What was Miami like before the majority was Cuban? (rent, condo)

[HowGoesIt]

Miami was a really nice place to live before the invasion came. Sorry, but it's true. I'm sure most of the old timers will agree with me.

[imagardener]

It seemed more Jewish in the 60's-70's. I remember going to high school debates which ranged from West Palm Beach south to Miami and being terrified when the boys from Miami walked in with their briefcases. I went to Catholic school and we would have a couple of loose leaf papers and a pen.

And yes they always won. They were good and headed to law school from first grade.

Miami Beach's retirees were from NY and NJ and they sat on their front porches, watched the street and complained that their kids never called or visited. Plus ca change plus ca meme chose. Now they live in gated communities like DelBocaVista (Seinfeld).

[HowGoesIt]

imagardener,
Very true. Miami seemed like a much more competitive place way back then. Kids actually wanted to succeed and do well in school. Now, Miami has the highest percentage of high school dropouts. This changed sometime in the mid/late 80's as I remember. Most of the Jewish folks up and left years ago.

[DaveG99]

Originally Posted by jbravo

It was segregated.


(p.s. Don't want to burst your bubble, but Cubans are not a majority in Miami.)
(American FactFinder)

white 252,562

Hispanic 246,941

Its pretty close! And I know not every hispanic person in Miami is Cuban. But most are.

[Marlin331]

Originally Posted by DaveG99

white 252,562

Hispanic 246,941

Its pretty close! And I know not every hispanic person in Miami is Cuban. But most are.

Only 45% of Hispanics in Miami-Dade are Cuban/Cuban-American. Keep in mind that "Hispanics" only make up about about 61% of the population, so Cubans/Cuban-Americans are less than 1/3 of the population at large.

The "white" figure you cited is for the City of Miami alone and includes white people who are of Hispanic origin. The great majority of those white people in the 252,562 are Hispanic.

[tallrick]

I was born in the late 60's but only remember the early 70's and up. There were always Cubans here in my lifetime, but they were either the "no English" exiles around calle ocho or those who spoke English could be anywhere in the county. As a kid we had family friends throughout the tri-county area and I remember going to southwest ranches to have fun in the country as well as to homestead and the east everglades. All rural areas with a fun feel. In the home I grew up in we had all kinds of neighbors, redneck, hippy/stoner, Cuban and Northeastern snowbird. While the northeasterners were the most troublesome, their power was limited. Rednecks and the stoner dudes usually had a messy home and/or projects. Cubans were generally nice but raised the most spoiled children you can imagine, who were often the bullies in elementary school. In the 70's I remember going to miami beach which was like God's waiting room, but there were also a lot of suburban families and it was kind of fun. For family outings we had plenty of tourist traps like the Serpentarium, parrot jungle, monkey jungle, crandon park zoo, go-kart tracks, goofy golf, and of course bowling. Out west you had western sunset bowl and the new fancy Don Carter's Kendall lanes to go to. But most of my time as a kid was spent in school, which had no air conditioning or outside having fun. Things did change in the 80's though.

The movie "cocaine cowboys" illustrated the battle between Cuban and Colombian drug dealers and the destruction of Miami. Unlimited amounts of drug money flooded Miami and drove rampant development that destroyed all of the fun spots in Dade county. A friend of the family lived out on Suniland and in the 80's drug dealer Mc Mansions replaced the 50's homes that used to house decent families. I saw first hand how drug money ruined an area now called "pinecrest". Snooty drug dealers and their lawyers and money launderers took over the area and made it the rotten place it is now. When Castro flushed his toilet a wave of Cubans washed over Miami in the early 80's and provided a market for the crappy townhomes and condos that drug money was laundered with. Once overwhelmed by Spanish speakers the road was paved for central and south Americans to fill soutn florida. Little by little, natives fled to NC or other states and where one family lived a dozen may be today in new developments. Eventually the drug money slowed down but the refugees stayed. Many are in legitamate business but the illegal trade still exists to some extent. The money pumping of the stock market and real estate bubbles created the second wave of development/destruction that we are dealing with today. A prominent feature of the mid 2000's bubble was a flood of Venezuelans sucking their money out to avoid Chavez. Cubans still float in on a regular basis to this day though. As Latin America's dumping ground, south Florida faces a dismal future.

[Strel]

Originally Posted by jbravo

Oh, .....

OK:

It was segregated.

(and you could go see the Miccosukees at 27th Ave and South River Drive and gambling always existed in Miami Beach)
(See thread "Miami what was")

So was almost everywhere else in the region.

[Kathleen1971]

I am not going to get into the Cuban thing but I too grew up in Miami in the 1970's & 80's. I was born in 1971 and grew up in Cutler Ridge, Homestead ( right across from the Air Force Base) Kendall and later Pinecrest although we were not rich by any means as we lived in a condo on Coral Reef Drive and US1. Anyway, Miami was a great place to grow up in from my perspective. Very small townish in the areas I lived and as cheesy as it sounds everyone knew each other and we didn't stress about locking the doors. I miss those days.


With regards to the Cocaine Cowboys, I watched the doc and now realize that Griselda Blanco and her ilk really screwed things up not only for Miami but for me personally. What I mean by this is that after the massacare at Dadeland my mom and her family decided they did not want to be in Miami anymore. This led to my mom divorcing my dad because he refused to move away with all of this family down here and his job at Eastern Airlines. So mom and her family moved away in 1980 and that was that. Miami was still good for me for a few more years but by the mid 1980's I think we all know what happened. Miami changed for good and by good I don't mean in a positive way. I miss my sleepy little town.

[DaveG99]

Originally Posted by crisp444

Only 45% of Hispanics in Miami-Dade are Cuban/Cuban-American. Keep in mind that "Hispanics" only make up about about 61% of the population, so Cubans/Cuban-Americans are less than 1/3 of the population at large.

The "white" figure you cited is for the City of Miami alone and includes white people who are of Hispanic origin. The great majority of those white people in the 252,562 are Hispanic.

My dad ws born in Cuba but moved here when he was 5. My mother ws born in Italy and moved here when she was 21. I was born in Chicago. So I consider myself to be Cuban, Italian, white, and American! I wonder where on the statistics I fit in. I never got surveyed when I lived in South Florida. I usually check white or other on forms i fill out. But my last name is hispanic since my dad is from Cuba.

My point is statistics do not represent the population well because you have many hispanics who consider themselves white. and you have many mixed race people who dont fit under one type of person.

[planetsurf]

Originally Posted by angelo7221

All the areas that are heavily working class cuban were working class redneck....but for an allowable sum you had a considerable piece of the pie....a modest 4-5 room house with jalosy windows/ florida room where you were guaranteed an unobstructed view of pine trees/ patches of green.

Pretty accurate post from my memory too. Hialeah used to be 100% working class white in the early 60's -- the Cubans that started moving there were NOT welcomed with open arms.

As to another post about Miami being more Jewish then, it WAS. Miami-Dade had a lower overall population and a larger Jewish population:
Today 121,300 (only 7% are snowbirds)
178,000 persons in 1970
207,000 persons in 1980
152,000 persons in 1990

(Remember all those retirees sitting on their porches in SoBe in the 80s?They died and haven't been replaced, so that accounts for a lot of the population difference, but not all.)

I remember the Cubans in the 70s basically being respected. Most people up in Broward (Cooper City & Plantation) where I grew up thought of them as hard working and sharing similar ideals even if everyone didn't want to live around them.

Personally, I think a lot of "bad" Miami came from the 3 events that happened at the same time; Mariel, the cocaine wars and inevitable growth. No 1 thing was responsible, it was a combination. Things changed VERY quickly and instead of helping "fix" things, many people just left. Too bad. Remember the riots? A lot of people I knew just thought, "See, it's a zoo down there." It was their proof to stay away. Miami was left to the hispanics and of course those same people complain the loudest that Miami is so hispanic!?!? lol

I think Miami is MUCH more interesting now vs the 70s, but I think it could have been an even better city had more established folks stayed to help mold it.