Cuban Miami
While Cuban culture is an everyday feature of life in Miami, the economic influence of Cubans in Florida's largest city is truly a phenomenon. Cubans flocked to the United States in the years after Fidel Castro's revolution, with nearly 300,000 arriving between 1965 and 1973. From May to September 1980, another quarter of a million people fled Cuba, most to south Florida's "exile capital," Miami. Such is the strength of their cultural heritage that most Cubans living in Miami hold tightly to their Cuban identity, even though generations of them have never set foot in Cuba. Levine (history, Univ. of Miami), who has written numerous books on Cuba, and As!s, a social services administrator in Florida, document the rich Cuban American cultural experience as well as the political and economic clout of Miami's Cuban population. Although there is little mention of poverty among the city's Cubans, the book is an intriguing mix of over 180 annotated photographs with a lively text. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., ALCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.