It’s hard to describe the feeling of moving away. I’ve moved from Miami before–during COVID-19–but last year I moved back to the city. This year, I moved away again.
It wasn’t the same city as I remembered–of course.
The traffic was a lot worse, and the rents sky high, but I hoped to find comfort in the familiarity of my old neighborhood, Little Havana. Roosters still strutted along the sidewalks. Kids were still riding their bikes, families still gathered on patios for carne asada, and a few familiar bodegas still propped up colorful plastic brooms in barrels set near their entrances. But the scene changed near the neighborhood’s famed commercial strip, Calle Ocho.
Building after building near the district had been cleared of its former tenants, the apartments remodeled with grey, fake-wood floors. I’d always loved seeing people hanging out for their after-work beer on the balconies of some of these buildings, chit-chatting or playing some music. These buildings hadn’t been mere “containers”; they had been centers of community life. Now, they seemed devoid of the energy I remembered, and each had its keyless entry pad and video surveillance.
Fortunately, other areas of the neighborhood retained their vibrance, but they were also more shabby than I had remembered, as if completely forgotten by Commissioner Joe Carollo.
Disneyfication
The changes to Little Havana–along with the Disneyfication of Calle Ocho, were disorienting to me, to say the least. And I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, I quickly learned.
The Hernandez family, owners of longtime fruteria (fruit market) Los Pinareños, said that when their matriarch passed away, they would close the business. Food tours had made running the fruteria a drag. What had brought Guillermina (the matriarch) joy was conversation with locals and strangers. A descendant of Cuba’s indigenous peoples, she’d also shared plant knowledge: she told me she’d helped about a dozen women get pregnant.
But now, Guillermina was stuck making juice all day, pouring it into cups and serving it on trays for tourists who smiled, took photos, but then moved on. It was more of a transaction versus a relationship. And locals didn’t want to hang out there like they used to, back when I first moved to the neighborhood. Many of the old-timers had passed away.
I reflected on these changes, and realized that Little Havana no longer felt like home to me. The botanica was gone, now replaced with just another souvenir shop. The places that used to serve delicious food now catered to tourists, and food quality had dropped while prices had doubled or tripled.
Perhaps it was time to leave. But what was I leaving behind?
To Stay or Go
Perhaps you’ve also experienced a neighborhood transformed by gentrification, and struggled with whether to stay or leave. I could have stayed, and re-started the merchant association that I had co-founded years ago. I had already become involved again with a wonderful local nonprofit, Healthy Little Havana.
But sometimes we know in our hearts that we are ready to move, or we have no other choice–because rents become too high, for instance, or we lose our jobs. Moving away is hard, though–we remember the people and places we left behind. And in most cases, we become a newcomer all over again in the next place we go to, even if we lived there once before.
Place rituals are a way to work through these feelings, and find togetherness in them. After 15 years living in Little Havana, I have many treasured memories I hold to my heart, and I’m wiser now that I’ve witnessed (and studied) the systemic issues that have affected it. It’s time to share what I have learned, and co-create community with others who understand longing and belonging.
You share the experiences of myself and others. Many for whom the articulation of such an experience is beyond difficult.
Thank you for your literal descriptions of your multi layered experience.
Most of all thank you for persevering in your chosen field of work to enable people and communities to perceive and reconnect more meaningfully; to have more ability to reach out and touch each other whatever that means or looks like;-
Support
Listening
Context change
Trust in communication
Openness to unthought of possibilities unique experiments