Category: Miami Stories

I am Keegan Simms and I was born and raised in Miami. I am proud of who I am, where I come from, and where I am going. When people ask me the famous question, “Where are you from?” I always anticipate the type of reaction that I will get. To answer that question, I respond with the fictitious word “Germaican.” “What?” they ask, “so you are German and Jamaican?” and I just give them a head nod and a smile. Yes, my mix is not very common and it makes me very unique. My mother is German and my father is Jamaican. It will forever throw people for a loop because even though I am biracial, people are under the impression that I am of Hispanic descent, because of my skin tone and other attributes.

For as long as I can remember my dad would always tell me to learn Spanish and put myself out there because it would give me the advantage, and open doors I could only dream of. Miami, being the melting pot it is, allows me to practice my bilingual skills every day.

Neither of my parents were born in Miami, nor do they have any relatives that previously made historical ties to the great city of Miami. So why and how do I consider Miami my home?

My grandparents on my mother’s side were each born in Germany and moved to Iowa, U.S.A., while they were young. My mother was the third oldest of seven children, who were all raised on a farm in a small town in northeast Iowa. My grandfather always took his kids on airplanes rides, which intrigued my mother enough to join the traveling industry and become a flight attendant. Her job and training stationed her in Miami, where she would meet my dad.

My father is a pure-bred Jamaican who spent almost a fourth of his life on the small island in the Caribbean. After finishing up his education, he picked up a job with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line as a photographer. This allowed him to travel the world while he got paid to do what he loved. My dad had the opportunity to walk on American soil, through his job, and he enjoyed it enough to go through the naturalization process and become an American citizen. What city did he choose to settle in? None other than Miami. It was on one of his trips at sea that he met my mother.

The photograph embodies why Miami is my home. Neither of my parents had previous ties to Miami before they met each other and this picture, in a way, signifies how my parents met. My mother is depicted in the third row from the top and second flight attendant from the left. This is her inducted class of United Airlines flight attendants. The picture was taken by the attractive photographer from Jamaica, otherwise known as my father. All aspects of this picture tell a story about how Miami is my home today. Each of their individual passions led them to meet in one of the most diverse cities in the world.

It was not too long before the wedding, and my parents got married. My mother’s job required her to relocate every so often; before any of my siblings were born, my parents lived everywhere from New Jersey to Hawaii. When my mother was pregnant with my oldest brother, she wanted to settle down in their old stomping grounds and where it all started – Miami, Florida. They bought an abandoned house destroyed by Hurricane Andrew and solely by their hands and the hands of relatives they built the house I live in today. This house we live in is a product of the many generations of hands putting up drywall and perfecting piping systems.

Our family tree is rich in culture as my parents are from different parts of the world. One might think that our household is bursting with different languages and principles, but it is completely the opposite. From stories told to me by my parents, I know that the way my siblings and I were raised was drastically different from the way my parents were raised. I think American society had a strong influence on the way that we were raised. Now, as I evaluate our culture, I realize that we are blazing a new way of life as we take snippets of everyone’s culture and make it our own. Seldom do we do things exclusive to the Jamaican culture or the German heritage. The best way to describe our culture is just a spoon of the “Miami Melting Pot,” with a tad bit more jerk seasoning.

These stories and memories make Miami home. There is no other place I would rather spend my life. Miami is special to me and to the rest of my family. Maybe all it takes for one to call someplace home is just time spent there, but it is the untold stories of the city and the memories that you make while in that city that truly determines your roots.

I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital, which was founded by my great-grandfather, Dr. James M. Jackson. When my mother was delivering me, according to my grandfather, they did not have enough anesthesia machines. My grandfather, who was working at Jackson at the time, went and rounded one up so that she would have less pain during the delivery.

I was raised in Grove Park, which was bounded by 17th Avenue. I grew up on the river. I used to play in the river and go down there and look at the different animals. You could see manatees and the river crabs.

I had a friend who had a boat and we would go up and down the river and look at the different sites. There used to be land there that was private and, as teenage boys, we would sneak in and explore the secret caves that were next to a small canal. I think once we had to depart rather quickly when a caretaker appeared with a shot gun.

I went to school for elementary and junior high at Citrus Grove, and then high school at Miami High.

I grew up in the 1950s when Miami was still a resort town. It was open in the winter months and many of the hotels on Miami Beach would close down in the summer. My grandmother would rent a cabana at one of the hotels on the beach and we would go and use that in the summer.

The air conditioning was not used extensively in the mid-1950s. I remember visiting people’s houses and the purr of the fans. I would eat dinner at my grandmother’s house and she had a big fan in the dining room that would keep you cool while you were eating.

It wasn’t really until the late ‘50s and early ‘60s that air conditioning became more prevalent. The town was not as large as it is now. I remember camping as a Boy Scout at the youth center, which was in Kendall. It was all fields and sand. We’d pitch tents there and have Boy Scout jamborees.

My Boy Scout troop, troop 66, would meet at Riverside Methodist Church and we would go camping in the Everglades. We would camp in cow fields that were in what is now known as Doral. It wasn’t very long ago that it was all cow fields and lakes out there.

We would also camp on some islands in the bay, and one of them is known as Fisher Island today. It used to have the quarantine station on it, and that was all. It was an island covered with Australian pines. I also used to go sailing on the bay and enjoyed many days sailing around and exploring Biscayne Bay and the Coconut Grove area.

We would go to South Beach, especially in high school. There was a summer culture where all the students would go play on the beach, swim, play football in the ocean, get tans, climb on the jetty, and things I think that kids still do today.

It was a wonderful place to go. There were students there from all over the county.

I went to college my first year at Duke University and I was not a good student. I ended up coming back to Dade Junior College. It’s a very common story actually. There is an adage that everybody returns to Dade. I saw friends who came back after having gone to Harvard.

While I was at the junior college, I noticed this very beautiful freshmen student in my humanities class. I made friends with her and later on we got married in Georgia at a courthouse when I was in medical school. It was a $13 wedding — $3 for a blood test, $10 for a license, and then our friends took us to Arby’s. I’ve been a very spoiled Anglo husband all of these years since.

I went to school and worked in North Carolina for a while. What I did not miss from Miami was the intense heat in the summer. But, despite the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I did return to Miami 27 years ago to work at the University of Miami and have been here ever since.

I was anointed by my grandmother to become a physician when I was a small boy. She had many grandchildren, but I was the one that she gave the mortar and pestle to that belonged to Dr. Jackson and sat in his office. I still have it to this day.

I became a physician because I wanted to be a surgeon and help people recover from serious injuries. I knew I was going to go into orthopedics as my goal when I went to medical school. I was able to do that, and I’ve had a very successful career in helping people with significant injuries recover and be able to return to a functional and, hopefully, happy life.

I spend a lot of time at the hospital, so my time off and my weekends are spent working in the garden and going for walks. I have a woodshop that I built into my house and I made most of the furniture in my house. I’ll make it out of beautiful mahogany wood and some of the wood I get is actually from trees that have fallen here in Dade County.

It turns out that I’ve always been making things since I was a kid. Those skills of being able to use tools and look at objects in a three-dimensional sense are skills that I carried over to becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

I was aware of the family’s history and I knew as a boy that my great-grandfather was a very special individual and that Jackson Hospital was an extension of the way he lived his life.
He was a revered figure in the household. The painting of James Jackson that is in the Alamo, the original hospital building, was over my mother’s piano for many years before my father donated it for safekeeping.

Dr. Jackson was a man who was very community minded. He came here and became a part of many social groups and was thought of highly among those social groups. He was the president of the YMCA and he helped with the Boy Scouts. He was remarkable in his constant dedication to his community. It was always wonderful having a relative who had done so much good.

I think the 100-year anniversary of Jackson Memorial Hospital is a celebration of something truly special. We get to have this amazing hospital system that is a safety net for our community. It’s something that’s very precious that a lot of big cities don’t have.

I moved to Miami in 2011 in search of “The American Dream,” and to build a better future for myself. In my suitcase, I brought some clothes, family photos, personal documents and a few art books. Being an immigrant is anything but simple; at first, friends gave me lodging while I found a place to live and I spent part of my savings on hiring an immigration paralegal and buying a small car to get around. I looked for a job, but I couldn’t speak a single word of English. I discovered very quickly it was a problem, so I enrolled in free English classes at Coral Gables Senior High School.

After a few months, I looked for the most economical accommodations I could find, a small room in between Little River and Little Haiti. This “efficiency” was depressing because it was dirty, small, and the area was a bit dangerous. It was rough living in such a small place with dirt floors for the entrance, and in between stray chickens, cats and dogs. After paying the required three months’ rent and buying a few necessities at the Little River’s Family Dollar store, I had $25 left in my wallet.

I’ll never forget when I went to my first formal job interview, at the 111 building in Brickell. To all the questions they asked me, I replied using the only word I knew by then which was “Yes,” and I filled out the applications using my cell phone to translate. As I left the building to get my car in the parking lot, the attendant in the parking lot said to me: “Mijo, it is $25.” Then with tears in my eyes, I replied (in Spanish): “It cannot be possible, please check my ticket, it was only an hour or less.” But the attendant made it clear to me that it was a flat fee of $25. So I gave her the last $25 I had in my possession.

I returned to my efficiency with my head down, watching the animal tracks through the sand corridor, and I found pieces of old wood, paint, used brushes, and the remains of curtains; that is when I told myself that the art would save me! I borrowed some tools from the landlord, and I started putting together my canvases. Once the art pieces were ready, I put them in my car, and I went to homes and workplaces of every person I knew to offer my artwork for sale. I sold them all.

I remember when there was no Wynwood design district or Micro-Theater, but I made my way into the visual arts by having my first exhibition in the Coral Gables High School library, then in restaurants and art-walks in Brickell. Those were my beginnings. I am proud to be part of the cultural growth of this city, where I have already exhibited in galleries in Wynwood, such as the Curator Art Project and Spectrum Art Fair.

Alongside my artwork, I needed a full-time job where I could practice my English, because as we all know in Miami, a lot of people speak Spanish. At that time, one of the persons who bought an art piece offered me an opportunity to work as a server at the Vizcaya Museum. When I went and saw the majesty of that building, I fell in love with Miami.

Being a server wasn’t my ultimate goal, but that I knew that it was the way many immigrants start their journey when they move here, and I wanted to be the best of the team. Then, fate played its part; when I was accompanying a coworker to deliver an art piece, I met Gio Alma, the photographer of the stars, and my creative professional journey in Miami began.

With him, I did the art direction and photography production for personalities like Cristina Saralegui, Irma Martinez, and companies such as Miami City Ballet and Digicel. Also, on the side, I had the opportunity to be an actor for the Sociedad Hispanoamericana de Teatro with the play “Cleopatra,” and I became president of the professional association for design, AIGA, Miami Chapter.

Nevertheless, I still felt that I could not express myself professionally as easy as I did in Spanish, so I decided to apply to Miami International University of Art & Design to earn a master’s degree. It wasn’t easy since I was working full time, and several times I contemplated quitting, but I persevered and completed it with honors. After my master’s, I became a creative director, and recently I had the opportunity the work alongside Lenny Kravitz.

I still have a lot to do because I think that the sky is the limit. In the process of continuing to foster my art, I have a 360 solo exhibition from April 19 -30. “Sense, Feeling it or Not” at Art & Design Gallery, on Biscayne Boulevard and 86th Street, where I will display more than 50 paintings, art installations, sculptures, and a dramatized reading of the play “Sala Marco Caridad,” and its English version, “Marco Caridad’s Room.”

Different venues already did something like this in New York with the artist Rothko. For me, it is an honor to do the play in Miami inspired by my art pieces. The most important part is that, unlike Rothko, I am one of the actors in the play, and I will be starring along with Mel Gorham, the Hollywood actress who starred in Wayne Wang’s film, “Smoke and Blue in the Face.”

The Venezuelan playwright Yonyi Gutiérrez wrote the play. The performance will be inside the main room of the exhibition, and the actors will act on top of a 12-foot-long by 6-foot-wide table. The audience will be around them. We performed it in Kendall at Artefactus Project during two weekends in 2016. The audience was moved; several attendees came out with tears in their eyes.

Today, I am happily married and living in Miami Shores.

I am Nelly Josefina Avila de Barriga and I was born on November 20, 1958, in Maracaibo. We are very regionalist, and refer to our city, Maracaibo, as the first city of Venezuela.

My first visit to Miami was as a tourist, and it seemed very pretty to me here. It reminded me a lot of Maracaibo – the city is on a flat plane like Miami, it has a lot of beaches and the climate is similar to Miami. I told my family that when I was in Miami I felt like I was in Maracaibo. Of course Miami is a bit more organized than Maracaibo, but also very pretty like Maracaibo.

After raising a family and growing a career in Maracaibo, my daughter had the idea to move here to Miami to live. It was because of the things that were happening in Venezuela at that time. My oldest daughter came here with her husband, but my second daughter is a journalist and she had to stay and cover the Venezuelan government.

I worked with children there and I didn’t want to leave it to come to Miami. My roots were there. My schools, my kids, my profession, everything was there. It cost me the world to leave and come here. But for the love of my daughters and grandchildren, I came to Miami.

I don’t regret the decision, and I have been well received here. I’ve found my group here, and now I am working with children, giving them music lessons. I am doing a part of what I did in Venezuela, thanks be to God.

In Venezuela I started with music when I was 11 years old. At that time there was a priest who really liked music and sports, so he created a project with children. He saw that there were many music groups in the region where I lived, Zulia, but they were groups of adults. He decided to make a music group of children and see what came out of it. Then we gained attention. All of the children in Maracaibo wanted to participate in this group because of the importance it had.

He dedicated himself to teaching us music, but he educated us in other ways, as well. He taught us a lot of discipline. From then on, everyone who integrated into the conjunto all went on to become teachers. We taught music and we taught primary education.

At age 16, I went to a female group. When I finally joined the men’s professional music group, I was the only woman among 18-20 men. I was a principal member of this group. I have also been in big groups like Los Tucusones, Enrico Morales, Amor y Gaita, and others.

Later on, I met my husband and we formed our own group. My father was being difficult at that time, saying that since I have a boyfriend now I can’t follow the gaita music and band lifestyle.

Well, passion always wins, and so I married my husband, and we were in the same music group. People were concerned that we wouldn’t last, but now we have 30 years of being together and playing music.

From that experience, I learned that I wanted to teach children about gaita music. I wanted to have a school in Venezuela of gaita music like they have in Mexico for mariachi music. Everywhere in Venezuela the people love gaita, and it comes from my home in Zulia. I wanted the school, and so I sought the approval of the governor who approved the project.

Gaita music is with Venezuelans since birth. It is played all year long and heard all of the time on the radio. It’s as essential to Venezuelan life as salsa music is in Miami. We also listen to other genres, but in every Venezuelan house there is a gaita musician or singer.

In reality, the gaita was born as a protest. My mom told me that in her time, gaita music was the only form that the people could use to protest the government. I’ve heard some of these old recordings, and it’s amazing because the musicians recorded everything at these protests with one microphone. In today’s world, you need a lot of equipment to record gaita music well, and it’s a delicate process.

Famous musicians in Latin America come to Venezuela to play and record gaita music. These musicians comment about how hard it is to play gaita music, but for us it’s like drinking water. We are born with this music and tradition.

In many regions of Venezuela, they play gaita music during Christmas. Here in Miami they begin asking for it on the first of November.

I play gaita music socially and when the drinks are over and I have finished playing, I will take the music back to my house. That’s what most Venezuelans do here because it reminds them of home.

My husband is a musician, too, and it’s in the family. My granddaughter is learning by growing up in this tradition, and I have a grandson, her little brother, who has been passionate about singing gaita since he was a little boy.

We formed our group, La Gran Maquinaria, in 1989. We started as members of many different music groups. We knew each other from playing at functions, restaurants and discotheques. One day at a restaurant there were so many musicians gathered together at one common table that we felt the need to all play together. The next week we were playing at that same restaurant.

I have a lot of respect for my work; there are libraries in Venezuela that have my work, and I have won many prizes. My husband made a room for my trophies, but they don’t all fit.

I’ve been singing gaita for 46 years. It is incredible to see a Venezuelan crying over my gaita performance. They remember the market and the religion, their family, and moments that they’ve had. It is very emotional.

The government right now does not allow gaita for protest. It’s forbidden. Gaita music has been adaptable to other styles and played for romance, love, commercial use and other things. But it’s most important that it remain a protest and confrontational music because that’s where it came from.

Here in Miami, I am surrounded by Cubans, Colombians, and other Latins. We have very similar cultures, and Venezuelans are very sentimental, nostalgic, and we’re rooted in what is ours, our culture. We communicate with each other through our music, with the soul, and with our customs.

When I sing, they are already all my friends. This is what I value. Music is the language of the soul.

My father came down to Miami from Chicago in 1952 and my mom in 1953. He worked as a lifeguard and she worked at old Jackson hospital. They met at the 14th Street beach. They courted, then married in 1954 and I was born that same year. My nickname as a kid was “Sandy” because they met on the beach. I also grew up on Miami Beach.

As I ventured into tourism and travel in 1979, my travels took me a lot of places. I started with Gray Line tours here in Miami, and we did lots of tours to the mountains in the Smokies, and in New Orleans. But mostly my career was here in Miami doing tours in the city, in the Everglades and in Key West.

Gray Line was sold in the mid-1990s to an Orlando transportation company, and then absorbed by Coach USA, so Gray Line isn’t the sightseeing tour company it used to be.

Then, about 10 years ago, Big Bus Tours came to Miami. Big Bus is a London-based company and now they’re in 17 different cities throughout the world. Miami was their first U.S. city.

The industry has changed a lot. Years ago people wanted to be in a nice air-conditioned motor coach, and now it’s become very popular to sit on top of a sightseeing vehicle. It’s a wonderful way to see the city. It’s like being in an open convertible.

I’ve always been interested in transportation, which has led me to a lot of history as well. I could’ve been anything, and I think my mother was horrified that I would consider being in transportation rather than a doctor or lawyer. But I think it’s always important to do something enjoyable with your life, since you’ll spend a lot of time doing it. I’ve had no regrets with my decision to be in transportation, and I have met wonderful people.

When I started with Gray Line, they wouldn’t hire you unless you were going to be a driver-guide, so I ventured into that. I already knew history and it came naturally to me. Back in the ‘80s, I was fortunate enough to learn from many highly educated driver-guides, and it was quite rewarding.

You’d begin by traveling on a bus with a driver-guide, and you would also have to be in the classroom and take tests on subjects they wanted you to know about. The schooling for being a guide lasted a month, and then if you passed the schooling they would teach you how to drive. It took six weeks to finish the course.

I’m still learning to this day. People are fascinating, and you have to get to know them and talk with them to see what their interests are. It’s amazing, the stories that I can tell you. I’ve had people die on tours, and once I was in the Everglades and a man stood up and threw up all over me. I didn’t miss a beat. I just stepped aside. To this day I know some tour guides who have heard about that event and couldn’t believe I kept my composure. Have to roll with the punch.

To stay informed we read the paper, of course. There are lots of celebrities here in South Florida, and they’re always in the news. The commentary changes quite often. If there’s a significant event that happens in the city, like the Versace murder on Miami Beach, we mention it when we go past there. Sometimes we remove old and less significant information as new things happen. So we go with the change of the times.

The tourists I guide are really wowed by the beauty of the city. The architecture here is very beautiful. In the wintertime, when you go across the bridges the color of the water is wonderful. I always tell the students that they should appreciate the nature here – the trees and birds and the dolphins in the bay. There is so much natural beauty if you’re really looking and paying attention.

Tourism in South Florida used to start right after Thanksgiving and would continue through until after Easter. For many years this was the way it was, and people would close their homes up and go north. When air conditioning came into play, and when the Latin American influx came, we became a year-round destination for tourism.

Unfortunately, sitting in the busses during the summer is like sitting inside of a broiler pan. But most of the people on the tour are going to the beach anyway so they’re going to have suntan lotion on. It isn’t often that we’re sitting in really bad traffic, and on the weekends it might be slow, but for the most part it’s fine, and they can always go down below to the climate-controlled coach.

As time goes on, you learn to do a routine and how to build your tour. Sometimes it might take you longer to cross the causeway, and basic buildings aren’t going to change, so you have to be ready with what we call fillers, which are facts about surroundings. You’re going to say the same thing over and over again most of the time, so you have to keep it fresh.

I think tourism will always be good here because we are a major hub for Latin America, and we have many more Europeans coming here for tours. Everyone wants to come to Miami.

It is important that the guides and the people giving information present the city in a positive way, and that the drivers drive politely and safely. But it’s a constant battle to get the two working together smoothly. The hospitality industry is not paying as much as it should to attract better caliber people.

But I just love it. When I give the tours on the coach, the city sells itself, so my job is easy. I’m simply enabling my audience to enjoy it more.

I was born in the Oriente Province of Cuba in 1953. I came to the United States when I was 12 years old and my family settled in Hialeah.

My parents bought the house that they still live in today, and we started our business in Hialeah in 1968 as a clothing store.

My parents would work in the factories during the day and would sell pants and shirts door-to-door on the side. The business grew, and we decided to open the location where we are to this day. In 1979 we bought another building and expanded, but we also kept the original store.

I grew up in the business beginning when I was 14 working for my parents. Then I went to Miami-Dade to study fashion design. I started working in 1997 with the quinceañera dresses, which I love.

Family relatives who were turning 15 around that time wanted quinceañera cruises, which were a new fad. They were looking for their dresses, and we were going to the meetings and decided to get into the business. We have been doing that ever since.

My husband and I are now the owners. He worked for us when we got married, and now he’s in the administration.

We have three sales people who have been with us for a while, and a couple of seamstresses who work with me. It’s a small operation, but it’s working out well.

When we came from Cuba in the 1960s, the situation here was not good. But my mom put money away, and when I turned 15 I had my party at the house for the sake of the tradition. Quinces here in Miami were very simple in my time. I went to a lot of them, and I danced a couple.

At mine I wore a white miniskirt with a tiara, and I had a photographer come to the house, and my friends came, and we took pictures and had a dance party. As a mother now I understand wanting to have that special day for my daughter, and I’m thankful that my own mother did that for me, too.

The quince tradition came from the Mexicans: the Aztecs and tribes in Mexico. They used to have a special ceremony for the girls approaching puberty to give them different roles for their different tribes. Then the Spanish came, and the emperor Maximilian changed the whole thing, and wanted to adapt the custom to more of a fancy ball with beautiful dresses to present the girl into society.

It’s changed into sort of a rite of passage. I know a lot of moms who don’t let their girls pluck their eyebrows or put makeup on until their quinces. That’s when they wear their first heels, put makeup on, and they’re excited.

It’s also not just one big dress anymore. Every year there is a change in this business. In the beginning we started with the cruises and they wore all white. Then they started doing colors — champagne and ivory — and with the parties it’s the same. Now they go with themes, such as Disney themes, so we have dresses that we try to not make look like a costume but fit the theme of the party. Themes require a lot of planning ahead of time.

I learn something new every day. Some girls are very excited about doing this, others just want to please their mom. But most of them dream about this day for a long time. When they come in, we like for them to feel like a princess.

I have friends in the business who do big parties. Once, there was a girl who came in on an elephant. They had to get a permit to bring it over, but they had money and she wanted to do that so they did. That’s a little extreme, but it happens.

Some parties are as big as 500 guests. The most popular ones are around 100 or 150, and 200 is considered a big party. The way I see it, weddings can happen at any time, but a quinces is an event that happens once in your life, and it stays there forever.

I have two girls. For them we had a small party at the house; I didn’t have the business back then. I’m planning the quinces for my granddaughters already. They are still young, but I’m excited to do that.

I think quinceañeras will stay. Many who come here have been planning since they were little girls. It’s rewarding for me; I don’t do it so much for the money; my reward is seeing the faces of the girls when they come back and say they had a great time, and they bring me a picture, and they recommend somebody.

At this time in my life, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I am also able to help the community. We’ve worked with Make-a-Wish Foundation girls, in cruises and parties, and we’ve done work with schools and to make parties for groups of girls who don’t have much. I like to do that.

Miami influences what I do. My husband once told me that this was the capital of quinces in Florida, and I think it is. I have people coming from Tampa, West Palm, Orlando to get dresses here.

There’s a mix of cultures, too. Before it was more of the Cubans giving all of these big parties, but since we have people from all over, and because these people are growing up together in school, this mix of cultures influences our parties, like our colors. We have people from Brazil who have these parties, and I have some girls that are from the African-American community who do Sweet 16s, and they have Cuban and Spanish girls dancing at their parties, too. It’s a nice thing to do. It brings the community together.

I was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on August 15, 1963. I grew up there, but came to the United States at the age of 12. I lived in New York City until I came to Miami in 1994 on vacation with my dad and sister. I ended up staying.

I’m a realist artist. I’ve been painting my entire life. I do a lot of murals now, but I started painting with canvases in New York. It was too cold to do murals there.

When I first came to Miami, I was already a sign painter and portrait artist. But when I saw Little Haiti, I really noticed something was missing. All I saw were letters. I thought it would be cool to see a restaurant with a nice big piece of chicken painted on it, or a painting of a table with someone eating. That way, the people who didn’t understand English would know what’s in the restaurant. And vice versa for the places that had signs in Creole.

I first started by working here through my uncle’s fabric store. There was a restaurant called Chez Le Bebe across the street from the fabric store. One day I walked across the street to the restaurant and looked at my uncle’s place. Everything again was letters. It’d say, “We sell this,” “we’ve got that.” I went back to my uncle and asked him if I could paint a beautiful woman out there with some nice fabrics, so that people would know what’s being sold in there.

He said, “If you’re not going to charge me, go ahead and get it done.” So he took me to Ace Hardware and bought me some paint.

As I was sketching, I noticed cars started slowing down. They kept looking and saying, “Good job!” Less than an hour into the picture of the woman I started putting colors on it. This lady pulled over and said, “Sir, this is beautiful. I have a fabric store three blocks down. Would you do the same thing for me?” I said yes, even though I knew I wouldn’t have time because I was going back to New York.

My uncle ended up giving me $200 for the mural, since it got so many compliments from customers. That’s when I knew I had to stay with my cousin in Miami to be an artist. It had always been my dream.

I had to trick my dad and sister in order to stay because Haitian people, we stick together. We don’t leave our family. You go three blocks down—we’re all related.

So, five minutes before the Greyhound to New York left, I told the driver I was going to use the bathroom. He opened the door and let me out. My dad was like, “You’ve got five minutes to come back.” I left with nothing in my hand.

There was a car parked by the gas station. Instead of going to the bathroom, I dodged behind the car and waited for the bus driver to leave. I could see my dad and my sister getting real mad, looking for me. And sure enough the bus driver closed the door and said, “Okay, I’m leaving him.”

The bus left and I found a payphone. At the time it was two quarters to call. I called my cousin, and said, “Cuz, I’m somewhere called Biscayne Boulevard on 7th Street,” and he came to pick me up.

I ended up making a lot of money fast, doing exactly what I wanted to do. But my father stopped talking to me. When I came to Miami, I saw a future for me. I saw my dream. But I couldn’t get that into my father’s head.

A year later, Haiti was in the headlines because Jean-Bertrand Aristide was coming back to take power in Haiti. On 54th Street in Little Haiti, there was a place called Veye-Yo. Whenever something political happened in Haiti, we always gathered there. At the time, Father Gérard Jean-Juste owned Veye-Yo. He was a big leader of the Haitian community.

So when Aristide was coming back, all of the news outlets were there. As an artist, I wanted to put my two cents in. I put a big canvas in front of Veye-Yo, and drew Aristide coming back with American Flags and Haitian flags united. Before you know it, CNN was interviewing me. The next morning, I got a call from my sister.

She’d told my dad that I was on TV. He assumed I’d killed someone or robbed a store. But once he saw that I was giving interviews and looking good, he finally called me to congratulate me. It was the happiest time of my life.

Since then the biggest challenge I face with my work is the sun. It’s too hot here sometimes. Sometimes there’s walls that you want to be working on, and walls you don’t want to be on, because the sun stays there 24 hours a day. Sadly I can’t keep an umbrella on top of my head while I hold the picture and the brush. That’s the only thing that’s hard in my business. But every other part of my job is a joy.

I love huge works with huge exposures. Things that kids will look up to. Things that, when you pass by, could inspire kids to be an artist. That’s why you see me in the street all of the time.

I love painting all over Miami, but I have to do my homework on the area. I can’t go to Little Havana and paint a picture of Aristide. I have to walk around, look around, and feel the environment before I put anything in someone’s environment.

If I go to Liberty City, I know that’s an American environment. I would know automatically, if I put a big Tupac or Biggie Smalls there, they would like that. Because that’s their vibe. So if I’m in Little Haiti I could paint Father Jean-Juste.

I hope my artwork will stay forever in Little Haiti and represent Haiti to the fullest. I am more Americanized now, but at the same time I like to keep my culture. Just like the Cuban brothers keep their culture.

That doesn’t mean I can’t paint skyscrapers, or the Statue of Liberty, or Mr. Obama. I can do all of that. But at the same time, when I’m in Little Haiti, I concentrate on what matters to Haitians.

My grandparents, Cecil and Gertrude Bremner, along with their three daughters, Cecilia (Scanlon), 10; Frances (May), 5; and Lauraine (Durrance), 3, left Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1949 to start a new life in Miami.

My grandparents both worked at Fraser Refinishers furniture store on Northwest 27th Avenue.

My mother, Cecilia, graduated from Miami Senior High and started working at Southern Bell in Miami Beach. She later married my father, Ralph Werlau.

In 1958 I was born at General Hospital in Coral Gables, and 10 months, 17 days later my brother Keith was born.

My parents bought a house in a newly developed residential area called Westwood Lakes in 1959. My father worked for The Miami Herald as a composer/typesetter and my mother became a housewife.

Keith and I went to Westwood Christian and then Royal Palm Elementary.

Our neighborhood was such a great place to grow up. There were lots of other families with kids in Westwood Lakes. My best friend was Donna Page.

My parents joined the Miami Herald bowing league on Wednesday nights at Bird Bowl. Their team sponsor was Frankie’s Pizza. Sometimes after bowling we’d get a pizza to bring home. I still love Frankie’s.

My brother and I started bowling at a young age; we each had our own bowling ball, bag & shoes.

In the mid-1960s there was a league called The Roadrunners; it was a group of 150 young bowlers. There were two divisions: Bantam (6-12 years old) and Juniors (13-19). We bowled Saturday mornings and were coached by my mom and assistant coach, Shirley Shockley.

Mom bowled in a Tuesday morning league and several women’s tournaments that included a young Paula Sperber (Carter). In 1971 mom joined a new organization called The Dade County Bowlerettes, and then, between 1972 and 1973, just before she stopped bowling, she worked in the pro shop at Western Sunset Bowl.

Mom was one of my Brownie leaders and also for Girl Scouts. We usually had meetings at our house and worked on projects to earn our badges. One of our field trips included the Tremendous Color Plant, where we each received a Kodak Brownie camera.

I loved selling Girl Scout cookies and Keith earned money by delivering newspapers from his bike.

We lived near Bird Road and 112th Avenue. Closest to us was the Concord Shopping Plaza. There were so many stores & restaurants available to us. Each place has a fond memory, like the Burger Castle where my brother and I got our first jobs.

On the weekends, Tropicaire Drive-In would become a swap meet during the day and sometimes we would sell stuff there. My favorite thing was going there at night to watch a movie from our car.

On 112th Avenue and 51st Street, there was a small but steep bridge. My dad would accelerate the car just before going up the bridge and as we came down the other side you could feel your stomach jump a little. We always laughed. The bridge has been leveled.

We went to Rivera Junior High. Next to the school was a park and pool where my brother and I learned to swim. As I finished up 10th grade at Southwest Senior High, my parents divorced. Mom, Keith and I had to rent a house in Kendall. It was very hard leaving my friends.

I’ve always regretted not keeping in touch with them when I had to move away. I found out that my friend Donna Page was shot and killed while being robbed as she was leaving the Copa Lounge on Bird Road in 1982.

Mom got a job at Southern Bell in Coral Gables on Alhambra.

During the summer I would catch a bus to the Coral Gables Bus Terminal. I would meet my great-aunt Nellie and we would go to the Coral Gables Library.

In 11th and 12th grade I attended and graduated from Miami Killian Senior High. Starting a new school was scary but I made new friends and earned a spot on the school’s bowling team and badminton team.

Then Mom remarried and they bought a house in Cutler Ridge. It was so nice and quiet.

In 1977, a new Denny’s Restaurant opened on Marlin Road and US 1. I got a job as a waitress there. My mother suggested I apply at Southern Bell and in January 1979 I was hired on as a clerk.

Southern Bell later became Bellsouth and in 1987, we moved our Yellow Pages office to a new five-story building on Kendall and 117th Avenue. AT&T acquired Bellsouth in 2006. Many lost their jobs. I was able to hold on and retired in May 2009 with 30 years.

I’m very grateful to my mother. I learned so much working at Bellsouth and have many friends for life. We keep in touch through social media or get-togethers.

These days, retirement is on hold and I’m searching for a job.

Being a Miami native, I’ve witnessed the growth and many changes that make Miami what it is today. I still love it here but there are times I find myself feeling like an outsider. I do miss the old Miami.

My brother lives less than four miles from where we grew up. Mom and I still live in Cutler Bay which has experienced a large population growth.

If I’m in the area, I will drive through the old neighborhood. Many of the homes have been updated, but amazingly, there are a few that still have the original 1956 design.

We all have wonderful memories of living in Miami, from my family that moved here, to the generations since.

I was born in 1968 in Coral Gables. I have a twin brother and we were the biggest twins born in Doctor’s Hospital ever. We moved to Kendall and I still live in the 10-block radius where I grew up.

I had been a banker for 20 years but in 2008 the industry plummeted, so I had to decide what else to do. My kids were pulling for an ice cream shop, and I wanted something that would help pay for college, so for me it was about having a job and putting my kids through school.

We’re a big ice cream family; my grandma made ice cream in Cuba and parts of Central and Latin America while she traveled with my grandfather who was a sugar mill engineer. She picked the fruits from all of these different countries to make ice cream. She didn’t make it when she came to Miami, but we had it all of the time. For us, it was about being together as a family. Ice cream makes everyone smile; it’s a fun business, so I decided to open Azucar.

Penn State has an ice cream school, so I went there and then to St. Louis, the Frozen Institute. I came back and I decided that Little Havana would be the only place to have a Cuban ice cream store.

The day I opened there was a Viernes Culturales event, which is a festival on Calle Ocho on the last Friday of every month. The entire street closes down and all of the art galleries open and lots of food vendors come out. It’s like a street party.

That’s the day I opened, and I almost ran out of ice cream that day; I had to come back at 5:00 the next morning to make more ice cream, and it’s been like that ever since.

For me, I had to make it as Cuban as possible, and the tiles are the biggest labor of love I ever did. We have replicas of tiles like you would have seen in Cuba 50 years ago. They’re also a little broken, which is how you would see them in Cuba today. I stole guayaberas from my family members’ closets to decorate the walls and I added plastic to the furniture because everyone had plastic back then on the furniture.

The Celia Cruz painting, which is the most photographed thing in the store, came by accident. This was from George Viera, and I was next door building my shop when I met his brother. He mentioned this painting that George did, and he showed it to me and I bought it right there.

Most of the store is filled with local art, which I’ve commissioned. We have a 29-foot ice cream cone on the outside of the building, which is a work of art until a hurricane comes. Then we have to touch it up a lot. Birds live up there too, an entire family.

In the morning I get tourists, and at night it’s all locals. It’s a lot of fun, and I like it better at night to tell the truth.

We are the #1 place named by New Times to take out-of-towners. We educate them on exactly what Cuban ice cream is and our experience. A lot of people come here on their way to Cuba, and some people come back after Cuba, and we like to hear what they have to say.

There are some people who live around the pier. There’s one gentleman who comes and eats chocolate every day. He just sits, happy to watch what’s going on in the street, and he’ll stay for two hours. We also have lots of dog owners who come in and share a cone with their dog.

Our clients from the area, from Domino Park, are an older audience and many are diabetic, and they would come in and ask for sugar-free. I used to tell them that we are called “Azucar” (sugar), not “sin azucar” (without sugar). But I had to make it, because the demand got so high. Now, we make all of the flavors for them, too.

I’d like to grow the business little by little and be all over the nation, like the Cuban Haagen-Dazs. But I’m just one person and I don’t want a huge team yet that I don’t know personally. Our next spot may be next to FIU, and then I want to go to Plano, Texas, because my mom, my brother and my little sister live there.

I started out doing it for economic reasons. I was going to have this little store, and my kids would work there and we would make ends meet, but it’s become way bigger than anything I would have ever dreamed of. We were picked by Goldman-Sachs, Miami-Dade College, and Babson College as one of the 10,000 small businesses in the United States to move forward. So they’ve given me education, and I now have an entrepreneurial degree from Babson College.

Now, it’s about what’s happening in the area, whom we can we help out, and what we can do to get better every day. I became a board member with Viernes Culturales, of Miami-Dade College on the advisory board, and of the Merchants Alliance. My day isn’t just standing at an ice cream machine anymore; it’s going to meetings with the commissioner, the mayor and trying to get these streets cleaned up.

I’ve never lived outside of Miami; I have five siblings, and they all left except me. Miami is home, it’s where I grew up, and it’s everything that I know. I have traveled extensively, but this is home. This is where there’s ocean, where I can breathe, and this is where I feel the best.

I think of all the cultures that are here – even at Azucar. We’re a mix of peoples and cultures but we all still get ice cream.

On Christmas Day, 1961, I lost my innocence.

Instead of waking up to presents given by loving parents, family and friends, I received goodbyes from aunts, uncles, cousins, school friends, my dog, my town, my school, my parents and my grandmother.

In my suitcase, I packed my memories. Would I ever see my beloved Güines again? I could hear my mother and grandmother crying behind closed doors, and my father giving me advice on what to do and not to do as I left for this flight — the flight of Pedro Pan into Never-Never Land. I didn’t understand the reasons why; I only knew that my parents and all the adults, including the headmaster of the Salesian school where I had been since kindergarten, thought that this flight was for the best. Best because I would be going to the promised land of freedom, even though I had to go by myself, like Wendy and her siblings, leaving my parents behind.

I remember arriving at the airport of Rancho Boyeros and going into the “fish bowl,” sitting next to other children of all ages who like me were looking at their parents behind the glass. We put up a brave front, although inside we were all crying. We were stripped of not only our personal possessions, such as the ruby ring given to me by my grandfather, but of our happy times together with our families. Parents and children separated by glass and by a Communist government that was going to indoctrinate their children. As I ascended the stairs to the plane, I kept looking back trying to catch a glimpse of my parents; I don’t know if it was the tears, but I was unable to see them one last time.

During the 45-minute flight, a myriad of thoughts assailed me. I was afraid of how I was going to survive separated from my parents. Who was going to take care of me? Where would I sleep? Where was I going to live? How was I going to survive when I didn’t even know English? Too soon, and before I had answers to any of these questions, we arrived at our destination: Miami.

As I and approximately 150 other children arrived, we were herded like cattle, according to our age group and gender. The girls were sent to Florida City; boys 16 years old and older were sent to Matecumbe in the Keys. I, along with boys 15 and younger, was sent to Kendall. The Catholic Welfare Bureau had set up these centers to house the children of Operation Pedro Pan.

Upon arrival at the Kendall camp, we were assigned a bunk bed, shown where to put our meager possessions and have a meal. I quickly remembered my father’s words when I was presented with the first plate of food in a new land, cornmeal, which I didn’t like. “Eat son, whatever is put in front of you, because you don’t have a choice. It’s either eat or go hungry.”

How different it was. At home, if I didn’t like something, Abuelita prepared something else for me. Here, at the Kendall camp, the lessons started right away: Eat cornmeal or go hungry. As we were getting ready for bed, I looked at the sad faces of my companions, the children of Pedro Pan. I’m sure my own face also reflected the sadness that overwhelmed all of us because of the separation. Each one of us dealt with our loss differently – some cried, some nervously giggled and one boy started taking flight with a knife because he wanted to go home. When he was finally calmed down by the counselor, he started whimpering like a wounded dog; his heart, like mine, was wounded by leaving behind all that was near and dear to us.

As I lay in bed that Christmas Day night, I thought how quickly and irrevocably life changes. On Christmas Eve, I was a happy, innocent, pampered child, and on Christmas Day, I became a man. How ironic that they chose that name for this operation, Pedro Pan – Peter Pan, the child who never grew up. No, I grew up overnight; I ceased being a child the moment I became part of the Pedro Pan Operation and left Güines, Cuba, never to return again.