Ethnic Inventions: Constructing and Deconstructing Miami's Culture Clash

Abstract

Captured within the political, geographical, and metaphorical space of metropolitan Miami are many of the paradoxes that characterize the postmodern world. While politicians and foreign dignitaries met to discuss the future of the Americas at Miami's 1994 summit, Haitian immigrants engaged in the ritual sacrifice of chickens or goats outside the Dade County Courthouse in hopes of swaying key immigration cases. While some Cuban Americans have so completely assimilated to their adopted homeland as to be indistinguishable from native-born citizens, others remain focused intently on Cuba, holding mock elections to replace Fidel Castro, preparing militarily for his defeat, speaking only Spanish, and living in what one Cuban American described as the Cuba de ayer.1 And while metropolitan Miami works hard to fine tune its image as a world-class city, racial tensions and periodic episodes of civil unrest in its ghettos remind the world that not all is well in the Magic City. Perhaps as well as any city in the world, Miami illustrates the simultaneity of two seemingly contradictory trends in the contemporary world system: global integration and innovation that contrast with the persistence of seemingly primordial cultural attachments and animosities that frequently translate into civic fragmentation or disintegration. Increasingly recognized