Miami – Bridging the Divide

Dear Miami,

I just left the funeral of Lukeson Lemorin, a fifteen year old Haitian-American boy who was killed on the side of one of your highways while trying to move a stalled car at 11:30 at night. By the sound of the joyful singing inside the Liberty City church, you would have thought it was a revival and not a "home going" as the funeral service was called. Miami, you have been Luke's home for his entire life. But it sure hasn't been easy.  Luke's mother is in jail and his father was recently deported to Haiti, for a crime he was acquitted of.

Miami, Please Forgive me for starting out my letter to you like this and not with a well deserved praise song  to your gorgeous tropical weather, your world class hotels, your golden beaches... But one of the things I love about you is that in addition to your "Housewives" and "Basketball Wives," you are so full of other stories.

You are the beacon city in the dreams of refugees who are becoming delirious after days and sometimes weeks at sea. No wonder 60 percent of your residents are foreign born. Miami, You are also the place that soon after I moved here, I was sitting in a home and a bullet came through the back door. When the Crime Scene Investigation officer  (Go CSI Miami!) came, I asked him if he thought someone was trying to shoot me. "In Miami, if someone's trying to shoot you," he said reassuringly, "You'll know it." I took that to mean that, Miami, you don't have many secrets. Maybe that's why novelists and other story tellers love you so much. No one will ever be surprised that you are both dirt poor and filthy rich. And I am not just talking about money. You are rich in stories too. Stories like Luke Lemorin's, and so many others.
Kenbe la Miami…
Love,
Edwidge Danticat

Dear Miami,

I hear you have your sights set on becoming a global city. Easy now. I'm all for dreaming big, but how about becoming a city first? I grew up in your lap, so you can't fool me. I remember all those teenage nights wishing there was more to do than drop hundreds of my parents' dollars on a bottle and a table. I remember wishing my favorite band -- or anyone's favorite band -- would trek down the scrubby length of Florida to play one of your venues.

I remember the time I took the bus -- that liberating vehicle of so many underage urbanites -- from N.M.B., where I grew up, to South Beach. After an hour, my companion and I jumped off at Collins in the 50s, thinking, "We must be here already." Of course, we were no where. And despite coming of age in a place many long to visit, that's how I felt growing up: This is no where.

Forgive my harshness, Miami. Many may mock your intelligence, but I know you understand it comes from love. And I do recognize the strides you've made. Your arts scene is gaining world renown. Who cares if Art Basel has a reputation as a money-fueled art orgy? We know New York is just jealous.

Geography may still hamper your music scene, but less so now than when I was growing up. And you've even produced a crop of fine local musicians and bands who are here already. How very farm-to-table of you.

Question is, will they be able to realize their dreams in the Magic City? Another musician seems to leave every month, for L.A., for New York. They don't see the potential to make it here. So it's another farewell show this weekend. And it's sparsely attended.

But here's the thing: I see that potential here. I have faith in your very lack of realized potential. Strange, but I'm galvanized by your dearth of cultural bastions and slender roster of historic figures. No Whitman or Warhol to shoo away cultural aspirants like pigeons at their feet. Few pigeons, in fact.

No, Miami, you cast few shadows upon my ambition. Here I feel free to try and fail or succeed in my own fashion.

So here I am, and here I am staying.

Many others have made the same decision.

We have a city to build.

Dear Miami,

Oh, pretty girl in a torn party dress, didn't your parents didn't love you enough when you were a child? All the makeup, the surgeries, flashy TV shows and tight clothes—is this how you want the world to see you? What about your mind, young lady? What about your soul?

Before we moved here, friends warned us—Miami isn't a place where people really live—they just go there for vacations. Miami, you're a fun gal, just not the kind to commit to.

Perhaps the problem is that you're too beautiful. You invite every stranger to your door. Tourists come for a good time: they drink your mojitos and mango margaritas, dance all night on your moonlit beaches, swim the sparkling Bay of Biscayne, then leave their garbage and never call again.

When I'd first arrived, a friend pointed out a swimming pool on one of your sunny campuses and said, "That's where the students go to show off their work." By work, I thought he meant research papers….Of course, he meant implants and tummy tucks.

Neither Cuban nor Jewish and elderly, I thought I wasn't your type. People predicted we'd leave. But over time, you and I recognized something in each other—our stowaway hearts. You snuck under my skin. I was an Arab-American girl from a mixed up family, a genetic Bedouin with a habit of switching cities every other year. And you said, yes, I get you.

Because we all come to you in the end. The seekers, the third chancers, the orchid thieves, the exiles, the painters, the crazies, the intellectuals and the partiers—wild life who don't quite fit anywhere else….Here, somehow, we do. We stroll together down Lincoln Road, past nostalgic art-deco hotels and men pushing tabbies in baby carriages.

Beneath the human parade, your natural beauty unfurls. You open to us, like a plumeria, an orange blossom, a bird-of-paradise. And the scent of jasmine, the sulfurous mangroves, the bright call of wild parrots and the ethereal limbs of the banyan trees have spilled into my writing. And there is more: I found your bookshops and book fair, neighborhoods and gracious communities, your foods and music of a 100 different cultures. Your heart and your mind. Despite homicidal drivers, impossible waiters, crude tourists, you are there, under the green palms, the bluest translucent waters, heaven on earth. If only you could see it for yourself.

Dear Miami,
I've known you for two thirds of my life, and here I sit today reminiscing at your progress, your struggles, and your potential.  Over the years, there has been much pain and suffering, from political downfalls, to hurricanes, to riots. 
Although I can sit here and reflect on the past, I prefer to talk about your future, your aspirations, and your potential to be one of the greatest cities in the world.  Your natural beauty is unbeatable, your progress remarkable, and the time has come for you to shine.
As a government employee fully immersed in urban planning, I have first hand perspective of how you will look in the future.  I envision vibrant streets and neighborhoods, where people walk, bike to work, grab a bite or drop off the laundry without having to hop in a car.  I try to do that on a weekly basis and I can just feel what a difference it makes.  I become part of your civic life, supporting your businesses and adding to the vibrancy of your streets and sidewalks.  I become part of you and give you life and you then are not just a street that I am driving by.
I wish others would join me in making you more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, by allowing you to create a sense of community in each of your neighborhoods.  Many parts of you are already becoming that and one can see, and even feel, the difference.  There is a just a different vibe, something unexplainable but yet visible.  It's you, waking up and opening your arms to anyone who wishes to be embraced. 
My wish for you Miami is to make you a city where there is a climate of economic inclusion, where all who belong to you have access to the promise of prosperity and opportunity, a great quality of life and a sense of civic pride.  I wish nothing less and fully believe we can get there, one neighborhood at a time.  I believe in you, others should join me in doing the same. 
You and I will remain very close friends because I know that one day you will be spoken in the same breath as cities like Paris, Chicago, New York and London.  Knowing that I was part of that progress makes all the difference in my life.

Your friend always,

Luciana Lamardo González

Dear Miami,

You're not part of the United States. Or did you think so?  In a city where Thanksgiving has more to do with how well a pig is nestled into the ground, where the inability to snake through traffic with the swiftness of the most potent belly crawlers means you will NOT arrive to work on time, and where natural disasters such as hurricanes are not typically antagonized by the locals, as they serve, many a times, as a precursor to simply…another party, or rather pachanga, did you really think you would stand in line with cities like Boston or Rochester? Por favor, Miami. You're ground zero for the hybrid language: Spanglish. Do you know what meatloaf tastes like? How the inside of a quiet library looks and sounds like? Can I put guava on that, Miami? Miami, you know about Hialeah, do not relegate her to somewhere away from the Grove, South Beach, and our more sophisticated suburban cousin, Pembroke Pines. I complain about you all the time, like I complain about my abuelita's inability to keep her comments to herself or like I curse the day chongas, aggressive people, MTV reality character hopefuls and pathetically optimistic fashionistas took over much of this otherwise seductive city. I wish you paid more attention to geography, Miami, to your wonderful position as a connecting point near the Caribbean and Latin America. Miami, the land of texting zombies, the land of people who never sit on the grass or grab a coffee alone, you can be very frustrating. But, oh yes, there are the drum circles on the sandy shore, with fire dancers and drummers, Second Saturday's in the Design District and Wynwood, the food trucks, the cyclists, who dream of cities with bicycle lanes, those who crave ULTRA Music Festival's divine buffet of music, Calle Ocho, santeria, and Art Basel, thank you for your presence! Churchill's jazz nights and Jazid's reggae nights, Miami, you do have all of that. I can grab pupusas in Honduran cafeterias, pastelitos in Cuban bakeries, and Colombian coffee all on the same block as well as just visit my friends' homes to enjoy such vibrant Latin cuisine. When it's 70F in January, and I can walk from my office on South Beach to the ocean right before work and arrive at work with sandy heels, I smile and order my colada.
 
Sincerely,
 
Miryam Rodriguez

Dear Miami,
You have what few other states have! Use that great weather! Use it better. Go visit Venice. Copy their gondola idea. We don't want to be Italy, of course, but having gondolas in our beautiful waterways would be fun. And please, create safer bike paths and more walking trails.

The traffic is so bad, Miami. Help us. Stagger the awful traffic somehow. Offer alternative work schedules and have stores open early and close late. Encourage interested doctors to work on weekends so people would not have to take off work. What a concept. And make it illegal to drive and text and please no phones in hands while driving. Talk to other states. And don't get me started on some of our lawmakers. You know what I mean. The word "corrupt" comes to mind.

We love our diversity but sometimes people drive according to the laws of their country, which are different than ours. Get those cars off the road.

Miami needs to lighten up. Remember in 1983 when Christo used millions of square feet of pink fabric and wrapped all the islands. The present pink snails are cute. Let's add some more humor.

In school I took Spanish each year but cannot speak Spanish except I can say in Spanish "where are the meatballs?" Make sure students speak Spanish and make sure they graduate high school knowing how to help their neighbor during a hurricane and teach them important history events like the importance of voting and tell them what happened with election 2000 and the recount and how the nation watched us for a month as we figured out the electoral votes.

Dream bigger Miami. We are the number one cruise passenger port in the world. Tourists get off their cruise ships and wandering aimlessly around Dadeland . Let's have them spend the day with a volunteer Miamian and have lunch at their home so they will take home a wonderful feeling of Miami. And Miami, enough with the Parrot Jungle. Besides the new one is too expensive.
Have a goal. Aim to be the friendliest city. Let's lose weight Miami. We are looking a little hefty these days at the beach. Especially our children. Do better on improving our school lunches. Try to be more fit. Support vegetarian restaurants. And oh, one thing more, Miami, look more natural. Enough with the implants and the botox.