I maintained a residence in Miami from 1988 till the mid 90s. First on Brickell and then to the Gables and then to South Miami as my family grew. I speak Spanish and Portugese relatively fluent (or used to) so the cultural thingie never bothered me much but in all fairness now matter how much I like Cubans or Colombians or Brasilians etc (quite a bit), I can see how old timey Florida folks whether Southron or Yankee would resent becoming cultural strangers in their hometown. That's a long ago fait accompli now anyhow isn't it?
I had a next door neighbor on Sorolla off of Granada ave in the Gables who had been there since the 40s and still called it My-Am-Uh....lol.....she felt isolated...sadly.
Miami is the real capital of the Latin American Basin for sure.
I maintained a residence in Miami from 1988 till the mid 90s. First on Brickell and then to the Gables.....I can see how old timey Florida folks whether Southron or Yankee would resent becoming cultural strangers in their hometown..... I had a next door neighbor on Sorolla off of Granada ave in the Gables who had been there since the 40s and still called it My-Am-Uh....lol.....she felt isolated...sadly. We lived in a little apartment at the corner of LeJeune and Alcazar when we first came from Cuba in 1960.
Now, it is my opinion that Cubans and Southrons have a lot in common. After all, we are both pretty Conservative, we all love America and we all love a good Pig Pickin'.
If your old neighbor really wants to feel culturally isolated, she should move out here to the Left Coast. There is no way in h#ll I'm ever going to "assimilate" with the tofu-eating, Birkenstock-wearing, chrystal-channneling, ultra-Liberals that define "American culture" in this neck of the woods.
When I spent a two year Navy tour of duty in Charleston, South Carolina, my California-born-and-raised wife spent the whole two years complaining about the South this and the South that and about being culturally isolated. I, on the other hand, felt right at home. :-)
I had a next door neighbor on Sorolla off of Granada ave in the Gables who had been there since the 40s and still called it My-Am-Uh....lol.....she felt isolated...sadly. I NEVER met a Florida Cracker in either Miami (where I lived from 99-02) or Boca Raton (90-94). It seems that everyone in South Florida (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) either has a Latin accent, a Noo Yawk accent or a West Indian accent.