Babalu Blog

Back to the Herald's Future - Part 4

This is the 4th part of an examination of a piece published in The Miami Herald’s Tropic Magazine in 1988. The piece was written as a fictional look back over the 20-year period between 2008 and 1988. As we have seen some of the events described by the author, John Dorschner, have actually come to pass.

Intro
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In this next section Dorschner talks mainly about racial politics. Although race has always played a part in south Florida politics for as long as I can remember, it's rarely been as obvious and up-front as Dorschner projected it would become.

The shortage of funds made the struggle for a piece of the political pie that much more bitter, and the municipal elections of '89 marked a watershed in local politics. The most notorious incident -- at least the one that received the most publicity worldwide -- happened in Hialeah. It began when an anonymous caller suggested on a Radio Mambi talk show that a Dade expressway should be named for Orlando Bosch. Within 2 days, the idea launched a tidal wave of calls to all radio stations. Several commentators championed the idea, and suddenly local Hispanic politicians faced an uncomfortable dilemma.

To many Cubans, Bosch was a patriot who had dedicated his life to fighting communism. (Back in 1988, when Bosch had returned to the United States after years in a Venezuelan jail, Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez and 3 Hialeah council members had signed a letter calling Bosch a "valiant freedom fighter" and demanding his release from jail.**10) But to many others, Bosch was simply a terrorist, even though he had never been convicted of masterminding the bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people in 1976.

Some Miami Cuban politicians and El Grupo leaders said privately they didn't want to be burdened with supporting Bosch, but once the idea of an expressway spread through the radio shows, they knew that if they evaded the proposal, their Cuban constituents would consider them soft on communism.

And so it was that a dozen Dade Cubans flew to Tallahassee carrying sample road signs to lobby the Legislature to rename State Road 112 the "Orlando Bosch Expressway."

The Anglo-dominated Legislature killed the bill in committee. But the topic was too hot to die. In Hialeah, where candidates were gearing up for local elections, several politicians proposed that the city name one of its widest streets for Bosch. Then someone said it would be a demotion for Bosch's name to be given to a mere street: It had to be an expressway.

No one was opposed.

Unanimously, the Hialeah council decreed that the already- made expressway signs be used to rename West 4th Avenue. Hialeah was so overwhelmingly Cuban that the move was greeted by cheers, but throughout the world, newspapers carried sarcastic 2-paragraph items about how crazy Miami had created a "terrorist expressway." For years, the "expressway" was mentioned in virtually all feature accounts of the area.

I think this was a gratuitous shot at Cuban-Americans on Dorschner's part. Certainly figures like Bosch and later Posada Carriles are controversial and the mainstream media likes to harp on them as do radical groups like CodePink, but among the many potentially embarrassing episodes in South-Florida politics the desire among some to name an expressway after Orlando Bosch has not been one of them. The media doesn't need something as overt as that to pick to on Cuban-Americans. The story of Elian Gonzalez would be all the ammunition they needed. It seems that Cuban-Americans are the only minority group in America that is fair game for ridicule and insults on their part.

While the Bosch affair was occupying Hialeah residents, the city of Miami had its own election concerns during that watershed year of '89. The most vicious battle occurred over "the Black Seat," as it had been known for years. Three Cubans campaigned against the Black incumbent. El Grupo, sensing the city's delicate racial balance, remained officially neutral, but several of its prominent members contributed to the campaigns of Cuban friends.

A Cuban defeated the Black in a runoff, leaving the Blacks (who made up 30 percent of the city's voters) without representation.**11 Blacks were enraged, as were many Anglos, who were worried that the commission's last Anglo seat, held by J.L. Plummer, might be lost when he had to run in '91. Their fear was misplaced (though not by much: The Anglo seat was lost 4 years later, in '95), but it sparked a harsh backlash.

Dorschner was wrong here, the "Black seat" is still in Black hands and the "Anglo seat" is still in Anglo (well Jewish) hands. No backlash necessary.

Shortly after the '89 election, a group of Anglos and Blacks founded the Pro-American Clubs, with the goal of "promoting the use of English and the American way of life." The clubs held weekly meetings, paid for television commercials ("Stand Up for Your Rights as Americans") and organized subcommittees (one specialized in harassing convenience-store workers who knew little English). A third of the clubs' members were in southern Broward, a reaction to the area's growing influx of younger Hispanics.

After a few months, it became clear that the local Pro- American movement had done what the state's English-as-the- Official-Language Amendment had not when it was passed in 1988: angered South Florida Hispanics. The state amendment had been perceived as being the work of North Florida rednecks; it had little effect on bilingualism in South Florida. But the Pro- American Clubs were too close to home for comfort; many Hispanics decided it was time to stand up for their rights. The most famous incident occurred on July 3, 1990, in the city of Sweetwater, where the all-Hispanic council voted to conduct all village business -- from council meetings to discussions in the parks department -- in Spanish.

The resolution made news throughout the country. Even local Hispanics worried that Sweetwater had gone too far. Four days after the resolution had been passed, El Grupo issued a formal statement urging "moderation and reconciliation." Privately, El Grupo leaders threatened that unless the ordinance was withdrawn, they would recommend that all Hispanic businesses stop any dealings with Sweetwater firms. Within 3 days, Sweetwater merchants persuaded council members to drop the ordinance.

Needless to say these three paragraphs are more of the Hiaasen-like intrigue that Dorschner engaged in when he dreamed up "El Grupo". As I said earlier, race is a component of local politics here (just like it is anywhere in the country) but it's more subtle than this. Of the parts I've posted thus far, this section is one where the Herald got it most wrong.

Part 5 here.

Footnotes:

10. The Herald, February 23, 1988.

11. Marvin Dunn, a black psychologist, says its only natural for Cubans to take as much as they can get: "When blacks took control of the Atlanta city government, they didn't seem that interested in protecting the political clout of the white minority. And it would be unrealistic to expect Hispanics to act any differently."

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at March 24, 2008 08:08 AM |

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Posted by: Robert at March 24, 2008 10:19 AM

Posted by: CubanKeyRat at March 24, 2008 05:04 PM

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