“Miami seemed to me in those years to be living in reverse. They named even their stores after ones they had lost; and the rabid radio stations carried the same names as the ones they listened to in Cuba, as if they were the slightly crazed sons of a once prominent family. This endless pining for the past seemed to me a kind of madness; everyone living in an asylum, exiled from the living, and no one daring to say it plainly.”

– Cuban author, Ana Mendez, in an excerpt from her book “Loving Che“. As a first generation American born latina with Cuban parents, I completely understand her sentiments. It’s the intense yearning for their former home that creates an endless nostalgia for Cuban exiles, and Miami is a loving dedication to their stolen utopia.