By: Paulina Sicius
The author at 16 years old, climbing trees in the Everglades.
I was born in Miami, in a hospital framed by the Biscayne Bay and a street lined by Banyan trees. My first breath was a mix of sea-soaked and Cuban coffee scented air. Miami, with its significant Latino population, swamp school courtyards, and mangrove tree forests were all I knew. Home was drowning myself in mosquito repellent to walk to school, swimming in alligator-infested waters on weekends, and watching sunrises on the beach.
I went away for college but, still, Miami had a magnetic effect on me. Every other weekend, I was back to speaking Spanglish and eating guava pastelitos on Ocean Drive and the 7th Street beach. When I was home, I felt like I could finally breathe for the first time in weeks, the 100% humidity indication made the air sweeter.
After college, I decided to move to Spain to teach English. This was my first real goodbye to my city. On my last day in Miami, I woke up early and made the hour-long traffic-filled drive to Miami Beach. I ate mangoes, sucking on the pits and washing the juice off of my hands in the lapping waves of the shore. I had arroz congri at the Palacio de los Jugos, a staple of the city, (mention this place to any Miamian you’ll be responded with claps and “Oh my gah, I literally I love that place.”) I drove around my neighborhood and tried to take mental images of each house, bougainvillea, and canal. At sunset, I drove on the Key Biscayne bridge, looking out at the downtown skyline lit by hundreds of skyscrapers. I watched a projection on the side of one of the buildings: the silhouette of a girl listening to music, dancing on her own.
The next day, I cried as the plane soared above my city. I watched the skyscrapers, Miami Beach, and canals become smaller and smaller. It was as if I was looking at a map: a map of my own history. I thought about how I would no longer drive down 168th Street by my elementary school, where I learned how to write. I would no longer jog by my friend’s pastel blue house, on whose rooftop I got my first kiss. I would no longer read at the dock where I also cried over my first heartbreak at 17. I was not just leaving my community—I was also ripping away from my own personal history. I was abandoning the city which had become an archive of my life.
A photo of Miami Beach, taken by the author on the last day she was in Miami.
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In the process of moving away, people had various reactions—some were proud, others jealous, many congratulated me. The most common reaction people had when I talked about my impending homesickness was, “Don’t worry, Miami will always be here.”
In Spain, I was quickly distracted by fiestas, tapas, and tinto de veranos. I missed Miami, but I was creating a new chapter in my story in Madrid. Surprisingly, I was in no hurry (and unsurprisingly, had no money) to go back to Miami. My family and friends took advantage of the fact that I was in Madrid to come visit me quite often. Then COVID-19 hit. By then, the years accumulated and it had been three years since I’d been back home. I was anxious to go back and used all of my meager savings for a flight to Miami International Airport. I dreamed of the Miami sun hitting my skin and drooled at the idea of eating a real mango. I made a list of all of the things I had to do in Miami: go to a show at Churchill’s, have a beer at Las Rosas, hang out at Sunset Mall “like the old times”, see an art gallery in Wynwood.
“You didn’t know that Churchill’s closed down? And yeah, Las Rosas did too,” my friends said to me when I got there. When we went to Sunset Mall, I found all but one of the stores closed and with “For Rent” signs on the window. When I went to Wynwood, the art galleries had been replaced by clubs and designer stores, and you had to pay to get into Wynwood Walls, a place that used to be an abandoned courtyard with beautiful mural art where I would hang out with my friends. As I drove through the city, I saw local Colombian cafés replaced by Starbucks and vape shops. The “secret” beach parking lot where my friends and I used to park at for $1/hour was a luxury parking which now cost $20/hour.
Friends’ houses that had once been landmarks in my visual mapping of Miami were now just like any other house, as most of my friends and their families had left, escaping to California or New York City for a post-college job, or North Carolina and Georgia for cheaper housing.
I felt like someone had lit a flame on the map of my city. I silently cursed everyone who had told me that I shouldn’t worry about leaving, that Miami would always be there.
After 10 days, when I left Miami, I looked out the plane window and the city looked warped. I felt betrayed. My home, as I knew it was gone. I resolved that my history would now only live in my head, rather than in a physical place. I told myself Miami was not my home anymore.
For rent sign in Miami Beach, source Yahoo Finance!
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A year later, I begrudgingly went back to Miami for my sister’s wedding. I went with my Spanish partner, even though he would only be seeing a shell of the place that I once called home. For the months leading up to the trip, I gave him disclaimers: Miami isn’t what it used to be, it’s not what it was like when I grew up there, it’s a horrible place that I don’t recognize anymore, babe. Don’t expect anything.
One of the first places we went to was the Everglades National Park. I watched Gabi as he observed alligators on the side of the road, twinkly-eyed and amazed. Seeing his reaction took me back in time to my trips to the Everglades with my family, where we looked for alligators between the sawgrass and watched herons with Dad’s old binoculars for hours. I took Gabi through Miami Beach and felt overwhelmed with pride when he stuck his head out the car window and stared at the art deco buildings. And it was pure, unadulterated joy when we raced towards the shoreline and jumped in the water at 7th Street beach.
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Miami has changed tremendously from when I grew up there. It’s gone through a process of extreme gentrification in the last couple of years, especially post-COVID. Over 500,000 new residents moved to Florida in 2021, attracted by low taxes, tropical weather, beaches, and lack of business regulations. This created a property speculation boom that priced out Miami’s residents—an overwhelming majority of Latino and Caribbean people—to be replaced by wealthy east coasters and Silicone Valley folks.
I’m 27 now. My first visit back was agonizing because both Miami and I had changed and grown apart. I had gone back expecting—and wanting—everything to stay the same, for my history to remain untouched. I felt that just by touching down on the MIA tamarack that I would turn 16-years-old again, skipping school to watch sunrises and spending the day at the beach. But I am no longer a wide-eyed 16-year-old, and Miami is no longer a fringe city.
It’ll never be the same as it once was, but going back that second time—seeing alligators wading through the swamp waters, finding a small mom-and-pop shop that still served Cuban coffee and guava pastelitos, and stealing a mango from a tree—were beautiful mementos of the city that is and will forever be—no matter how fractured or altered or inverted—my home.
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