Latest news with #CubanRefugees
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Miami's Freedom Tower reopens as Trump ramps up arrests in city of Cuban migrant pride
For decades, its powerful lighthouse illuminated Miami's Biscayne Bay, and during the height of the Cold War, what was known as the Freedom Tower stood as a beacon of hope for hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing communist rule. The 14-story Spanish Revival skyscraper was where, from 1962 to 1974, the U.S. State Department welcomed Cuban refugees with medical services, English classes, and comfort kits containing essentials and something wholly exotic to the new arrivals: peanut butter. After decades of neglect, what was once Miami's tallest building is getting a well-deserved facelift. Next month, it will reopen as a museum honoring the history of Cuban exiles with immersive, state-of-the-art exhibits that explore the meaning of migration, freedom and homeland. Ellis Island of the South The reopening of what's dubbed the Ellis Island of the South comes at a sensitive moment. Cuban Americans — who dominate politics in Miami — voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the last presidential election. But the president's crackdown on migrants — including Cubans — is increasingly viewed as a betrayal and has left many second-guessing that support. Not surprisingly, recent protests against Trump have gathered outside the tower. The organizers of the museum, while tiptoeing around the present-day politics, are nonetheless unapologetic in their embrace of the American dream. In Miami, a thriving crossroads where 70% of residents speak Spanish as their first language and more than half are foreign-born, compassion for migrants runs deep. 'It's cyclical,' said Rene Ramos, the head archivist at Miami Dade College, which spearheaded the $65 million renovation. 'This country has had moments where it clearly saw the value of immigrants and other moments when it did not. What we're doing here is reminding people what immigrants can accomplish when they're given the opportunity.' The iconic building opened in 1925 as the headquarters of the once-acclaimed Miami Daily News, which shuttered decades ago. It was designed, in the style of a Moorish bell tower from Seville, Spain, by the New York architectural firm Schultze & Weaver, which was behind some of the most glamorous hotels, theaters and office towers of the era. It was renamed the Freedom Tower when President John F. Kennedy launched the Cuban Refugee Assistance Program to resettle the streams of middle-class individuals and families fleeing Fidel Castro's revolution. It's estimated that nearly 400,000 Cubans relied on services provided at the tower by the U.S. government in coordination with the then-fledgling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. The total cost of the refugee assistance ran over $730 million by 1971 — almost $6 billion in today's dollars — a U.S. government report from that year found. A safe place for refugees Known to the Spanish-speaking migrants as 'El Refugio,' or 'The Refuge,' it was a safe place to get vaccines, fill out paperwork, and receive financial assistance of around $120 per month. In the Grand Hall, with its giant windows and Corinthian columns, the Pizarra de la Suerte — the Bulletin Board of Good Luck — carried job notices to help the Cubans adjust to their new life, according to a replica of the hall in the museum. At the time, metropolitan Miami was a tropical tourist town, with fewer than 1 million inhabitants. Most émigrés fanned out across the United States. 'They weren't staying in Miami because they didn't want warmth and sunshine. There were no jobs,' said Madeline Pumariega, the president of Miami Dade College, whose own Cuban parents hightailed it to Amarillo, Texas, after arriving here. But over time, the exiles would trudge back from the cold and snow to put their unmistakable Cuban stamp on what over the ensuing decades would become one of America's most vibrant cultural and economic hubs. Jorge Malagón, who teaches history at Miami Dade College, was just 5 when he arrived. But he still wells up recalling the hardship of his departure — when Cuban customs officials ripped open his teddy bear looking for contraband jewelry — and arriving in Miami on a 'Freedom Flight' paid for by the U.S. government and being immediately shuttled in a school bus from the tarmac to the Freedom Tower. 'The memories never go away,' said Malagón, who recalls being welcomed with a bar of unfamiliar peanut butter and a block of government cheese. 'To this day, a grilled cheese sandwich with cheap, Velveeta processed cheese is still comfort food to me.' The Freedom Tower, a national historic landmark, was long ago overtaken by Miami's fast-growing steel and glass skyline. Abandoned for years, it was rescued in 1997 by Cuban American businessman Jorge Mas Canosa, a top exile opponent of Castro. He later sold it to a prominent Cuban American family and it was then donated to Miami Dade College. Even in a dilapidated state, the tower remained a mecca of the Cuban diaspora. In 2003, tens of thousands of salsa fans gathered here to show their respects to Cuban-born singer Celia Cruz. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents migrated from Cuba, used it as the backdrop to announce his bid for the U.S. presidency in 2015. The current restoration was funded by $25 million investment from the state of Florida, with additional funding from MDC, private donors and federal government grants. Galleries designed by the same firm behind New York City's National September 11 Memorial & Museum provide a gripping account of the Cuban American journey to freedom. They include exhibits dedicated to Victims of Communism, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion that the CIA organized against Castro, and the 14,000 unaccompanied minors sent by their parents as part of the U.S.-led Operation Peter Pan. Giant media screens project scenes of protest and acts of courage by newer residents of the Magic City fleeing persecution in Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua. There's also a makeshift recording studio for those who passed through the Freedom Tower to add their testimony to an archive of over 300 oral history interviews with exiles, including prominent voices like singer Gloria Estefan. Emerging from the dark galleries of often traumatic stories of dislocation and exile, the museum's final stop is a gallery flooded with all the sun, salsa and pastel hues that make modern-day Miami so beloved. 'Miami and the world would not be what it is today without them,' said Pumariega. 'That's important and so is the contributions that immigrants play in our country, and I think will continue to play beyond this moment.'
Washington Post
3 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Miami's Freedom Tower reopens as Trump ramps up arrests in city of Cuban migrant pride
MIAMI — For decades, its powerful lighthouse illuminated Miami's Biscayne Bay, and during the height of the Cold War, what was known as the Freedom Tower stood as a beacon of hope for hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing communist rule. The 14-story Spanish Revival skyscraper was where, from 1962 to 1974, the U.S. State Department welcomed Cuban refugees with medical services, English classes, and comfort kits containing essentials and something wholly exotic to the new arrivals: peanut butter.
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Miami's Freedom Tower reopens as Trump ramps up arrests in city of Cuban migrant pride
MIAMI (AP) — For decades, its powerful lighthouse illuminated Miami's Biscayne Bay, and during the height of the Cold War, what was known as the Freedom Tower stood as a beacon of hope for hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing communist rule. The 14-story Spanish Revival skyscraper was where, from 1962 to 1974, the U.S. State Department welcomed Cuban refugees with medical services, English classes, and comfort kits containing essentials and something wholly exotic to the new arrivals: peanut butter. After decades of neglect, what was once Miami's tallest building is getting a well-deserved facelift. Next month, it will reopen as a museum honoring the history of Cuban exiles with immersive, state-of-the-art exhibits that explore the meaning of migration, freedom and homeland. Ellis Island of the South The reopening of what's dubbed the Ellis Island of the South comes at a sensitive moment. Cuban Americans — who dominate politics in Miami — voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the last presidential election. But the president's crackdown on migrants — including Cubans — is increasingly viewed as a betrayal and has left many second-guessing that support. Not surprisingly, recent protests against Trump have gathered outside the tower. The organizers of the museum, while tiptoeing around the present-day politics, are nonetheless unapologetic in their embrace of the American dream. In Miami, a thriving crossroads where 70% of residents speak Spanish as their first language and more than half are foreign-born, compassion for migrants runs deep. 'It's cyclical,' said Rene Ramos, the head archivist at Miami Dade College, which spearheaded the $65 million renovation. 'This country has had moments where it clearly saw the value of immigrants and other moments when it did not. What we're doing here is reminding people what immigrants can accomplish when they're given the opportunity.' The iconic building opened in 1925 as the headquarters of the once-acclaimed Miami Daily News, which shuttered decades ago. It was designed, in the style of a Moorish bell tower from Seville, Spain, by the New York architectural firm Schultze & Weaver, which was behind some of the most glamorous hotels, theaters and office towers of the era. It was renamed the Freedom Tower when President John F. Kennedy launched the Cuban Refugee Assistance Program to resettle the streams of middle-class individuals and families fleeing Fidel Castro's revolution. It's estimated that nearly 400,000 Cubans relied on services provided at the tower by the U.S. government in coordination with the then-fledgling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. The total cost of the refugee assistance ran over $730 million by 1971 — almost $6 billion in today's dollars — a U.S. government report from that year found. A safe place for refugees Known to the Spanish-speaking migrants as 'El Refugio,' or 'The Refuge,' it was a safe place to get vaccines, fill out paperwork, and receive financial assistance of around $120 per month. In the Grand Hall, with its giant windows and Corinthian columns, the Pizarra de la Suerte — the Bulletin Board of Good Luck — carried job notices to help the Cubans adjust to their new life, according to a replica of the hall in the museum. At the time, metropolitan Miami was a tropical tourist town, with fewer than 1 million inhabitants. Most émigrés fanned out across the United States. 'They weren't staying in Miami because they didn't want warmth and sunshine. There were no jobs,' said Madeline Pumariega, the president of Miami Dade College, whose own Cuban parents hightailed it to Amarillo, Texas, after arriving here. But over time, the exiles would trudge back from the cold and snow to put their unmistakable Cuban stamp on what over the ensuing decades would become one of America's most vibrant cultural and economic hubs. Jorge Malagón, who teaches history at Miami Dade College, was just 5 when he arrived. But he still wells up recalling the hardship of his departure — when Cuban customs officials ripped open his teddy bear looking for contraband jewelry — and arriving in Miami on a 'Freedom Flight' paid for by the U.S. government and being immediately shuttled in a school bus from the tarmac to the Freedom Tower. 'The memories never go away,' said Malagón, who recalls being welcomed with a bar of unfamiliar peanut butter and a block of government cheese. 'To this day, a grilled cheese sandwich with cheap, Velveeta processed cheese is still comfort food to me.' The Freedom Tower, a national historic landmark, was long ago overtaken by Miami's fast-growing steel and glass skyline. Abandoned for years, it was rescued in 1997 by Cuban American businessman Jorge Mas Canosa, a top exile opponent of Castro. He later sold it to a prominent Cuban American family and it was then donated to Miami Dade College. Even in a dilapidated state, the tower remained a mecca of the Cuban diaspora. In 2003, tens of thousands of salsa fans gathered here to show their respects to Cuban-born singer Celia Cruz. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents migrated from Cuba, used it as the backdrop to announce his bid for the U.S. presidency in 2015. The current restoration was funded by $25 million investment from the state of Florida, with additional funding from MDC, private donors and federal government grants. Galleries designed by the same firm behind New York City's National September 11 Memorial & Museum provide a gripping account of the Cuban American journey to freedom. They include exhibits dedicated to Victims of Communism, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion that the CIA organized against Castro, and the 14,000 unaccompanied minors sent by their parents as part of the U.S.-led Operation Peter Pan. Giant media screens project scenes of protest and acts of courage by newer residents of the Magic City fleeing persecution in Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua. There's also a makeshift recording studio for those who passed through the Freedom Tower to add their testimony to an archive of over 300 oral history interviews with exiles, including prominent voices like singer Gloria Estefan. Emerging from the dark galleries of often traumatic stories of dislocation and exile, the museum's final stop is a gallery flooded with all the sun, salsa and pastel hues that make modern-day Miami so beloved. 'Miami and the world would not be what it is today without them,' said Pumariega. 'That's important and so is the contributions that immigrants play in our country, and I think will continue to play beyond this moment.'
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Exiled child returns to Miami's Freedom Tower: ‘They massacred my teddy bear'
Jorge Malagón Márquez's first sighting of Miami's iconic Freedom Tower, the so-called Ellis Island of the south for its role in processing more than half a million Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro's communist revolution, was through a flood of tears. It was May 1967, and his family had just arrived from Havana on one of the first so-called Freedom flights ferrying refugees allowed to escape the dictator's tightening grip on the island. His parents, Eduardo and Irma, held in their hands two small suitcases and his seven-year-old brother Ed. The bewildered Jorge, aged five, clutched the shredded remains of what just two hours previously had been his beloved teddy bear. 'At the airport in Havana, the military people there would check you to make sure that you weren't smuggling out jewelry, diamonds, whatever,' he said. 'They took my teddy bear, they took a razor blade. You see why I was traumatized? They cut all the stuffing out of it and handed it back to me, just without any stuffing or whatever, just limp. 'At the Freedom Tower, once we got there, we were separated from our parents. They took my brother and myself to one side, they took our parents to another place for a few hours. And of course we don't speak the language. It's crowded, there's all these strange people. We don't understand what they're saying. All we know is that they massacred my teddy bear, and now they took my parents.' Malagón Márquez's emotional memories of his stressful arrival in Miami as a child are among hundreds captured for a new exhibition of history at the 100-year-old tower, known to the exiles as el refugio (the shelter). The building, a national historic landmark, reopens to the public in September after a multi-year refurbishment. 'The tower is linked culturally and artistically with everything that Miami has become,' he said. 'When it was built it was a beacon out into the bay, the Freedom Tower that ships would use for guidance. 'In images from 1925 it's the dominant feature of the skyline, the tallest building. Now it's dwarfed by everything around it. But that's part of the building's story as well, because the people who came through started to create all of these networks and forge the Miami we have today.' While room after room of static displays and interactive exhibits tell the entire story of the 289ft (88metre) tower, including its early years as the home of the Miami Daily News, and its status as an emblem of the nation's fastest-growing city following the 1920s Miami land boom, its designation as the Cuban Refugee Center from 1962 to 1974 holds the most fascination. The tower's cavernous, pillared reception hall, the first glimpse the new arrivals had of its interior as they awaited medical checks and immigration processing in adjacent rooms, has been painstakingly restored in original Mediterranean revival style. The centrepiece is the attention-grabbing New World Mural 1813, replicating Ponce de León's landing that year in what was later to become known as Florida. The hall contains a display of artefacts of Miami's history. Beyond lie exhibition spaces collectively known as Libertad (freedom), a recreation of the journey Cuban refugees took both in the tower and beyond as they began their new lives in an unfamiliar country. Upstairs, visitors learn of other famous milestone moments in Cuban emigration to Florida, such as the Operación Pedro Pan exodus of 14,000 unaccompanied minors between 1960 and 1962; and the 1980 Mariel boatlift when 125,000 refugees arrived in Miami by sea. Malagón Márquez, now a professor in his 60s teaching history at Miami-Dade College (MDC), the tower's owner since 2005, admits he cried when he saw the period restoration, recreated largely from photographs and the knowledge of historian Paul George, an expert in the development of downtown Miami. Especially poignant, he said, was the black-and-white checkered floor of the reception and processing room. 'The moment we walked in I immediately became that five-year-old little boy again. I got choked up and the tears were just flowing because it was that strong a memory,' he said. 'We were checked out medically. I remember going to a dentist. They gave us food. The most significant memory I have is the government cheese, a big cheap block of it, I guess like Velveeta, in a plain cardboard box. 'Now I love good cheese and wine, but to this day there's nothing like a grilled cheese sandwich with the cheapest possible American processed cheese that there is.' On a wall is la pizarra de la suerte (lucky noticeboard), a pinboard where scores of newcomers would find advertisements for accommodation and jobs, while others learned of limited assistance available through the government's Cuban Refugee Assistance Program – 'a terrible, terrible acronym', Malagón Márquez said. His mother found work as a sewing machinist in a clothing factory, and his father, who had been a political prisoner in the early days of the Castro regime, worked two other lowly paid jobs, one washing dishes in a hotel kitchen. It was, he said, a time of opportunity, but blended with challenges that threatened to overwhelm them. 'I recall the difficulty my parents had finding us a place to live. In Miami in 1967 you'd open the newspaper to find an apartment and it would say, 'no blacks, no Cubans, no dogs',' he said. It is those human tales of survival, fortitude and hope that those behind the tower's anniversary reopening said they sought to pry out. Madeline Pumariega, MDC's president, said that when the restoration project began in 2021, the year following her appointment, she directed its planners to incorporate personal stories such as Malagón Márquez's, and those of her own parents, who also passed through el refugio decades earlier. 'There were these poster boards with pictures of what happened, but there wasn't this real experience, and I thought, 'how does my daughter hear this story as a 21-year-old? And how will her kids hear the story?'' she said. 'We wanted to leverage technology and the way that so many consume their experiences and information along with the first hand storytelling of those that came through here and experienced it.' To that end, one gallery features a giant video wall where visitors can choose any of more than 350 personal stories recorded by those who lived them, or heard them from relatives. The collection is expected to grow. 'We wanted to create Libertad as an exhibit that leads multiple generations through feeling what it is to seek freedom, what it is to search for hope and opportunity, and how this great nation has given their families, their abuelitos, that opportunity,' Pumariega said. The restoration project was funded with a $25m state grant and further awards from groups including the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Trust for Historic Preservation. Opening day will be early in national Hispanic Heritage month, beginning 15 September.
CBS News
19-07-2025
- CBS News
Renovations at Miami's Freedom Tower finishing up ahead of its 100th anniversary celebration
Still standing tall against the massive urbanization that is 21st Century Miami, the building known today as the Freedom Tower has been a big part of Miami's history. Built to impress in the Mediterranean style, 100 years ago it was home to the Miami Daily News and the headquarters for the Cox newspaper chain. This week workers scrambled to finish a massive $25 million renovation to mark the building's centennial anniversary. Madeline Pumariega, the president of Miami Dade College. She recently gave CBS News Miami a tour of the facility, noting the planned innovations. "This hallway is intended to depict a journey, a journey to freedom so many that have come in search of hope and opportunity," she said. Pumariega is referring to the hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees who passed the historic building from 1962 through 1974. The Federal Cuban Assistance Program provided Cuban exiles and refugees with financial aid, food, medical care and guidance on setting up life in America. Carman Valdivia remembers visiting the Freedom Tower in her childhood. "They would take us there for the doctors and dentists and things like that," she said. Cuban exile doctors were allowed to practice inside the Freedom Tower, while new arrivals learned English there. When the federal refugee funding ran out, the building fell into hard times and was in disrepair. It changed hands several times and was eventually rescued by the family of the late Jorge Mas Canosa. In 2003, the building gained attention again thanks to a massive memorial to "The Queen of Salsa" Celia Cruz. Miami Dade College later acquired the Freedom Tower and is now spearheading the renovations which include digital displays and exhibits, like the stacks of suitcases. The Castro regime would only allow exiles three changes of clothes and not much else when they exited the island. The exiles came to America with all they had packed in one suitcase. They often kept their suitcases along with the airline tickets that flew them to freedom. Pumariega said the stacks of 1960s luggage is a powerful reminder for many of where they come from. There is plenty of Miami history in this iconic building which will re-open to the public later this summer or early fall.
