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Thread summary:

Hispano New Yorker’s view on Miami Dade, too many rude Spanish immigrants who don’t speak English, hurricane dangers, Miami cost of living as high as New York

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Old 07-08-2007, 06:09 AM
 
Location: western East Roman Empire
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I know a Hispano-New Yorker, born in South America, but grew up in NYC (Queens) and is perfectly bilingual Spanish-English.

To me the biggest problem with Miami-Dade was the high buy prices for housing, and I thought that complaints about rudeness and bad drivers were just that, complaints, and not really that big of a deal. Now I may have to change my view, for the worse.

In short, he moved from Queens to southwest Kendall about six months ago, and now is about to move back to Queens (so from hellish to more hellish back to hellish, it's all relative).

Here is what he wrote.

"I am not to happy here in Miami, yes it is true. To live here in Miami is too damn expensive; I’d rather live in NY for almost the same cost.

Another bad thing about Miami is that people here do not know how to drive, it's like they just give out licenses to every one that lives here whether they know how to drive or not. People don't pay attention to the road when driving. The state is now going to lift that mandatory insurance for automobiles in Florida: if you don't want to have insurance you won't have to (that is bull----).

There are way too many Spanish-speaking people here and they very rude, they think that since they didn't have sh--t in their country now they come here and think they are better than you. Sometimes I go in somewhere or where I work and there are people that do not speak English; I don't mean to be weird or anything but if I want to speak Spanish everywhere I go, I’ll move back to my country in South America or somewhere else, plus it bothers me because sometimes I don't understand some words they use and they get pissed off. When that happens it gets me mad.

Another thing is if I buy a house, am I going to be worried every year about my roof being blown away, getting cooped up in darkness due to the storm shutters on my doors and windows? And what about my car, is it going to get flooded, is a tree going to fall on it etc.?
Now during hurricane season the people say it rains too much, and it does rain almost everyday and it is so humid that it makes you want to be indoors at all time.

One more thing is the way I see it to live here and to enjoy this weather is to have your own business, be retired or have a very good job, not what I do.

My wife wants to go back to NY as bad as I do."

(The wife is also born in a South American country, but grew up in New York and is perfectly bilingual.)

I know we are trying to be a bit more upbeat on this forum, but coming from a Hispano-New Yorker jolted me (and even my wife), especially the part about the rudeness towards other Spanish-speaking people just for not knowing a few words of the local dialect.

The point is he - a very young fellow, wide-eyed, ready to take on life - perceives the same thing in a few months (in the dead of summer, as some on this forum often point out) as do other non-Spanish speaking people who are either Miami-Dade natives or from various parts of the country, so all of the negatives about Miami cannot be a cliche, they are simply concrete reality, shared by many people from many different viewpoints, it is inescapable.
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Old 07-08-2007, 06:56 AM
 
Location: Miami, FL
44 posts, read 114,310 times
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I understand where your friend is coming from -- trust me, I feel pretty much the same way. For instance, drivers here are terrible and unlike NY, you don't have the choice of being able to take the subway. NY is a wonderfully diverse place and a true melting pot. Let's be honest here, Miami itself (excluding SoBe) is far from diverse, especially Kendall where your friend has ended up. Also, the cost of living here is increasing all the time and very soon, it'll be close to NY's cost of living. However, salaries here are peanuts compared with what you'd be earning in NY.

It's a pity that your friend is leaving, in a way. This city really needs an influx of smart, educated and open minded people, but most of them seem to be heading the other way (out!). It seems to be that for every good person that leaves, they are replaced by 50 more bad people -- people who are part of the ghetto culture here.

I truly believe that life in Miami can turn the most ambitious, kind, generous and happy person into a bitter and jaded person in a relatively short space of time. I have seen it with my own eyes and even my wife, who was born and raised here in Miami dislikes this place a lot and has seen the overall quality of life here deteriorate, especially over the last 10 years. Many people who move here have often only taken a couple of vacations in Miami Beach and some have never even been here, so have only seen the glossy images of Miami on television, in movies and in magazines.

I don't want to sit here spewing the same "negatives" over and over again, but things seriously need to change in this city. Making English COMPULSARY and forcing new immigrants to learn English would be a good start. Since customer service is so horrible down here, we need to get up off our butts and start COMPLAINING too. I've had some horrible experiences here, particularly with apartments. I've had to complain to landlords, security guards and property managers to get issues resolved. I hate having to do it, but this is meant to be America and I refuse to just lie down and accept poor service. If a neighbor bothers me by blasting their loud music (a particular problem I've encountered here), I ask that neighbor to turn it down.

Traffic here is a nightmare. Traffic is also bad in many other major cities, but in most cities with a metro population in excess of 5 million people, you have far more mass transit options. It has always surprised me that Miami doesn't have a far more extensive train network as there is so much suburban sprawl where people don't have access to mass transit. Whoever designed the freeway system here must have been on drugs too, particularly the guy who designed the Golden Glades Interchange. As for the reckless drivers, where are the cops when you need them? Instead of busting brainless knuckleheads for "riding like a Ford", they're parked up in Coral Gables, handing out tickets to people who just make honest mistakes while driving. I actually plan to write the mayor a very long letter, stating the case for the installation of cameras on all expressways.

The way I see it is that Miami is great if you're rich, or if you're heaviy into the whole South Beach scene, or if you're a Hispanic wanting to have the benefits of living in the US without having to learn English or assimilate into mainstream American society. If you're rich, you can live in a gated community and isolate yourself from the rest of Miami and just enjoy the tropical climate.

I know that the creation of affordable housing stock would eventually help to lower the cost of property overall. The problem is that there is little in the way of affordable housing stock and virtually all of the new housing stock being created is high-rise condos. The condo boom is not helping this city at all and in fact, it's actually driving up the cost of housing. Up to 50% of the condos have not been sold and many of the people moving into the units are from other parts of the US, South America and Europe...people who will only be here for 3 months of the year. So this isn't attracting good people to Miami - these are people who will have little or no contact with the average Miamian and I doubt that they will contribute much to the local economy while they're here, nor will they be setting up businesses here and creating jobs.

I'm sorry that your friend is having to make a U-turn back to NY, but I'd much rather live in NY anyway. NY is a huge, diverse city where you can be invisible if you wish to be. At least there, I don't get those "hey, look at that gringo" stares. You have a ton of things to do in NY, unlike here. To me, the high cost of living there is justified because it's New York (one of the world's great cities).

Why has life in Miami become this way? Basically, we've ALLOWED it to become this way, because we don't speak up and make our voices heard. We've allowed ourselves to become steamrollered by another culture (a mostly degenerate, ghetto culture consisting of people who refuse to assimilate or even learn our language, in some cases). Because most of the decent people have left, the bad people have managed to worm their way all the way up to the top (right up to the mayor himself), so this is why Miami has more than its fair share of corruption. As more good people leave, we're basically giving more power to the bad people, so the problem will only continue to get worse unless as a city, Miami can be changed so that it can attract decent, educated and hard working people, not just a handful of rich and stupid people (I say "stupid" because you 'gotta be pretty dense to pay +$750 for a crappy condo), only here for a 3 month slice of paradise, sold to them by vulture-like realtors and developers. In summary, it's time to wake up and smell the rot, because things will only get worse if we don't do something about this NOW.

Last edited by Nutshell; 07-08-2007 at 07:32 AM..
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Old 07-08-2007, 11:59 AM
 
448 posts, read 1,850,222 times
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I have seen the ghetto culture take over my employer in less than 5 years. When I was hired some 6 years ago, the company employed highly educated people. Miamians with a culture and a desire to learn. Then they all decided to leave or were fired, and replaced by local ghetto "talent". It seems that if you don't belong to that "mafia" running the company, then you either are weird, antisocial or just plain on your way out. It is a shame that even in companies and firms, the ghetto culture seems to thrive and even push decent people out of their positions.
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Old 07-08-2007, 12:06 PM
 
Location: Miami, FL
44 posts, read 114,310 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DCFLNC View Post
I have seen the ghetto culture take over my employer in less than 5 years. When I was hired some 6 years ago, the company employed highly educated people. Miamians with a culture and a desire to learn. Then they all decided to leave or were fired, and replaced by local ghetto "talent". It seems that if you don't belong to that "mafia" running the company, then you either are weird, antisocial or just plain on your way out. It is a shame that even in companies and firms, the ghetto culture seems to thrive and even push decent people out of their positions.
That's scary, because I'm in exactly the same boat. Two years ago, the company I joined was full of professional, hard working people. I used to like my job, then they decided to cut costs here & there, the good people left and they were replaced by ghetto-ites. English is no longer the language used at my job, so the few non-Hispanic (and Hispanics) that don't speak Spanish are basically outsiders in a firm that now employs complete and utter idiots - people who wear CHAINS to work, for god's sake.

Needless to say that I now hate my job. I am tired of feeling like an outsider and hearing nothing but Spanish.
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Old 07-08-2007, 12:32 PM
 
Location: Miami
6,853 posts, read 22,375,328 times
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My last two bosses both said that they have had issues with finding qualified personnel in the past. The Miami job pool isn't that great just because many of the great professionals in my field don't stay long in Miami and end up wither in LA, Chicago or New York. So what is left isn't great.

I totally understand where your friend is coming from, those that I have met that are hispanic but grew up in NY then move here. Don't like usually, just because of the third world mentality of many people down here. But like the other poster said Miami wasn't always like this, it really started to deteriate 10 years ago for some reason. Also many people that move here usually have only vacationed here a few times or are basing their decision on moving on what they remember as a kid or what they see on tv. Then they move here and realise what Miami truely is about.

There was a great article in Time Magazine last November about some of Miami's issues. There's Trouble--Lots Of It--in Paradise - TIME
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Old 07-08-2007, 12:50 PM
 
Location: western East Roman Empire
9,297 posts, read 14,192,734 times
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The most striking thing about this story is that he is a native-Spanish speaker, but apparently his Spanish is not the right Spanish.

I speak Spanish fluently, as an acquired language, but this story suggests that it wouldn't make a difference if I were to live in suburban Dade. On the contrary, I learned in Spain, so that may make it worse ...

I remember when that article first came out, it caused quite a stir.
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Old 07-08-2007, 01:05 PM
 
Location: South Florida
564 posts, read 1,894,807 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002 View Post
The most striking thing about this story is that he is a native-Spanish speaker, but apparently his Spanish is not the right Spanish.

I speak Spanish fluently, as an acquired language, but this story suggests that it wouldn't make a difference if I were to live in suburban Dade. On the contrary, I learned in Spain, so that may make it worse ...

I remember when that article first came out, it caused quite a stir.
It was this thread that caused me to create the "Spanish or Spanish?" thread due to exactly what you're talking about now, his Spanish was not the right Spanish.

This kind of exclusion is a definite problem here. How can we unite if we're constantly trying to separate?
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Old 07-08-2007, 01:08 PM
 
Location: Orlando
98 posts, read 306,119 times
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The same thing happened at my company. As the educated, experienced people left for greener pastures, they were replaced with "ghetto talent." A year later and it shows via financials and other things.
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Old 07-08-2007, 01:11 PM
 
Location: Miami, FL
44 posts, read 114,310 times
Reputation: 24
Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002 View Post
The most striking thing about this story is that he is a native-Spanish speaker, but apparently his Spanish is not the right Spanish.

I speak Spanish fluently, as an acquired language, but this story suggests that it wouldn't make a difference if I were to live in suburban Dade. On the contrary, I learned in Spain, so that may make it worse ...

I remember when that article first came out, it caused quite a stir.
I've heard a lot of Hispanic people knock different versions of Spanish from different countries. For instance, I know a Venezuelan guy at work who tells me that Cubans and Dominicans speak horrible Spanish. I've heard Cubans make fun of Argentinians and Argentinian Spanish, or they'll tell me that Argentinians are stuck up, or that Nicaraguans are ???? (I forget the word in Spanish, but it is based on their Indian heritage and extremely racist). I've heard countless insults and jokes against Puerto Ricans too.

Is it any different to say, Americans making fun of Canadians or Brits? Actually, I think it is a little different as the jokes are a lot more racist, added to the fact you have many of these Hispanic cultures living in one city (Miami).
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Old 07-08-2007, 01:22 PM
 
Location: Miami, FL
44 posts, read 114,310 times
Reputation: 24
Quote:
Originally Posted by Weston_in_the_Pines View Post
The same thing happened at my company. As the educated, experienced people left for greener pastures, they were replaced with "ghetto talent." A year later and it shows via financials and other things.
Funny - our financials show it too. Our company is now being literally flushed down the toilet through the incompetence of its staff and lower to middle management. Work was a good place to be a couple of years ago, when the office consisted of a good mixture of people from different backgrounds. Now it's all gone down the pan. I have my fingers crossed that we may be relocating our offices to Fort Lauderdale though. If that happens, I'll stick around with this company, otherwise I'm off. Work is the LAST PLACE (other than my own home) where I want to witness the "ghetto" mentality. The new breed at work seem to only be good at passing the buck, talking s**t or making countless mistakes as a result of sheer incompetence.
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