By Ted Anthony, Associated Press. Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 9:03 a.m. Apr. 12, 2000
MIAMI -- The stinging remarks have come in from around the nation: Banana republic. Part of another country. A new Wild West. A city in virtual secession.
For Miami, a city that has long complained of being misunderstood, these are not only the turbulent days of Elian. They are also the days of being insulted by outsiders from every corner of the country.
"In the eyes of America, we are a national curiosity, something to be documented by National Geographic or the Sci-Fi channel," Miami Herald columnist Liz Balmaseda lamented last week.
The questions asked on the national news each night, with no criticism intended, have spoken to a national unease: Will demonstrators break through the barricades at the house where Elian Gonzalez is staying? Will a human chain of protesters try to thwart the federal government's attempt to
return him to his father in Cuba? Will the Cuban community riot?
Miami isn't like that, many here say. The city they love is a textured, nuanced place -- full of people passionate about their ethnicities and beliefs, willing to take stands, but wise enough not to let deep feelings about Elian degenerate into civil unrest.
"We don't deserve some of the attacks that some are launching against us," Miami Mayor Joe Carollo says.
Recent outsider comments have ranged from concerned to sarcastic to downright vitriolic.
From Karen Kraushaar, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman: "We beg the community to obey the laws and remain calm."
From a Web site advocating Elian's return to his father: "Mutiny in Miami."
From David Rieff, author of "The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami," in The New York Times: "Miami ... remains, in political terms, an out-of-control banana republic within the body politic."
Susana Barciela, an editorial writer for The Miami Herald who was born in Cuba and grew up here, says those characterizations are "not anything like the Miami I know." "People who like things plain vanilla don't like Miami," she explains.
The banana republic characterization really stings, because of the city's heavy Caribbean and Latin influence, and because so many people in Miami risked their lives to leave Fidel Castro's Cuba.
"Miami is the southern tip of America. It's so much closer to all the fears Americans seem to have about people invading their society," says Roger Hartley, professor of public affairs at Roanoke College in Virginia.
Outsiders have long seen Miami as a place apart, a roiling metropolis that is more like the swollen, chaotic Caribbean than it is like the rest of America. "Miami Vice" built an entire TV series around the premise.
It doesn't help that your average non-Floridian often hears about Miami only when it is in convulsions -- like when a hurricane hits (often), when a politician gets nailed for corruption (not infrequently), when German tourists in rental cars are murdered (1993), when dozens of airline
employees are charged with operating a huge drug ring (last August).
This is one of those times. Demonstrators are chanting, "Miami is heating up," and many echo construction worker Juan Carlos Mesa's sentiments: "We won't let it happen. The police are going to have to arrest everybody."
Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas didn't help last month when he declared that police will not assist federal agents in taking Elian away. He also warned that he would hold President Clinton responsible for any violence.
"When the mayor speaks as the leader of the city and says something like that, it just reinforces the image people already had of us being a place that's out of control and beyond the law," says Thomas Boswell, a University of Miami social geographer.
Penelas, criticized roundly for what smacked of secessionism, later backed off. "We must remain calm," he said. "The entire world is looking upon our community."
In the meantime, people in Miami keep telling anyone who will listen what their city is really like.
"The 'banana republic,' as they call it, was before Cubans arrived," said Gerardo Barrios, 54, demonstrating outside Elian's great-uncle's house. "Now look at greater Miami and ask who built it. We built it."
Copyright 1999, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive, Inc. |