6 days ago
Miami's iconic building is honored, just as immigrants face attacks
Miami's Freedom Tower — once the proud 'Ellis Island of the South' — turned 100 on July 25. After a two-year, $25 million restoration, it will reopen next month as a museum honoring Miami's refugee story, especially the Cuban exile journey.
And yet, the irony stings. The tower's centennial and reopening comes at a time when Miami — and the country — is in the midst of an aggressive immigration crackdown. In today's South Florida, 'Alligator Alcatraz' has emerged as the twisted, modern-day echo of the Freedom Tower one about confinement and deportation instead of a warm welcome
Originally built in 1925 as the headquarters for the Miami News, the pink tower on Biscayne Boulevard later served as a famed one-stop government processing center and came to symbolize the new-found freedom to hundreds of thousands shellshocked Cuban political refugees fleeing Fidel Castro's communist regime. They dubbed it la Torre de la Libertad.
From 1962 through the 1980s, the tower was the place where the continuous flow of refugees had their initial paperwork done, received food rations, medical care, job placement or relocation help.
Since then, the tower, once one of downtown Miami's tallest buildings, has continued to serve as a symbolic beacon of hope and freedom for all individuals from different countries coming to Miami to escape from political oppression in Latin America and Haiti.
Freedom Tower is now part of Miami Dade College, which has preserved the site as a civic and cultural landmark. The renovation included significant structural work to stabilize and modernize the building while retaining its historic integrity. That guarantees its future as one of our oldest structures. The renovation created new exhibit spaces to preserve and display the impact immigrants and refugees have had on Miami-Dade, with a new immersive museum experience that tells the story of Cuban immigration and Miami's evolution into the vibrant, multicultural city it is today.
'The Freedom Tower represents — not just for Cubans, but Venezuelans, Hondurans, Colombians — it really stands as a beacon of hope and opportunity,' Miami Dade College president Madeline Pumariega recently told reporters. Pumariega is the daughter of Cuban exiles.
Later this year, visitors will be able to walk through the same lobby that once welcomed immigrants, view oral histories, photographs and databases of refugees from Operation Pedro Pan, to the Freedom Flights, to Mariel and the balsero crisis.
There will be personal mementos — passports, photographs, toys brought by children — that speak to exile, resilience and success in a new country.
Today, around the country, ICE agents are detaining migrants for deportation. Back in its glory days, this governmental climate of fear was absence for those who were welcomed through the Freedom Tower's doors. The stark contradiction is hard to ignore and leads many to wonder: Would Cuban refugees, or Haitians or Nicaraguans, be welcomed today at the Freedom Tower, or turned away? This isn't a rhetorical question.
Miami's Freedom Tower represented Miami as a city in the United States where the 'huddled masses' sought refugee, found it and flourished to its benefit.
The restored Freedom Tower is a celebration of Miami's soul — a visible reminder that this city was built and enriched by generations of immigrants, exiles and people looking for a new country, a second chance as they fled from tyranny and poverty. But its centennial should be more than a history lesson.
It should challenge Miami today to live up to the promise that the tower represents.
