Miami's Cuban Community
Astroll down Miami’s vibrant Calle Ocho is like being transported 330 miles south to the heart of Cuba—except in this hub of Cuban culture, no passport is required. The main drag of Miami’s historic Little Havana, Calle Ocho became an anchor for Cuban immigrants in the 1960s and remains one of the country’s most-concentrated cultural havens today.
Long before it was home to a thriving Cuban immigrant community, Miami was a seemingly sleepy city where snowbirds and vacationers seeking the warmth of southern Florida flocked. But that all changed the moment communist leader Fidel Castro took power of Cuba in 1959. Those in opposition to Castro fled to the United States to seek refuge, and records show more than a million Cubans made the journey to America in what historians divide into four waves.
The first to arrive in Miami between 1959 and 1962 were mainly elite politicians, businessmen, and professionals who had supported the overthrown ("rafters" in English).
