Even in its deterioration stage, the Torre de la Libertad maintained a strong symbolic value for the diaspora and the Cuban exiles.
Miami, United States. – The Torre de la Libertad – ancient of Cuban exile and ancient 14 -story skyscrapers in neo -Spanish style – will reopen next month as a museum dedicated to the history of exiled Cubans, with immersive and latest generation exhibitions about migration, freedom and homeland. The reopening comes after decades of abandonment and an integral rehabilitation valued at 65 million dollars, according to A report by Associated Press (AP).
During the Cold War, the building – known as the “Ellis Island del Sur” – functioned as a symbolic lighthouse for those fled from the Fidel Castro regime. Between 1962 and 1974, the US Department of State Kits with basic items and an exotic product for many newcomers: peanut butter. It is estimated that almost 400,000 Cubans used the services offered in the tower by the US government in coordination with the then nascent Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. An official 1971 report estimated that the refugee assistance program exceeded 730 million dollars (almost 6,000 million in current values), according to AP.
“What we are doing here is to remind people what immigrants can achieve when they are given the opportunity,” René Ramos, Chief of Archives of Miami Dade College (MDC), told that agency.
Known among Spanish speakers as “El Refugio”, the tower was a safe place to vaccinate, fill forms and receive financial aid of approximately $ 120 per month. In its great room, of windows and Corinthian columns, the “Luckily Pizarra” announced jobs to facilitate labor insertion, according to the museum reconstruction described by AP.
In those years, Miami’s metropolitan area was a tropical tourist city with less than one million inhabitants, and most emigrants dispersed throughout the United States. “They didn’t stay in Miami because they didn’t want heat and sun. There were no jobs,” he said Madeline PumariegaPresident of MDC, whose Cuban parents moved to yellow (Texas) after their arrival.
Over time, many exiles returned from cold climates and left their mark on a city that would become a thriving cultural and economic pole.
Inaugurated in 1925 as the headquarters of the missing Miami Daily News, the building was designed by the New York firm Schultze & Weaver – author of emblematic hotels and theaters of the time – with inspiration in a Mudejar bell tower in Seville, Spain. Reboutized Freedom Tower with the launch of the president’s Cuban refugee assistance program John F. Kennedythe property was for years the highest reference point in Miami. Declared a National Historical Monument, was lagged in front of the new horizon of steel and glass and remained abandoned until its rescue in 1997 by Jorge Mas Canosa. He was subsequently sold to a prominent family of Cuban origin and donated to Miami Dade College, according to AP.
Even in its deterioration stage, the tower maintained a strong symbolic value for the diaspora. In 2003, tens of thousands of salsa fans came to fire Celia Cruzand in 2015 the then senator and today Secretary of State Marco Rubio – son of Cuban immigrants – used it as a backdrop to announce his presidential campaign, according to AP.
The restoration of the building had 25 million investment dollars from the state of Florida, in addition to MDC contributions, private donors and federal subsidies. The galleries, designed by the same firm responsible for the museum and memorial of September 11 in New York, draw a story of the journey towards freedom with spaces dedicated to the victims of communism, the invasion of Bay of Cochinos (1961) and the operation Pedro Pan, which brought 14,000 minors not accompanied by their parents’ decision. Giant screens show scenes of protest and courage from new residents of Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua fleeing persecution.
The tour includes a recording studio so that those who went through the tower contribute their testimony to a file of more than 300 oral stories – among them, that of the singer Gloria Estefan– And concludes in a flooded room of light, music and colors that evoke the current Miami.
