nostalgia prints and later added items
for her customers' grandchildren, such as the popular "Made in the
U.S.A. with Cuban parts" T-shirts. Unlike some shopowners, she refuses
to sell anything referencing Castro, even with anti-Castro slogans.
"Little Havana is not about him," she said.
Early on, Sarracino began hanging artwork of unknown artists in her
windows, and to everyone's surprise, the pieces sold. A few galleries
then began to open nearby. The community also organized monthly street
fairs, and an annual festival drew larger crowds.
Eight years later, more than a dozen art galleries dot the street, and
more cigar shops are moving in. Along with Cuban food, new eateries have
opened offering Nicaraguan, Peruvian and Spanish cuisine.
"It has changed, but the history behind Little Havana will never go
away," Canton said.
Still, Little Havana has a long way to go before it can compete with
other up-and-coming Miami neighborhoods such as South Beach or the hip
Design District. The current strip of galleries covers only a few
blocks, and the area provides little nightlife. Many of the neighboring
streets are zoned for low-rent apartments.
But Sarracino believes the neighborhood's future is bright with or
without Castro.
On a recent day, a Russian cigar dealer came into her husband's art
gallery looking as if he'd just stepped out of Havana circa 1940 in
pleated pants, a guayabera and a black-banded fedora.
"Look how he's dressed," smiled Sarracino. "Everyone still wants a part
of that Cuban mystery."
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