Written by Venessa Samantha Green
I have been thinking about whether I even wanted to write this because there is something exhausting about explaining a place you were born and raised in to people who have never had to experience it the way you have.
I was born in Miami, I grew up here, and I have watched this city change dramatically over the course of my life. I have also watched Black Miamians talk among themselves about experiences that are so familiar to me that sometimes I can practically finish the story before they do. The racism, the hostility, the assumptions about who belongs where, the way certain communities seem to move through Miami with an entirely different level of social protection and acceptance than others—it is all there, and pretending otherwise does not make it disappear.
So let's talk about it.
Before We Talk About Miami, We Need To Talk About Cuba
You cannot understand the racial and economic dynamics of modern Miami without understanding what kind of people first arrived here in large numbers after the Cuban Revolution and what they were leaving behind. The first major wave of Cuban exiles was disproportionately wealthy, made up of affluent professionals and members of the Batista regime who feared what the revolution would do to their property, businesses, wealth, political position, and place within Cuban society. More than 200,000 of these early exiles, known as the "golden exiles," had reached the United States by 1962. (loc.gov)
The Cuba they were leaving was already profoundly unequal. Wealth and income were concentrated at the top, and the country's economic structure gave wealthy Cubans and foreign interests enormous power. Contemporary U.S. diplomatic assessments described the Cuban upper class as having benefited from profitable business ventures and the stability of the Batista era, while revolutionary reforms threatened their property holdings and sources of income. The transformation was not symbolic. Agrarian reform, nationalization, and other measures were dismantling parts of the economic order that had allowed a relatively small group of people to hold substantial wealth and influence. (history.state.gov)
So when I talk about the class dimension of Cuban migration, I am talking about the people who had occupied the upper levels of that society and suddenly faced the possibility of losing the things that had placed them there. They had property, businesses, and professional credentials. They had money and connections. They lived within a social hierarchy that gave them advantages over poorer Cubans, and the revolution was threatening to rearrange that hierarchy.
That is a very different starting point from the image of an impoverished immigrant arriving with nothing but a suitcase and a dream.
And this is where I think people need to stop pretending that the phrase "they worked hard" explains the entire story. Working hard does not tell you where someone started, what resources they carried with them, who helped them establish themselves, what institutions were available to them, or what political circumstances surrounded their arrival. It tells you that they worked.
The rest of the history tells you how that work translated into power.
Who Wanted The Old Cuba Back?
The Cuban Revolution was not a rudimentary change in government. It was an attack on the economic and social order that had existed before it.
The revolutionary government moved against large landholdings, foreign ownership, businesses, and property belonging to people associated with the old regime or counterrevolutionary activity. The United States' own records from the period describe the upper class's loss of property and income as revolutionary reforms took effect, while other records document property confiscations involving people who had left Cuba to avoid revolutionary tribunals or who were involved in efforts against the new government. (history.state.gov)
That gives us a much clearer picture of what was happening. A group of people who had benefited from an unequal economic system suddenly found themselves living through a revolution that was explicitly attacking concentrated wealth and inherited power. For the people at the top, "revolution" did not mean an abstract political disagreement. It meant losing land, businesses, property, income, status, and the social position those things had provided.
So yes, I am willing to ask the uncomfortable question: what exactly were some of these people trying to preserve when they fled?
They were not all fleeing from the same thing, and the later waves of Cuban migration were not identical to the first. But the early exile population included a substantial concentration of people whose lives had been built inside the old hierarchy. Their departure cannot be separated from the fact that the revolution threatened that hierarchy.
And then they came to a country that had a political reason to help them rebuild.
And Then America Helped Them Build Again
The United States had a Cold War interest in Cuban exiles succeeding. Cuba had become a major geopolitical conflict, and supporting Cuban refugees was part of America's broader opposition to the Cuban Revolution and the Soviet Union.
That support was extensive.
Federal programs provided financial assistance, medical services, employment counseling, transportation and resettlement assistance, educational support, language programs, vocational training, student loans, foster care, and assistance with the education of Cuban refugee children in Dade County. Special English and refresher courses were created for Cuban professionals, including doctors and lawyers, to help them reestablish their careers in the United States. (history.state.gov)
Think about what that kind of infrastructure can produce over time.
A community arrives with people who already possess professional credentials, business experience, education, wealth, and connections. The federal government then creates programs specifically designed to help that population establish itself, continue professional careers, obtain education, find employment, receive financial assistance, relocate, learn English, and educate its children. Those people form businesses and institutions. Their children inherit those businesses, relationships, knowledge, and accumulated wealth. Those institutions become political organizations. Those political organizations produce influence. That influence reinforces the community's ability to shape the city around itself.
That is how a community becomes powerful enough to define a city's identity. And Miami is living with the results.
Meanwhile, Black Miami Was Still Fighting For Basic Access
Black people were building Miami while all of this was happening, but they were doing it under a completely different set of circumstances.
Black Bahamian immigrants and Black Americans were foundational to Miami's development, particularly in communities such as Overtown and Coconut Grove. They established businesses, churches, neighborhoods, cultural institutions, and commercial districts while segregation and discrimination restricted where Black people could live, work, shop, and build wealth. Miami's Black communities were contributing to the city's development while the surrounding racial system worked to limit their ability to accumulate and retain the same economic power. (loc.gov)
That is the comparison I want people to sit with.
Black Americans were already living in a country that had spent generations restricting their access to property, education, employment, housing, political participation, and wealth. Cuban exiles arrived during a period when the United States had a geopolitical incentive to help them establish themselves.
Those histories eventually produced two communities with very different amounts of institutional power. And then people look at the outcome and say, "See? The Cubans worked hard." Sure, so did everybody else.
Hard work cannot be used to erase the conditions surrounding the work.
This Did Not Happen In A Vacuum
Cuban Miami was constructed through decades of accumulated resources and relationships. Businesses became institutions. Institutions became networks. Networks became political influence. Political influence helped protect and expand those institutions. Families passed businesses, property, cultural knowledge, and connections from one generation to the next.
Eventually, the Cuban presence became so deeply embedded in Miami that Cuban identity and Miami identity began being treated as almost interchangeable.
The Library of Congress describes Miami as the capital of Cuban America and documents the way Cuban immigrants transformed the city's political, cultural, and economic landscape. (loc.gov)
That influence is visible when you look around.
It is in the businesses that dominate entire neighborhoods. It is in politics. It is in local media. It is in language. It is in food. It is in the cultural expectations surrounding what a "Miami" identity looks like. It is in the social networks that determine who knows whom, who gets hired, who gets recommended, who gets welcomed, and who immediately feels like an outsider.
Power does not have to announce itself to be powerful. Sometimes it becomes the environment everybody else has to navigate.
The Spanish Requirement Is Not Always About Spanish
Spanish is obviously useful in Miami, and there are jobs where speaking Spanish is genuinely necessary. That is not the part I am illuminating.
I am talking about the jobs where "Spanish preferred" or "bilingual required" appears even though the actual work does not seem to require a Spanish-speaking employee. In a city where Spanish is deeply intertwined with a dominant cultural and economic network, language can become more than a practical workplace skill. It can become a way of identifying who feels familiar to an employer before the interview has even begun.
The EEOC recognizes that employers can require foreign-language proficiency when it is necessary for effective job performance, while also recognizing that language requirements can implicate national-origin discrimination because language is closely connected to national and ethnic identity. (eeoc.gov)
That leaves a very real question for Miami employers: when is Spanish actually necessary for the job, and when has the language requirement become a way of signaling who belongs in the workplace?
Because there is a difference between needing an employee to communicate with Spanish-speaking customers and wanting an employee who already feels culturally familiar to the people running the business.
For Black people looking for work in Miami, that difference can have consequences.
Because What Happens When The Black Person Speaks Spanish?
There are Black Miamians who speak Spanish. There are Black Miamians who speak English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. There are Black people who have spent their entire lives navigating the languages and cultures of South Florida.
Yet speaking Spanish does not necessarily produce the same social response for a Black person that it produces for a white Cuban person.
I have seen white Cuban women describe how people's behavior changes once they realize they are white or hear them speaking Spanish. They describe people becoming warmer, friendlier, more familiar. Black people have described something very different: the language does not erase the racial hierarchy. Speaking Spanish does not suddenly make a Black person part of the same social category.
That is why I have a problem when Miami's racial dynamics are reduced to colorism.
Colorism is part of what happens here, but there is something larger happening when race, ethnicity, language, nationality, class, and cultural belonging all determine how someone is treated.
A Black person can speak the language and still be treated as though they do not belong.
Black Miamians Are Not Foreigners Here
There is something deeply insulting about being born somewhere and eventually feeling like you are the person who has to prove that you belong.
Black Miamians should not have to explain why it is frustrating when people who have lived here for decades can refuse to learn English while everyone around them is expected to accommodate them. We should not have to pretend that it is normal for someone who speaks several languages to still be treated with hostility because they are Black. We should not have to accept a city where certain people are automatically understood as belonging while Black residents who were born here can be treated like outsiders.
I have experienced this myself in places like Aventura and Sunny Isles. I have watched Black Miamians describe their experiences online and recognized the same patterns because I have lived them. These conversations are not coming from one person sitting alone and inventing a theory about Miami. Black people across the city are describing what they experience, and other people—including white Cubans who have witnessed these interactions—have acknowledged seeing versions of the same thing.
Black Miamians are not foreigners here. We do not need permission from anybody to say that.
This Is Bigger Than Colorism
I think Miami has a serious problem with anti-Blackness, and I think calling every instance of that problem "colorism" makes the conversation smaller than it needs to be.
Colorism is about the preference and discrimination surrounding skin tone, but Miami's racial hierarchy involves more than complexion. It involves whose culture is treated as central, whose language is treated as valuable, whose nationality is treated as familiar, whose communities are treated as established, whose businesses become institutions, whose political influence is taken for granted, and whose presence can still be treated as foreign even when that person was born here.
That is a racial hierarchy operating through multiple layers at once.
Miami can celebrate itself as an international city while Black residents experience anti-Blackness. It can celebrate bilingualism while language requirements create barriers for people who are not part of the dominant cultural network. It can celebrate Cuban culture while other Caribbean communities increasingly feel that there is less room for them.
All of those realities can exist in the same city.
I Have Watched This City Change
I have watched Miami become more expensive, more culturally concentrated, and increasingly difficult for some of the communities that helped build it to recognize themselves in.
I have watched the city become so closely associated with one particular version of Latin American culture that people sometimes talk about Cuban culture and Miami culture as though they were the same thing. I have watched other Caribbean identities become less visible. I have watched Black Miamians talk about feeling pushed out, priced out, disrespected, or just exhausted.
And I understand why someone would eventually decide they are done.
There is only so much energy a person can spend trying to make a place feel like home when that place increasingly makes them feel like they are standing outside of something they helped build.
I Don't Hate Miami Because I'm Telling The Truth About It
I am not obligated to give Miami a flattering review because I was born here.
I do not owe my hometown unconditional praise. I do not owe anyone silence because they are uncomfortable with what I have experienced. I do not have to pretend that a place is welcoming just because it has beautiful weather, beaches, good food, and a reputation for being fun.
Miami gave me memories. It gave me culture. It gave me experiences that shaped who I am. I can appreciate those things while still telling the truth about the racism I have experienced here.
I can say that Miami is beautiful and say that Miami is racist. I can say that I grew up here and say that I no longer feel welcome here. I can appreciate where I came from and still decide that I want my future somewhere else.
You Don't Have To Stay
This is the part I really want Black Miamians to hear: you are allowed to leave.
You do not have to spend your entire life fighting a place that makes you feel unwanted because you were born there. You do not have to keep explaining your humanity to people who have already decided what they think about you. You do not have to stay somewhere because your family has been there for generations.
If Miami is no longer giving you the kind of life you want, you are allowed to go find it somewhere else. There is nothing disloyal about that.
There is nothing shameful about admitting that you want a different environment, opportunities, a community, or the experience of waking up somewhere without immediately feeling like you have to brace yourself.
Sometimes leaving is the most honest response you can give yourself.
Find Somewhere You Can Breathe
I want Black Miamians to understand that they are allowed to imagine a life beyond this city.
You can move somewhere where the cost of living works better for you. You can relocate to where your community is smaller but stronger. You can go to a place where nobody knows your name and build a new life from scratch. You can move somewhere where you are surrounded by people who make you feel welcome instead of spending your days wondering why you are constantly being treated like an outsider.
You can leave Miami without abandoning your identity.
You can take your culture and your memories with you. You can bring everything you learned here with you. You can build a business somewhere else, make friends somewhere else, fall in love somewhere else, create a home, and discover that there are places where you do not have to spend so much energy convincing people that you belong.
Miami does not get to decide where your life ends just because it is where your life began.
Miamians, We Need To Talk
I am writing this because I am tired of watching Black Miamians describe experiences that are treated as isolated incidents when they keep appearing over and over again.
The Cuban Revolution changed the class structure of Cuba. The first major wave of exiles included people who had occupied the upper levels of that society. The revolution threatened their property, businesses, income, and social position. They came to the United States with resources and professional experience, and the United States government created an extensive system of assistance to help Cuban refugees establish themselves and rebuild their lives. Over the following decades, businesses, institutions, political networks, cultural organizations, and accumulated wealth transformed Miami.
At the same time, Black Miamians were living with the consequences of America's own racial hierarchy, building communities while facing segregation and barriers to housing, employment, education, and wealth.
Those histories eventually collided in the same city. That collision produced the Miami we have now.
So yes, I am saying that Miami has a racism problem and anti-Blackness exists here. I am saying that Cuban Miami has accumulated enormous economic, political, and cultural power, and that Black Miamians have every right to examine what that power means for us.
I am saying that the constant expectation that Black people accommodate everybody else while receiving less accommodation in return is exhausting. And I am saying that we do not have to stay. You can love where you came from and still leave it. You can be proud of your history and still decide that you want something different.
You can stop trying to make yourself comfortable in a place that keeps reminding you that it was not built around your comfort. You can pack your shit and go. You can start over and find somewhere else. You can build somewhere else. You can become someone somewhere else.
And maybe the next place you call home will finally feel like one.
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