Category: Miami Stories

My father was a fisherman, as were his fathers, and since I followed in their footsteps, I am a fisherman, too.

He fished the streams of Scotland as a boy and, when he came over to Orlando, he fished the freshwater lakes and Indian River, catching bass, trout and flounder. Later, one of his outstanding Metropolitan Tournament winning catches was a 25-pound redfish he caught while fishing with his brother-in-law, Carl Lauer, at Flamingo in 1962.

In 1963, my father retired from Southern Bell and went to Freeport, Grand Bahama, to manage the telephone company for a few years. Then he consulted for a few independent telephone companies around Florida until he died in 1970 at 67 years old.

My family and I first moved to South Florida in 1945. As a kid, I remember winning some fishing contests, then identifying fish on an outdoor radio show in Jacksonville. I fished the Palm Beach Inlet Dock with my father and, in the evening, jacks and snook would chase schools of mullet onto the beach and the rocks. A large moray eel lived in a pipe by the dock, and there was only one building to be seen across the water on Riviera Beach (a nightclub?).

I came back in the 1960s to fish the mullet run each fall, becoming the only Miami member of the Jetty Conchs fishing club.

In 1946, we moved to Coconut Grove and kept our boat in a canal near the end of Southwest 22nd Avenue. This area east of Bayshore Drive was all mangroves at that time. I remember fishing off Key Biscayne before they built the bridge, and in the bay, we caught snapper, trout and mackerel using small surf rods with 36-pound squidding line. Boats would come into Dinner Key, and then people would load their car trunks full of fish.

After we moved back to Jacksonville in 1948, we often fished the bridges around St. Augustine, Matanzas Inlet and the old Mandarin loading-dock piling south of Julington Creek on the St. Johns River.

In 1954, my parents moved back to the same neighborhood in Coconut Grove and bought the house where my family and I live now. At this time, my father and I became interested in spin fishing. Our first reels were Garcia Mitchells, then Orvis 100s.

In 1955, I started working summers at The Tackle Box fishing store at Southwest 27th Avenue and U.S.?1, where I built custom fishing rods and repaired reels for the proprietor, Jack Primack. While working there, I met many people who were influential in my early development as a light-tackle sport fisherman. Some of the names I remember are: Eddie Miller, Joe Brooks, Lee Cuddy, Arthur Beryl, Buddy Hawkins, Capt. Bill Smith, Capt. Stu Apt, Capt. Gary Simmons, Capt. Bill Curtis, Chico Fernandez, Flip Pallot and John Emery.

In 1958, I went away to the Army and upon my return in 1961, I started surveying for the new Dade County Port of Miami. I also built custom bonefishing skiffs at the Glenncraft boat company. Eventually, I built my own skiff and went fishing most of the time. During this period, I developed innovations to the technology of sport fishing, some of which are still being used in the fishing community today.

Among the innovations I primarily created are: Inside/Outside Fly, Mutton/Cockroach Fly, Puff Permit Fly, Twenty-Times-Around Knot, wire-leader connection, Duncan Loop Knot, deep jig glow worms, boat side curtains and rod blank designs. Other innovations that I contributed to were: arrowhead jigs, inverted flies, loop-on fly tippits, Redfish Fly, sinking head fly lines, blue fly lines, red bandannas and the first fiberglass push pole.

I returned to college part-time, eventually obtaining an engineering degree from the University of Miami and several professional licenses. I have recently retired with 30 years of experience as a construction management engineer. I also became involved in several conservation issues, such as the creation of Biscayne National Park and the banning of commercial fishing in Everglades National Park.

Many things have changed now, but partially because Biscayne National Park was created at our doorstep, we still have fish in Biscayne Bay. On a recent trip, I caught a nice mutton snapper in park waters. I used the head and bones to make fish soup and the sauce for my quenelles.

I still look forward to fishing, although it is now a new era and there are fewer fish than there were back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. However, we can turn the tide if sport fishermen keep pushing for reforms in the preservation and conservation of our natural resources.

It was the summer of 2003; I was living in a very old and ugly apartment building between Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 2nd Avenue, off of 33rd Street.

I had a bitter, mentally unstable landlord that walked around with a concealed weapon. I had a part-time gig at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, now HistoryMiami. I would give guided tours of the permanent galleries and write historical theater scripts for their summer camp program.

Every afternoon of that summer I would arrive home from work, and I remember noticing really shady people coming in and out of my building — pimps and prostitutes — the same ones I would see walking the sidewalks while driving on the Boulevard. I also remember a particular barbecue smell circulating the hallways of the building.

This one time I was sitting in my writing chair, trying to figure out an ending to three of my stories when suddenly, the phone rang. I answered it.

“Hello?”
“Oscar?”
“Maybe…”
“Hey, this is your landlord.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? I want my rent, you punk!”

I hung up. Couldn’t really stand people cursing on the phone. Especially annoying landlords like mine. This was the worst landlord I ever had. Two days late from the first of the month, and he was already calling the cops on me.
There was a knock on the door. I picked up a bad reading on it, but answered it anyway. It was my neighbor, the stripper. She was 75 years old. She had a six-pack of beer, Heineken. I let her in.

She always wore a mini skirt, and the skin on her legs was all loose and hanging down. Her teeth were yellow and twisted. She always bragged about how in her younger years, she was the hottest stripper in Miami, but now she was old, sick, and very tired.

We drank the beer and talked about the poetry of life. I mentioned the aroma in the building, and how it always smelled like barbecue. She looked at me with frozen eyes, slowly pointed at my back window and said, “Oscar, there’s a smoky chimney out there…” I got up to see and there it was, a smoky chimney right outside my window. I didn’t ask her anything about it; I figured I would go down there and see for myself. After a while, she left. I kept on writing. The phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Goddamn it, Oscar, I swear you hang up on me one more time, I’ll put a bomb on your door knob.” It was my landlord again.

“What do you want? You want my rent?”

“My rent! I want MY rent!!”

“Come pick it up.”

“At what time?”

“Come now, you lizard.”

“Oscar, if I go there and I don’t find you, I swear to God I…”

I hung up on him again. Couldn’t really stand people bitching on the phone. Someone knocked on my door. Someone knocked three times. I opened it. It was a giant lizard wearing funky sunglasses, shorts, sandals, and a funny haircut. It also looked like an iguana, but it was my landlord.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oscar, I had it up to here with you.” He told me, pointing at his stomach.

He was a very tall man. Always smoking a cigar. Heavy set, about 300 pounds. With a heavy breath. Minty breath. Tobacco minty breath. He looked insane and dangerous.

“Your rent is two days late, Oscar!” He screamed, taking out his .45 caliber. He pointed the gun at my left knee. I froze. I didn’t want to move. He walked around me, and now he was inside my apartment, pointing that thing at my back.

“I want my money, Oscar. Where is my money?”

“Look Pops, just take it easy.”

“I’ve been taking it easy for the longest.”

“Look man, I don’t have your money here in the apartment.”

“What?”

“We gotta take a drive to the bank on Coral Way, and my car’s out of gas.”

“That’s no problem, we’ll go in mine.”

We left the apartment. He drove his car and steered the wheel with his left hand, while he pointed the .45 at my stomach with his right.

We arrived at the bank. It was closed. Most banks closed around 5:00 in the afternoon; it was 4:45 p.m. The lizard made me knock on the front glass door of the bank. The employees that saw me knocking didn’t even look twice. They all just stood there counting their money. Thank God it was closed. My bank account was empty. Suddenly my chance to kick the gun out of his hand came my way. His eyes opened wide; he couldn’t believe I had just kicked that thing out of his hand. I couldn’t believe it either. I picked it up fast, and aimed it. I could smell it running down his pants.

“This is where you lose, lizard.”

“You got a bomb on your door knob, Oscar.”

“That’s why you’re going to open it for me.”

“In your wildest dreams!” He screamed, as he ran away from me with surprising speed.

I walked over to the lizard’s car. He had left the keys in it. Got in. turned it on, and drove off into the congested streets.

Back at the apartment building, I stood outside wondering about that smoky chimney. I walked around the block on Northeast 2nd Avenue to see what building was the one with the chimney. I looked and it read, “Van Orsdel Crematorium.” I stood there feeling shocked. It all made morbid sense. The dust on my window sill was no dust and the barbecue smell that circulated the hallways was no barbecue.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. My parents were also born in Brooklyn, and their parents emigrated from Russia to the United States between 1910 and 1912, arrived at Ellis Island, and settled in New York.

I have great memories of growing up in Brooklyn and remaining in Brooklyn as an adult. I taught English at Meyer Levin Junior High School from 1970 until I retired in June 2001. After retirement I moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and lived there for five years. It was a wonderful experience!

Upon returning to New York in 2006 I found dealing with the cold winters more and more difficult. Finally, in August of 2010 I made the move to Miami, and I am happy to say that I am now a permanent resident of “The Magic City.”

Actually, my connection to Miami goes back to 1955 when my father’s parents became “snowbirds” and began wintering in Miami.

They bought a home at 1325 SW 40th Avenue in Coral Gables, and my parents, sister, and I drove down every year during Christmas vacation as a family until 1964. I continued to come down during my college breaks until 1970. Between 1955 and 1962 we stayed with my grandparents in Coral Gables. My grandfather then sold his house and leased a hotel on Miami Beach – The Premier Hotel on Collins Avenue and 8th Street.

Of course, then it was called Miami Beach; now it’s called South Beach, and the hotel has become a Victoria’s Secret store. For our visits during 1963 and 1964, my parents opted for more comfortable accommodations.

In 1963, we stayed at The Cadillac Hotel on Collins Avenue and 40th Street, and in 1964, my last trip with my parents, we stayed at the Chateau Resort Motel in Sunny Isles. I continued coming down until my grandfather retired from the hotel business in 1970, and that was the end of my Miami connection for twenty years.

I do have some very fond memories of my childhood and adolescent visits to Miami and Miami Beach, and here they are:

– Going to the beach and zoo at Crandon Park. I remember the peacocks walking around freely and the miniature train ride around the zoo.
– Swimming in the Venetian Pool.
– Stopping at Burger King, the first Burger King I had ever been to (there were no Burger Kings in New York at the time), for a Whopper and a chocolate shake.
– Going to Tyler’s Restaurant on Ponce De Leon Boulevard. I especially remember the chocolate and banana cream pies.
– Going to the movies at the Coral Theater on Ponce De Leon Boulevard and the Miracle Theater on Miracle Mile. I remember seeing “Auntie Mame” at the Miracle.
– Going to Pizza Palace and Krispy Creme on SW 8th Street. It wasn’t called Calle Ocho then.
– Buying fruit at the fruit market on the corner of Le Jeune Road and SW 8th Street I can still smell the wonderful aroma of the oranges.
– Feeding the pigeons in Bayfront Park and going to Pier Five in downtown Miami.
– Passing Burdines and seeing the amusement park on the roof and the big neon Santa between the buildings.
– Going to the original Parrot Jungle and Monkey Jungle and taking an airboat ride in the Everglades.
– Going to FunLand Amusement Park on NW 27th Avenue and 79th Street.
– On Miami Beach, eating at Pickin’ Chicken, Picciolo’s Italian Restaurant, Wolfie’s, on 21st Street and on Lincoln Road, The Noshery at the Saxony Hotel, Famous Restaurant on Washington Avenue, and Hoffman’s Cafeteria on Collins.
– Going to the movies at The Caribe Theater on Lincoln Road. I saw “The Planet of the Apes” there in 1968.

My parents retired in 1977 and moved to Florida. They bought a condo at Kings Point in Delray Beach. I would come down to visit them during my Easter breaks, but this place was not my cup of tea. Then in 1990, I took a ride down from Delray to Miami Beach with my parents, and the magic hit me again.

At that time, South Beach, as it is now called, was going through a renaissance, and I was hooked. It was at that point that I started to think that this is the place where I would like to retire.

Now, here I am back in Miami, sadly, many of the places I remember from my childhood and adolescent visits no longer exist. But Miami has moved forward and is now a world-class city, and I am happy to be a permanent resident of this “Magic City.”

I played for the Miami Heat for their first three seasons. Yet not one Heat fan knows my name, although they may recognize my face.

It was spring of 1988, and I was the music director on Norwegian Cruise Line’s MS Southward.

I have been a newspaper junkie since my days as a paperboy in my hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., and Sundays were our “Miami Day” – time to load up with a new crop of passengers, and my chance to grab a Sunday Miami Herald. I read with great interest the article outlining the NBA’s approval of a new team for the Miami market.

I was on my fourth year of working on ships, and starting to crave a “real” life. This was my chance to make a move. And as luck would have it, my ship contract was coming to an end. I contacted the Heat front office . For weeks, I kept calling – and I finally convinced them the team would probably not be very competitive the first season, and they needed a band to keep the fans entertained.

They finally relented and set up an audition, as they said several other bands had contacted them. The window of opportunity was open, but the rest of my band was on board the Southward, in the midst of a four-month contract. I had to act fast – the audition was four days away. Luckily, I ran into several great musicians playing at Bayside Marketplace. I told them about the opportunity, ran back to my new apartment on Collins and 29th Street, and spent the next two days furiously writing arrangements.

I rented a rehearsal studio, we got four songs under our belt (“25 or 6 to 4,” “The Heat is On,” “Wipeout,” and “I Feel Good”). We arrived at the mostly-finished pink Miami Arena, and won the audition! That first Heat Band consisted of Gary Mayone (keyboards), Rey Sanchez (guitar), Jim Kessler (bass), Ed Smart (saxes), Kelly Milan (trombone), and me on trumpet. Most of those guys are still around, enjoying successful freelance careers.

It was a great introduction to Miami, and I relished every moment of the first three seasons.

If you don’t remember, those were heady times for basketball: Michael Jordan was in his prime, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were winding down, and Charles Barkley was as entertaining then as he still is. The band had a dressing room right near the players that we shared with Burnie, the Heat’s mascot, so interaction was easy.

Twenty-three years later, my band is still active, I am back in the cruise industry, and my wife Juliet and I have raised three children – Celia, Emma, and Given in this wonderful city now called home.

The Sumans currently reside in Miami Shores, and still root for the Heat, even though I am sure I am the only trumpet player released by a major sports team!

On Christmas Eve in 1964, in the midst of revolutionary activity in Cuba, my family and I were expelled from our rural Cuban town without any warning or money.?

Suddenly, we all were on a new trajectory of unforeseen challenges, opportunities and lessons. ?

I arrived in South Florida in the summer of 1975, after being discharged from the U.S. Army. Miami was a transient city back then. Cubans were outsiders, and many local Miamians wanted us to go back to where we came from. It was a cold and ruthless environment here, and, at the time, many of us did not have successful role models to look up to. But we had values and we would do whatever we needed to do to get ahead — from delivering milk to cleaning bedrooms and bathrooms at Miami Beach hotels.

I worked as a door-to-door salesman. It was an honorable life, one that rewarded those who embraced it and who earned as much as they could. The sky was the limit, as long as you didn’t let others define you. I was not about to give anyone that much power over me. I was not the smartest, but I would be the hardest worker, the most organized salesman, and the most productive employee in that sales group. I had no idea how difficult it was about to become.

I was 23 years old in a strange new city, with no one to network with, and no referrals from people who could help me find a prospect. The first week was a brain-crushing, ego-deflating experience. After one week, I walked up and down every apartment building in Fontainebleau Park, off Southwest 87th Avenue. I walked through every clothing manufacturing factory I could find in Hialeah.

I had nothing to show for it. I had not made one penny, and unless I generated a sale, by the end of the month I would be fired. I was ready to quit, but I did not. I came from a humbled economic background, from a family of rich personal values. I knew it was going to be a rough road, but I was determined to make it work: America was now my country, and Miami would soon enough be my home.

I poured through the Yellow Pages and made countless calls. One day, I contacted a business, and asked for the man whose name I had from an article in the Miami Herald. He was a real “somebody” who had just sold a company and was on his way to building another. I was getting used to the rejections from the gatekeepers, the assistants, and I still had not succeeded in getting an appointment to sell insurance. But by now, I was somehow immune to the rejections. I was shocked when the assistant transferred the call to “Mr. Big.”

He asked me, “How did you get my name?” I told him, “from the D&B; index cards that have the name of employers in Miami and I had read about you in the newspaper.”

Then he went on to give me a few encouraging words: “To succeed, you have to fail. When you fail, you learn. When you fall, you get up.” These were the first encouraging words I had heard from someone whose name was in the paper. Mr. Big was bigger to me than he would ever know.?

Those words of wisdom gave me the fuel to make more calls, to survive the week, and by the end of the second week, I had 12 appointments to make my pitch. Later that week, I met another Mr. Big. He, too, declined to buy my services but just like the one before, he gave me words of encouragement that filled my heart with the energy I needed to push ahead.

Those two individuals — without knowing it — helped me create a new world for myself and my family. These are the kinds of individuals who have made our city a magical place where dreams come true: I currently serve as chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, L.P., a private equity firm located in Coral Gables, and recently published my memoir, Humbled by the Journey: Lessons for My Family and Yours.

Like me, who knows how many others have been guided, encouraged and driven to live their dreams by individuals like the two who touched my life?

They have not known until now how much they have meant to me. Mr. Armando Codina was the first Mr. Big. Thank you for what you did, for who you are. The second Mr. Big, came into my life at a time when I needed a word of support. To the family of Mr. Leonard Miller, I owe much of who I am to your dad, your husband, your grandfather, your Lenny.?

This is who Miami is. This is what we need for Miami to continue to be!

I was born and raised in Brazil.

I was 17 years old when I began my banking career there. In 1986, I was offered a job at a Brazilian bank to manage its Miami branch. I lived here for four years before leaving to work in London and Grand Cayman.

I returned to Miami at the end of 1997 and purchased an apartment in Key Biscayne, where I lived for two years. At the beginning of 1998, I was hired as financial director of a Brazilian company on Brickell Avenue.

In 2000, I was offered a job at an American bank to open a branch here in Miami.

In the meantime, I met Carmen Crespo, Cuban-born and educated in Chile. Carmen was a singer by night, financial consultant by day. Upon first meeting her, I was inebriated by her voice.

After dating for four years, we became engaged, and were married in 2008. Carmen is a big supporter. I am sure that her encouragement empowers me to continue to forge ahead, beyond any obstacles that we may face in our lives together.

For many reasons, I realized that I had to move from Key Biscayne. I sold the apartment and bought a new one in Doral. When I married Carmen, we bought a beautiful house in the city of Sunrise. We’ve been here ever since.

I worked at the American bank until 2010, when I left the banking industry to devote myself to writing.

In Miami, I participate in some cultural organizations and associations that allow me to expand my thoughts by writing essays on different subjects. I have written two books, with versions in Portuguese and Spanish.

My experience in Miami has shown me that here we have the opportunity to make relationships with many kinds of people. For example, at a meeting you can sit at a table with someone who is from Colombia, another from Venezuela, another from Chile, another from Asia, another from Europe. We have to maintain a diversified dialogue with people of different cultures who do things differently. This gives us ample possibility to be flexible with others and, at the same time, with ourselves.

And we have to accept or accommodate ourselves to those styles of life to be happy within the environment where we choose to live. We learn so much from this experience.

In my opinion, it’s not the people who should accommodate us. Instead, we should accommodate them. In terms of culture itself, I believe that in Miami we have the opportunity to come face to face with these situations.

In addition, if we explore, we can find many cultural events here. It’s a question of looking for what is most convenient for us. If we go to Miami Beach, for example, we can find a lot of events occurring on a daily basis.

We cannot talk about this city if we do not mention the beaches. We have to know how to use the beaches and to take advantage of them. It’s in the best interest of our health, too, because we know that the water from the sea has a lot of energy.

Simultaneously, we are among other people who want to share their time and experience with us, and it results in a beneficial situation for everyone. The same can be said for tourism. If we do not consider the tourism part of this community, we will be divorced from a visible reality.

We can note this when we are walking in downtown Miami or even in Miami Beach. We will see a lot of people with different clothes, different hats, different smiles. But everybody who appears in Miami comes with a purpose. They come here to be happy and to enjoy the sunlight that nature offers.

As residents, we should take advantage of all that Miami has to offer. We should enjoy it as the tourists do. We should be flexible — go to the beach, go to the museums, and know the cultures of other countries. We should also be on the lookout for the variety of events that the city offers. This is the integration that exists between ourselves and this cosmopolitan city that opened its arms to receive us.

This is Miami, a city to which I am deeply linked.

Every night after dinner, the four of us would gather around the cramped dining table in our apartment on Kendall Drive, quizzing one another, working on our English pronunciation, memorizing medical concepts, multiplication tables, SAT vocabulary — whatever had to be memorized — drying every stubborn tear because there was not a second to waste.

We were like a startup. When my parents decided to leave Cuba and moved us to Miami in 2002, they were determined to build our own future from scratch. My father, Héctor Chicuén, an electrical engineer, would find work at Florida Power & Light. My mother, María Victoria García, a pediatrician, would certify her medical degree. My younger sister María Cristina Chicuén and I would attend college. This was our business plan. What we lacked in resources, we made up for in drive, an unspoken no-excuse philosophy, an overabundance of togetherness.

Within our family enterprise, teamwork was essential. Whether at a Home Depot, a local Christmas tree shop or a cement factory, my dad would pack his weeks with two and sometimes three jobs in order to make ends meet so that my mom could devote her time to the medical certifications. Some days, when the orange juice disappeared from our kitchen as we ran out of money, when stress drove my dad to twitch his eyes like a flickering emergency light, my mom would close the textbooks.

“No es fácil,” she’d say as she grabbed a mop and drove the short distance to Pinecrest, where good cleaning services were always welcome at the ranch-style estates carved deep in the lush, tropical landscape. Or we’d head to a local gym together. My mother took care of toddlers while their parents exercised, and I prepared protein shakes at the gym’s cafeteria.

These were my high school years, which now blur in my mind, forming a mosaic of sleep deprivation, five-minute phone calls to relatives in Cuba and endless homework for as many advanced courses as I could fit in my schedule. On a rare occasion, as a reward for good grades or a promotion, as a little pause in all the hustle, we would treat ourselves to a family meal at Denny’s.

“Hi, hello, I would like a coffee with milk,” my mom would request in her rehearsed English version of “Hola, qué tal, un café con leche por favor.” The waiter, of course, would proceed to bring a glass of American coffee and a glass of milk.

We also used to rent movies from Blockbuster. We had given up on movie theaters since our first experience, on the release of the original Harry Potter movie. Dressed in our best clothes for what we thought was a special night out, we were baffled by the teenagers in shorts and tank tops — “hasta en chancletas” — flooding Kendall Regal Cinema.

Time had never been so precious to us. Every hour of my father’s work meant $6, $8, $9, $14, $18 to sustain the entire family. One more hour of study brought my mother closer to certifying her medical degree. One more hour at school meant my sister and I were more fluent in English, more prepared for a complex education system we were determined to conquer. That’s why we would arrive at family gatherings with a textbook under our arms, or pass on parties altogether if there was an opportunity for overtime work or a tutoring session.

We took advantage of every resource and free lunch. Even free dinners. On the morning of our first Thanksgiving, the staff from my sister’s elementary school gifted us with a sumptuous turkey we had no idea how to cook. “We’ll roast it like pork,” we thought, as we did in Cuba for every major celebration. Soaked in our traditional marinade of garlic and bitter orange, accompanied by yuca, fried plantains, steamed white rice and black beans, our own bicultural turkey was soul-nourishing. And we were deeply thankful.

Steady, we kept studying and working as hard as we could. It was well into our third year in Miami when the unmistakable light of good fortune crept through our windows. My father received the dream offer from Florida Power & Light. My mother passed her medical board exams and was accepted to a residency program at a prestigious hospital in New York. I received a letter of admission and a generous scholarship to attend Harvard University.

Miami refused to let us go. As we readied to embark on a new adventure in the Northeast, just a few weeks before my high school graduation, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We would not give up. We had won the most difficult battles — separation from our family, poverty and unemployment, loneliness, the inability to express our most basic needs and feelings. We would not give in to illness.

For months, my mother fought through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hours of surgery until she recovered and claimed the spot she had earned so rightfully at her medical residency. Today, she is a primary-care physician in Little Havana, an area of critical medical need.

My father’s career at Florida Power & Light spans over 10 years. As he has risen through different roles and departments, he has been able to coach other recent immigrants on successful applications for employment at the company.

My sister is now in her third year of college at Stanford University. Every summer, she returns to Miami, where she has interned with the Miami Heat and farmers markets to complement her studies in health policy and urban food systems. She is preparing herself to promote wellness in our city after she graduates.

I am at Miami Dade College. From my post in the college president’s office, I recognize in the faces of many of our students the same determination and thirst for opportunity that first brought my family to Miami, and which continue to drive every one of our individual and collective endeavors.

This city has given us a brighter present than we could have ever imagined.

It’s our turn to pay it forward.

Maria Carla Chicuén is the author of ‘Achieve the College Dream: You Don’t Need to Be Rich to Attend a Top School.’

I remember looking out the window as the plane took off from Havana.

It was Aug. 9, 1960. I was 15 years old and leaving my country with my mother and brother to reunite with my father in Miami. He had left months earlier to find schools and a place to live. We didn’t realize it would be for good.

My dad, an attorney with a passion for travel, got a job in sales with Guest Airways and an apartment at 23 Phoenetia Ave., Coral Gables. He enrolled my brother and me at Merrick Elementary and Coral Gables Senior High, respectively.

Two other families we knew from Havana lived in the same eight-unit building, and we would gather in the small patio in the early evenings. But Miami was a very quiet town in those days and we were asked to move.

We did, a few blocks away, to Madeira 25A, an apartment building that has also gone condo, and gone are the wooden stairs with the telling creak that would let me know Abuela was coming down the stairs. Gone, too, are the Coliseum, a great place to bowl, hang out and listen to Top 40 in the jukebox, and the old Coral Gables library, which I remember every time I smell the rain.

My dad opened a travel agency, Caribbean Cruises, on Ponce de Leon Boulevard next to the Coral Theatre. Neither has been there for years. My mom went to work at the Shelborne Hotel in Miami Beach as an executive secretary to the general manager, which meant she ran the place. That is where I had my honeymoon a couple of years later and where, a couple of years ago, I went for karaoke.

My parents made those lean early exile years a warm and fun experience. We had an old car that my dad named “Can you give me a little push,” and we took car trips to Matheson Hammock and Crandon Park. We sang along with musician Mitch Miller and played Clue and Monopoly and we were active on the Cuba issue and even slept in Bayfront Park once to protest something WCKT news anchor Wayne Farris had said.

My boyfriend and many friends were in the Brigade 2506 that invaded Cuba in 1961. He went to prison and the experience changed his life and the lives of Cubans everywhere. But my parents helped make the memories of those times mostly good ones and, at 16, wounds heal fast.

In Miami, I discovered tuna fish sandwiches on plain white bread and French fries with ketchup. I also discovered prejudice. Looking for places to rent, we saw signs that read: “No blacks. No dogs. No Cubans.” The counters at Woolworth and Grant’s were segregated, so were water fountains and buses.

The good old times were not good for everyone and it almost seems impossible that those memories could co-exist with so many wonderful ones: driving up to Jimmy’s Hurricane on U.S. 1 and Bird Road, where servers on roller skates would come to the cars, just like in the movies; parties at the Venetian Pool, Friday nights at the Pizza Palace, window shopping on Miracle Mile and snacking at Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor (where John Martin’s Irish Pub now stands). Sundays, after mass, the go-to spot was Walgreens downtown.

There were Friday night dances at the Coral Gables Youth Center and sock hops at the school gym, where rock ‘n roll was danced the way many have only seen on TV. There was the thrill of a pep rally and the way the air smelled around football season – I don’t know about your high school, but we were the Cavaliers, and that meant something!

There was a Howard Johnson’s inside the old Coral Gables bus station and we would stop on our way home from school for their famous “caramel” ice cream ( Dulce de Leche did not come into its own until 40 years later).

My younger brother was born at the old St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach in 1961 and one year later, I graduated from Gables High, went to Dade County Junior College and had my first part-time job at Jackson Byron’s in downtown Miami. My first real job was as clerk typist at the Welfare Department; my husband worked three blocks away at what used to be Mary Jane Shoes on Flagler. We had met at the Vedado Tennis Club in Havana as teenagers, reunited here and got married at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables in 1963. Our three children and four of our grandchildren have been born and raised in Miami.

When I first came to what is now my city, there was hardly anything open after 7 p.m. The Freedom Tower was the tallest building and Dadeland Mall was considered the “boondocks.” Our now ubiquitous Cuban coffee could only be had at home – Jose Enrique Souto, Sr., a family friend and the owner of Bustelo and Café Pilon, would deliver bags to our home from his truck.

My husband developed his professional career in computer systems at Eastern Airlines and, after its demise, became an executive at System One and EDS. When writing got the best of me, I began working at Harper’s Bazaar in Spanish, followed by a stint publishing Eventos Miami, a local social/cultural magazine. Miami in the ‘80s was ripe for that decadent scene: Ensign Bitters, Cats, The Mutiny, The Jockey Club and Regine’s in the Grand Bay, where Julio Iglesias visited often and the Dom Perignon flowed easily.

I’m presently retired from advertising, and we just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, right here in Kendall. Most of our family lives here and has grown with Miami. Is it perfect? No. But it is ours. And it is home. So when someone tells me we have the rudest drivers and we’re a banana republic and yada, yada, yada, I say “just move, chico.”

On Nov. 1, 1987, at 30 years old, I left my home and family in Haiti to search for a better life. The economic and political situation was unbearable, and my family was being abused by the Duvalier regime. I promised my parents I would come back for them.

On that day, I boarded a boat headed to Miami with 100 other Haitians in hopes of a safe arrival; sadly, not all of us made it. When we finally reached the coast of Miami, some people had died of dehydration and starvation. I came to this city with only the clothes on my back and the promise I had made to my parents.

During my first year, I struggled working a series of odd jobs to support my family until Dec. 1, 1988, when I joined MDM Hotel Group as a housekeeper at Dadeland Marriott Hotel. Shortly after, I was promoted to room attendant and then in May of 1993, I was the first associate to hold the position of laundry supervisor. I met my husband in 1988, and we got married in 1992 when I was expecting my second child. While I was working and raising my children, I attended night school and received my nursing degree.

In 1997, I was thrilled to fulfill my promise to my parents and was able to bring them to the United States. After just a few years of living in the United States, we received the devastating news that my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. I kept my faith and prayed every day for the improvement of my mother’s health.

A few months later, I received a phone call at the hotel from my mother’s oncologist telling me that my mother had only a few days to live and to pick her up and spend as much time with her as I could. Then a miracle happened: Just a few days later, my mother was cancer free.

My mother lived a beautiful life and lived until July 2013. Sadly, shortly after my mother’s miracle, my father was diagnosed with throat cancer, which quickly ascended to his brain.

I am the sole provider in my home, not only supporting my family here but also my family in Haiti, and I not only work as a laundry supervisor, but also as an on-call banquet server. There are days where I work in the laundry department until the afternoon, change in the locker room into my banquet uniform, and go straight to work. Sometimes I work a banquet until 3 a.m., get an hour of sleep, and start getting ready for work at 4 a.m. . Every single day, I give 100 percent to my work.

Being the only supervisor who speaks Creole at my workplace, I volunteer when needed to translate. Even though I always have personal matters taking place in my life, I try my best to give back to the community. When the earthquake hit Haiti, I immediately organized a successful donation drive and volunteered my time. I was a major driver of the hotel’s “Haiti Relief Drive” that was hosted as a Spirit to Serve Community Program. I wanted to help the people who were affected, especially the families of my coworkers.

Throughout my 25-year career for Marriott, I have been honored with multiple awards. I was Associate of the Month in April 1991 and May 1999. In 1999, I was also recognized as Associate of the Year. Since 2006, I have won Manager of the Month several times, and in April 2013, I won Leader of the Month. In 2013, I joined the “Quarter Century Club” for Marriott International, an exclusive club for those associates who have been with the company for 25 years. I am grateful and humbled to work for a company that truly appreciates its employees.

In 2013, I was awarded the prestigious “J. Willard Marriott Award of Excellence,” the highest honor given by Marriott International to only 10 employees every year. This was a tremendous honor considering that Marriott is located in 74 countries with more than 325,000 associates worldwide. In May 2014, I traveled to Washington, D.C., where I received my award in front of executives of Marriott International and had the incredible experience of having dinner with top executives.

Throughout all the hardships I suffered during my life in both Haiti and the United States, I feel blessed for the opportunities I have had. Working for Marriott International has helped support my family and me for 25 incredible years. It has also allowed me to fulfill the American dream.

I always wrote poetry but there was nowhere here in Miami where I could share my poems. You would go crazy looking for a group or something. Nothing. Cultural? Back then in the ’90s? No.

So one day I heard about this book fair. There was a group that came from Palm Beach. It would come every three months to the Miami Dade College on 27th Avenue, and I signed up. I started going there and thought, “Wow! This is great!”

Somehow, when it comes to narrative, editorial or short stories, I never know what language is going to come out. Sometimes I start writing and it comes out in English, then I have to do the translation to Spanish or vise versa. With the poetry, 99.9 percent of the time it comes out in Spanish. I feel in Spanish. It’s weird because it’s like I think in English and I feel in Spanish, and that’s us, Hispanics.

I was very active in that group and immediately it got me onto the board. I tripled membership because all the Hispanics were arriving. It was mainly Cubans but then I had a few from Nicaragua and other places. Not as many as there are now. There’s so many Venezuelans and Colombians; there weren’t that many back then.

I noticed that the group was just poetry and that there were people who would paint and would act. They were so interested in other things and they were so frustrated. The book fair was only every three months, as well.

Eventually, I left and I started to think about opening something that would embrace all nationalities and could be bilingual. We have a lot of Hispanics here who write better in English but there are also people like me who go to Spanish first.

The idea was to have a bilingual, international and nonprofit group. I would call it The Cove/Rincón. I went to our lawyer and we set it up together. By August 1995, all the paperwork was done. I opened it to the public on Oct. 20, 1995, at Florida International University.

The classroom where we held our first meeting was full. Believe it or not, we still meet at the same place that we met 18 years ago. The department of Latin American and Caribbean Center at FIU has been our blessing and it is our home. My hat is off to the center, and I will always be thankful.

We have chapters all over Latin America and across the world. There are delegates from Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Mexico. We’ve even expanded to Europe and Japan.

Our motto is: “Do not let nationality, race, sex or age make a difference: let us be one.” I used to add “in the arts” at the end but I cut that. I think we need to spread it further than that. At the same time, I also say, “and let the bohemian loose” because nobody can be boxed in when you have a creative spirit. It will drive you crazy.

My journey toward The Cove/Rincón began when I came to Miami on July 16, 1961. My dad used to travel here for business a lot. He had his own business in Cuba, and he knew what was going to happen there so he came ahead. After two years, he got us out as well. I was starting seventh grade at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School.

We moved to an apartment on Southwest Fifth Avenue and Third Street, a half block from the Miami River. I remember Hurricane Cleo and the river overflowed. It came into our apartment and I was sweeping fish for a week after the water went down.

For the first year, I’d come from school and go to the backyard. There was a guava tree that I would lean against and cry day after day. I was prepared to go back to Cuba. I do thank God to this day that my parents had the vision to get us out. But we were separated from the rest of our very large family.

I guess all those things influence you to do things in your life to help people: to unite countries and to unite people. That’s what The Cove/Rincón is all about. I have friends from everywhere.

After Sts. Peter and Paul, I attended Immaculata-La Salle High School. In high school, my Hispanic friends and I, we had each other. We didn’t go home and tell our parents how we felt about wanting to go back to our homelands. We knew that would make their situation more difficult. Instead, we would go to each other and talk about it.

After I married my husband Frank, my daughter Frances arrived nine months later. She was a honeymoon baby. Then came my son Alexis. I began Miami Dade College around the time that my kids started school. I studied psychology and children’s literature.

Once they were in college and they had their own cars, that’s when I was able to do more and start The Cove/Rincón.

Besides writing, I have a love for horseback riding. Throughout my life, we owned horses. My kids both ride great. We would come horseback riding from where Dolphin Mall is now. That used to be a 420-acre ranch where we would keep our horses. We would come riding from there to my current house on Southwest 132nd Avenue and Bird Road and have a barbecue.

I love where I live. I saw Miami change from a town to a city, a magic city that we’re blessed to live in. I’m thankful for this country that has opened its arms and given us the freedom that we were looking for.

This story was compiled by HistoryMiami intern Lisann Ramos as recounted by Marily Reyes.