This past week I spoke to my friend Erika on the phone and got all the updates I usually get when we exchange news about our very far away lives – her in Miami, me wherever I happen to be at the moment. There was one question I had been meaning to ask anyone from Miami but had put it off for quite a while simply because I feared the answer. I figured it might not be as bad if Erika told me.
“So, what’s going on with Orange Bowl? Are they still talking about tearing it down?”
“Oh yeah, it’s gone. Just after you left I think.”
Or something like that…point is, even though I no longer live and haven’t lived in Miami for quite some time now, the fact that the Orange Bowl no longer exists is rather pinnacle for me. I know…what the hell does a college stadium in Miami have to do with me? Actually a whole lot I realized. It’s a monument of nostalgia and nostalgia is core to the Cuban exile regardless of their beliefs, experience and decade of arrival. It was a landmark as far as I’m concerned, not for all the fabulous games the Hurricanes played. Geographically, it was smack in the heart of little Havana, a neighborhood that up until recently, was one of the most predominantly Cuban exile communities in Miami if not, I dare say in the U.S, since Castro came to power. It’s where everyone from the Mariel Boatlift in 1980 ended up after leaving Cuba having forfeited everything to the new Cuban government upon leaving. They lived in the Orange Bowl in make shift tents until they were able to start their lives again.
For the first 6 years of my life, the Orange Bowl and I shared a street. My entire family lived in the small apartment building directly in front of it and in neighboring streets. As Miamians might know, there is no parking in that area, so on days when the Hurricanes played their games at home, my neighborhood transformed. Cars, people, noise, and flooding lights from the stadium inundated the neighborhood. All the residents I think enjoyed it regardless of the commotion. It brought everyone out of their apartments. My grandmother and her sisters along with most of the other tenants rented their parking spaces as they sat on the sidewalk in their lawn chairs comfortably and lazily waving San Juan Bosco church fans they used to both fan themselves as well as advertise the amount they were charging for their space. There was usually an 8 or 7 written on the back of all of the fans in our house.
My father played baseball and football on the outer lawns of the stadium. In the summers my cousin Lusito and I (with rollerskates on ofcourse) would sneak in and go exploring consumed with the feeling of exhilaration you get when you are doing something you are not supposed to and will probably merit an ass beating if caught. Even on regular nights the tenants from the building would bring out their lawns chairs and sit in a big circle and just talk till it was bed time. Being the youngest, during this communing time I entertained myself by pestering my older cousins or singing into Tia Ana’s baston.
The Orange Bowl was always there, towering next to us.
I waited for my school bus in front of it. I remember my grandmother waiting for me infront of it when I came home in my gwa-wah.
This just confirms a sad fact. For some reason, Miamians don’t seem to mind erasing their monuments. The only historical buildings left inMiami can be found in areas such as South Beach, and Coral Gables save for the Freedom Tower in downtown. Miami’s a poor city, I know it doesn’t seem like it thanks to actions films and Will Smith but it is, or at least it was until Art Basel showed up about 5 or 6 years ago. I’m sure tearing down an outdated stadium and plugging in a brand spanking new stadium makes total sense. As the new stadium will not house the Hurricanes, it will now encourage Marlin fans to games! Oh, wait Marlin fans don’t go to games. Hell, Marlins fans aren’t fans unless the Marlins make it to playoffs – which is never. Hmmm.. well it will definitely boost the real estate market of the neighborhood…..that is as soon as the residents find somewhere else to live because they sure as hell won’t be able to afford it any longer. And yet another historical neighborhood goes under a swift metamorphosis. Gentrified, dispersed and forgotten. This happens a lot in Miami and everywhere in the U.S., but in this particular situation it is rather personal for me.
So I write this because I felt I needed to and because I now have a blog to do it in and because ironically, I have been working on the first of a series of paintings based on memory. This first painting happens to be of the Orange Bowl. For some reason the memories of those first years in my life are so vivid. Those eventful nights the Hurricanes played, the elders that are now long gone, the Cuban-ness everywhere, what once was a very large and loving family, the sense of community, …its all pretty crisp in my mind. Maybe I’m idealizing it, but please remember I’m seeing it all through a child’s eyes. Apparently, nostalgia is quite significant to this second generation Cuban way out in San Diego,California. And I know I no longer live in Miami, but I still consider myself a Miamian, I just happen to be in another place.
Posted in Paintings
Tags: art, miami, orange bowl
