[jbravo]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

Please do go on

So where the cubans the real major players on the cocaine scene, or was that just made up by brian depalma

Originally Posted by macguy

No it was not. If anything they moved into areas no one wanted to live in and cleaned them up. I shop at a Cuban market and think nothing of going there at night something I would not say about our own Winn Dixie near my house.

Well, it's just as well that there is a difference of opinion. I lived in Miami 37 years. Was there in 79 and 80.
It got bad, period.
In 78 I used to play dominoes in 8th street until 2:00 / 3:00 AM. Cops would wave by as they patroled, sometimes sit for a game. Fast forward to 1981 and crack whores infested the same streets.
South Beach had clothes lines strung between buildings. Yeap! You know, where the trendy bars are now; clothes lines! (It was Jewish retirees that mainly lived there in those times.)

With respect to McGuy, nobody defends Cubans more than me in this forum; but truth is truth. Google back newspaper stories. I knew cops that told me to my face that they would not seriously investigate a "Marielito" who ended up getting shot.
Miami was never, ever a "clean" city (whatever Tallrick says, gambling and prostitution existed on the beach since lucky luciano's time) and coke always existed pretty much anywhere in Miami in the 70s. I went to Coral Gables Sr we all had great pot clean sex and coke before our Junior year.
But it was mostly clean dirty fun. The 80s where different.

Got to go HBO is on!

I'll post details of that time if it interest you. Anybody who lived through those times has some nostalgia for it.

[MrTudo]

Hey, the good ol days. Taking the boat out to a certain place, then shooting back by the end of the day to dock at Durty Nelly's.....Heh

Then the wave of cocaine and mariellito cuban-colombian drug gangs and crime. Ruined it all for the pot people. Went from fun times on Ft Lauderdale Beach with a lot of gold colombian rolling around to crappo weed and shake and a lot of coke, cubanos looking for trouble, home invasions and rip offs. They had AWACS planes patrolling for gosh sakes. Television was portraying coke as a "jet setters" drug. A couple years later most people started dropping like paranoid flies.

Dade was considered the equivilent of Chicago during prohibition ( roaring twenties) and Broward was considered the eqivilent of Dodge City.

Personally I loved the southern part of Miami Beach. Nobody was there on the weekends!

That was hundred million years ago.

[NJ Chutzpah]

So it was the marielitos, and not the cubans who left after castro took over?

Scarface was based on the marielitos

[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

So it was the marielitos, and not the cubans who left after castro took over?

Scarface was based on the marielitos

Which period of history would you like to refer to? The 1960's or the early 80's AFTER the mariel?

They didn't "leave". They were released by Castro.

Why the infatuation with that era? Do you think it's cool? Are you a wannabe?

[tallrick]

Even in the "old days" there were rum runners, pot growers, and moonshiners. But they were kind of hidden, unlike the "in your face" show-off drug dealers of the 80's. The invasion of communist-bred criminals with few morals turned Miami upside down. There was also tension between the immigrants and the existing poor residents, as evidenced by the riots.

Increasing inequality in south Florida is again heating up crime. I don't want to be here when this place boils over.

[NJ Chutzpah]

Originally Posted by MrTudo

Which period of history would you like to refer to? The 1960's or the early 80's AFTER the mariel?

They didn't "leave". They were released by Castro.

Why the infatuation with that era? Do you think it's cool? Are you a wannabe?

I read alot of things in the immigration forum that portrays hispanics as criminals so I am just trying to get more information.

This stereotype has been around for a while, but I am fairly young, so it start before my time.

I just wanna know were this stereotype comes from

[deckardc]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

I read alot of things in the immigration forum that portrays hispanics as criminals so I am just trying to get more information.

This stereotype has been around for a while, but I am fairly young, so it start before my time.

I just wanna know were this stereotype comes from

Which stereotype? That Cubans are responsible for the 80s crime wave in Miami or that all hispanics are criminals.

The cocaine crime wave in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s was pretty much run by Colombians not Cubans. The Tony Montana character in the movie Scarface was a Marielito who became the cocaine king of Miami. It is fiction that is based on a conglomeration of events. The Cuban boat lift of the early 80s and the explosion of Coke traffic in the city of Miami also in the early 80s. In reality, the two things were not connected to each other, the producer probably thought it made for a better storyline. I think Colombia is still the largest producer of cocaine in the world. Some of what you see in the movie is apparently based on actual events such as the chainsaw in the shower scene but it was Colombians not Cubans.

Who considers all hispanics to be criminals. The 80s were not before my time and that is not the impression I ever had. Of course, I didn't grow up in a generation obsessed with the movie Scarface. It's fiction, not a documentary.

[Magnolia Bloom]

In the early 80s I can't tell you how many times my DH and I would be eating dinner somewhere and we would over hear a drug deal being discussed. It could be a nice place or a burger joint, didn't matter.

Once he told me that a tractor trailer came into the state farmer's market late at night and guys got out with bullet belts crisscrossing their chests, guns in their hands like in western movies and they transferred their product to waiting vehicles.

It wasn't all Cubans. And the boat lift made for good cover for others running drugs in the ocean. I remember once when bails of pot washed up on Hillsboro Beach. Our next door neighbors kept a seal-a-meal in their locked upstairs bedroom.... When I had my son I met another new mom in the hospital. Her husband had a scale that could weigh a hair. He made frequent trips to Central and SA and ended up dying in a plane crash in Belize. It was wild.

[thebigr]

I lived in Fort Lauderdale in the early 80's and buying a bale of pot was as easy as buying shine in the mountains of Tn or NC. Ask around and you will find it. Everyone I knew in the drug trafficing buisness was white or from some other country other than Cuba. The Cubans were into trucking which I have been in for 20 plus years. I will say they brought that industry down in Florida.

[NJ Chutzpah]

Originally Posted by deckardc

Which stereotype? That Cubans are responsible for the 80s crime wave in Miami or that all hispanics are criminals.

The cocaine crime wave in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s was pretty much run by Colombians not Cubans. The Tony Montana character in the movie Scarface was a Marielito who became the cocaine king of Miami. It is fiction that is based on a conglomeration of events. The Cuban boat lift of the early 80s and the explosion of Coke traffic in the city of Miami also in the early 80s. In reality, the two things were not connected to each other, the producer probably thought it made for a better storyline. I think Colombia is still the largest producer of cocaine in the world. Some of what you see in the movie is apparently based on actual events such as the chainsaw in the shower scene but it was Colombians not Cubans.

Who considers all hispanics to be criminals. The 80s were not before my time and that is not the impression I ever had. Of course, I didn't grow up in a generation obsessed with the movie Scarface. It's fiction, not a documentary.

Both those stereotypes

If you are cuban or hispanic I was not trying to offend you.