Month: March 2017

“En San Jose, Nohemí Alarcón, Noticias 14.” I wouldn’t go to sleep until I heard those words. That was Moder’s signature signoff.

Moder was my nickname for her, if you were to pronounce the word “mother” with a Hispanic accent. I was her biggest fan! She was a reporter at Univision’s local affiliate in San Jose, California, a job she got just months after graduating with a degree in mass communications from Santa Clara University. After three years in that role, she wanted a bigger challenge and a bigger audience. She set her sights on Miami, “the capital of Latin America,” the perfect place to move her burgeoning career forward.

In 1996, my father, mother and I made the transnational move to the Magic City.

The move was difficult. The challenges, unexpected. As welcoming as Miami was for so many, the same could not be said of the city’s media market. The airwaves had a Cuban stronghold and she was a Venezuelan newcomer with no insider connections. Let’s just say the job offers were not trickling in.

Only one thing guided my mother, though, and that was her vocation for communicating on behalf of her community. If that passion didn’t find a place in Miami, she would find it elsewhere. That unstoppable drive led her to a gig with The Weather Channel in Atlanta. I worried about our future. I was happy in Miami, just starting second grade, making new friends. Would we have to move again?

But we didn’t give up on Miami and Miami didn’t give up on us.

After that year of uncertainty, my mother got her big break and started working at el Nuevo Herald. She was a general assignment reporter and had a weekly column dedicated to issues relevant to the Venezuelan diaspora. She also became the public face of el Nuevo Herald with her own segment on Telemundo 51 and then Univision 23, where she would give a rundown of the most important stories folks could find in the next edition of the paper.

That was just the beginning. Bien tempranito, bright and early, her new signature signoff, was more than a tagline — it became a way of life. She was up bright and early dashing all over Miami, finding the story that had to be told. Her talent was finally being recognized and opportunities came pouring in. She started her day on the radio with Cuban journalist Agustin Acosta on WQBA 1140-AM with a morning show appropriately titled, “Good Morning, Miami!” From there she would head to the Herald and end the day at the TV station. She was covering stories she had only dreamed of, including interviewing Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. And most important for her, she was a voice for Miami’s growing Venezuelan community.

It was all happening! And I was along for the ride! I grew up in Miami’s newsrooms as Moder’s most trusted production assistant. Between homework and book reports I helped her research her stories, practice her script, and of course, choose her outfits. Layered between the bustle of the news world were my most important life lessons. Moder always said the most rewarding aspect of her career was being able to convey the stories of all kinds of people, from presidents to homeless families, sometimes all in one day. And she treated each with the same respect and dignity.

Those values are what made her such a beloved figure in our community. Everywhere she went, from the ventanita in Hialeah to the supermarket in Miami Lakes, someone had a kind word for her. Her charisma was infectious, her journalism chops, among the best. What folks did not see on screen or read between her lines were the pains of a difficult divorce from my father, who eventually became estranged, the struggle of raising me alone while her whole family was back in Venezuela, and the challenge of advancing a career in journalism as newspapers were in rapid decline.

Eventually, Moder left journalism, but never Miami. In 2006 she became the regional director for community relations at Aetna, serving our city by providing grants and resources to organizations advancing health and wellness in the Magic City.

Ironically, after surviving a battle with cancer, post-surgical health complications took Moder’s life too soon.

Since her passing in 2013, the Miami Herald building on Biscayne Bay has been torn down and local news viewership is not what it used to be, but the mark she made on both will never be forgotten.

Before she was Nohemí Alarcón, she was Nohemí Torrealba. Hailing from Altagracia de Orituco, a small town in the plains of Venezuela, she was the fourth child and only daughter of Dora Lopez and Amador Torrealba. After 23 years growing up in Caracas, she married Federico Alarcón and followed him to the United States, mostly for love, but also led by the dream of going to an American university to study what she loved the most, journalism. The rest, as they say, is history.

As I look back at her life I cannot help but make so many parallels to my own. Two years ago my then-fiancé and I decided to leave our exciting life in Washington, D.C., to move back home. Like my family’s trajectory, our move to Miami also didn’t go according to plan.

But as fate would have it, we’re proud residents of “Doralzuela,” living not even a mile away from my first home in Miami, from John I. Smith Elementary, my first school in Florida, and from that same Univision station where I grew up. In so many ways I am my mother’s daughter.

Today would have been Moder’s 51^st birthday. The best birthday gift I can give her is remembering her Miami story, our Miami story, and renewing that pledge we made over two decades ago to never give up on Miami just as it continues to not give up on us.

Happy Birthday, Moder. I hope to keep making you proud.

I was born on Nov. 5, 1956, in Long Island, New York, to a family of seven kids. My dad is an ex-New York Giant and ex-military from West Point.

We came down to Miami originally in 1975. My first job was at the Castaways as a bellhop. It was up on 163rd Street and Collins Avenue.

I just kind of knocked around Florida for a while and wound up going to culinary school at Florida International University’s school of hospitality here in South Florida. When I came back down for school in late November, I saw Santa Claus in Bermuda shorts and realized I’m not going back up north. I stayed ever since.

Now I’m the general manager of Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant here in Miami Beach, although the Miami Herald once printed my job title as “chief cook and bottle washer.” They printed it, so it’s got to be true.

I started in 1980 as a waiter. In 1982 I was on the door as a seating captain and I was the youngest seating captain ever put on the door. Then I proceeded to be the relief maitre d’. I did the job for a while.

I did leave for two years to take a job running a restaurant in New York City at Rockefeller Center. But I decided I wanted to come back. So when I returned, I started off again as a waiter, then captain, then relief maitre d’. Then I also became a part-time manager. And then, approximately 19 years ago, took on the job as general manager.

Over the years Joe’s has grown. The best way I can explain it is when I first started in 1980, there were 92 employees and we now employ about 400. The operation itself really does get quite busy during season, especially for stone crabs. Stone crab season runs from Oct. 15 to May 15. During the summer months we close the market. And on the restaurant side we do dinner only. This allows our chef and sous chef to play with the menu and be creative with certain food products that are only available fresh during the summer. Our guests and our locals are then able to have something besides crabs and realize Joe’s is not just crabs.

We also have multiple languages spoken on the floor. That’s important, especially in Miami. It’s such a melting pot.

During season I’ve got about three staffers who speak Russian, two who speak Chinese and two who speak Japanese. One of them is a short Italian guy who speaks perfect Japanese. It’s great. Of course we also have a bunch of staff that speak Portuguese, Spanish, German and French. It puts the guests at ease and gives them a better experience.

You need the diversity in this day and age, and in Miami especially because there are so many different nationalities now. Many years ago it was just Spanish. It’s not just Spanish anymore. It’s everything.

The best example I can give of diversity is from a trip I took to Italy eight years ago where I went looking for wine. As I was leaving, I stopped at a gas station going into Florence.

The guy at the station turned around and asked me where I was from in the U.S. I told him Miami Beach, and he goes, “Oh, Joe Stone Crab! South Beach!” The guy said those two words and I was blown away. This was south of Florence in Italy!

There are people who come here that remember coming here with their grandparents. It’s just one of those things that a lot of people identify with Miami Beach. Joe’s is even a year older than Miami Beach. I will see people coming in the door who say they haven’t been here in 40 years.

So we’ve been around here for a little while, and if everything goes right Joe’s will be here for another 100 years.

Miami of years prior was extremely transient. People would come and go. I don’t see that happening anymore. They’re staying planted longer. Miami has grown into more of a business hub. I’m seeing more international business here than I’ve ever seen before, which I think is a great thing.

People come in who don’t really speak English but they’re able to get through it, and they’re enjoying it. That’s what Miami’s about. You’re here to enjoy it.

This story was transcribed from an interview between Brian Johnson, general manager of Joe’s Stone Crab in South Beach and the HistoryMiami South Florida Folklife Center as part of a research project exploring the question “What Makes Miami Miami?” The Florida Folklife Program, a component of the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources, directed the project.

I was born in Miami in 1966 and raised in Hialeah. When I got older I moved down to Kendall, where I live now.

My mother and my father came from Cuba when they were young, 8 and 12 years old. They were born in Cuba but their parents were from Puerto Rico, so I have both places in my heritage.

Growing up, salsa was a huge part of my life. When my parents would have parties at home, they and my grandparents always played salsa music and it was something that was always heard and liked. I love disco and I love the freestyle music, but salsa had a flavor to it that I liked. My mother, my sister and my dad before he passed away were all great dancers. But I’m the one that took it to the next level.

I got involved in salsa music and salsa dancing when I was about 24 years old.

I was looking for a part-time job to go to college and I opened up a newspaper and saw they were asking for salsa instructors at a ballroom studio called Dance City. I applied, and through that I got into salsa and other dances.

After I started taking classes in the ballroom studio, I learned that to teach dancing you need structure. It’s not something you could just teach off the street. When I started doing the ballroom dancing is when I noticed that the instructors really break down the steps.

So then I started breaking down all the salsa steps and creating my own syllabus for salsa. Soon enough, I had a little group of salsa students and they followed me from venue to venue.

I left the ballroom studio and started teaching on the side. Then it just kept growing and growing and growing, and one day I said I’m going to give it a name, Salsa Lovers. And now it’s been 22 years.

I first noticed the Casino Rueda-style of salsa when I walked into a club called Club Mystique in 1992 and saw them dancing salsa in a circle and was blown away.

Casino Rueda is something that came in strong in Miami in the1980s during the Mariel boatlift. That’s when all these good dancers started coming in to Miami. But then people like myself took it and we structured it. I cleaned it up so people could learn fast and that’s what we do today.

There is a Cuban style and a Miami style. If you go to Cuba, it’s a little bit more street, what we call a little bit more raw. In Miami, it’s become a little bit more flashy. Here we created more turns and gave it a disco look so it looks more freestyle.

The differences are noticed in the way the girl places her arms; the turn patterns look a little more disco-like compared to all over the place.

The men in Cuba, like my dad, tend to bend over and get down and dirty in it, whereas a male dancer in Miami holds his chest up. It’s a cleaner feel.

A lot of those old disco dancers influenced the Casino Rueda today. You’ll see it in the turn patterns that look a little disco and flashier. But the Cuban doesn’t care for that. They’re more about doing more patterns in the casino and getting more creative with the circle.

In Miami, you’ll see a lot of parties and a lot of clubs doing salsa nights. But there are not as many as people would think. Many people come to Miami and think they’ll get off the plane and start dancing salsa right away. But it’s not like that. I had a client from Canada who asked me if there was anywhere to go dance on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. I couldn’t recommend a place.

There are little hotspots here and there but not many. One place I like to host parties at is Yuca (Young Urban Cuban American) on Lincoln Road. We get salsa DJs and people just start showing up.

When I first opened up shop, Casino Rueda was a fad, but since then I’ve been fortunate enough to come up with a teaching structure that keeps business alive and well.

A majority of my customers are recently divorced. Some people are married for many years and they need a new activity in their life. They come here to find some excitement. Some people just come because they go to Ball & Chain or Blue Martini and they see us dancing. Some of them are in their 20s and realize the dancers their same age are doing amazing things and they get inspired.

Now I mostly produce events. I produce with the Adrienne Arsht Center and I also produce the Salsa Congress, a big event in Miami Beach with over 5,000 people in attendance. That’s my new favorite role, but I do still love to teach when I can. My daughter is almost 3 years old and I’ve been teaching her how to salsa since she could walk.

I think salsa is never going to die. My grandparents danced salsa and I’m 50 now and it’s still going strong. It’s in my Latin roots.

When I was raised in Hialeah it was all Anglos at that time. Now it’s little Cuba. Miami was built on this Cuban culture and when you think of Cuba you think of salsa. So I think salsa just fits perfectly into Miami. That’s why I would not leave.

Twenty years ago, Calle Ocho in Miami was where you went to get mugged. Now you walk along there and see restaurants and clubs. When I tell people about Miami, I always talk about the nightlife. We’re like the little New York, the town that never sleeps. And we really don’t sleep. It’s such a cultural city and I love it. This is where I was raised and I’m going to die here.

This story was transcribed from an interview between Rene Gueits, founder of Salsa Lovers dance studio and the HistoryMiami South Florida Folklife Center, as part of a research project exploring the question “What Makes Miami Miami?” The Florida Folklife Program, a component of the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources, directed the project.

Salsa Lovers is located at 1405 SW 107th Ave., #201D, Miami. The studio and Miami Salsa Scene are sponsoring Bachateando Dance Festival March 29 to April 2 at the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach.

My name is Alvin Lee, but my nephews call me Uncle Al, and my mom always called me Big Al growing up. I was born in Miami, Florida, on Nov. 25, 1966, and raised in a little sub-city called Richmond Heights.

I have seven brothers and sisters. We were introduced to music as a family with my father and my mother. My father was a minister at the House of God Church in Perrine. All my parents did was music. My father sang jubilee songs in the church, played the guitar, piano and trombone.

But what I remember most was him playing the steel guitar.

The sacred tradition was part of our family, all our lives. We grew up in a church and the steel guitar was the focal instrument. He played it every time we went to church. It was a traditional style of music that became a part of us.

He had three girls and five boys. The girls were older, so our older sisters were like second moms. Out of his boys, he wanted to know who wanted to play the steel guitar. That was a tradition — he was taught by my Uncle Lorenzo.

He gave my older brothers, Robert Jr. and Keith, the steels, but they just were not interested. Keith really wanted to sing. Glenn and I were the middle kids, and we were the ones who were interested in guitar lessons. I played bass and Glenn played the guitar. That’s kind of where our musical introduction got started from.

Glenn had such a good ear. He actually was known for bringing the pedal steel to our church. We both took lessons and learned how to read music, but it just kind of went from there to the next level.

The Lee Boys get their name from Lee boy No. 1, my father. My dad used to always say, “Come on my Lee boys, come on” in broken English.

My brother who passed early, Robert Jr., was Lee boy No. 2. Keith was 3, I was 4, and so on.

Then the nephews came from my sisters. And they started giving themselves numbers. And then the boys had boys. So my sons had a number and so we gave them the rest of the numbers down. It became this tradition that we did. So my father gave us the name and when I started the music, I just said we had to be named The Lee Boys.

Growing up, Miami had about eight House of God churches. Not all of them had prominent steel bands. There was this other guy that played with a church in Florida City. His name was Elder Rump, Reverend Rump I think at that time. And man, we got so much stuff from him. We loved to watch this guy play.

We had two churches in Liberty City with some very great steel players, as well.

There were a lot of steel players who played here. You know that you move in the rankings when you get to play a state assembly. Sacred steel came from House of God churches. The bigger gigs at state and national level were sacred steel assemblies and festivals that were taking place outside of the church, since the music had taken off. Now you really know you’re going up when you get to play in Nashville. That’s where all the churches within the organization meet once a year.

Way back in the ’80s, my father convinced the head Florida guy to get us to play. We were like 12. We got our chance cause we were so young, and we rocked it. The next time we got to play on the stage, then we moved to nationals. Then Glenn became a minister of music over the state of Florida. Afterward, he became one of the ministers of music over the national assembly.

He was able to open the door for the rest of us to form a band. I played bass. And my brothers played drums, guitar and everything. We would all switch around, too, and it was real fun.

What I play in band is the guitar, but I grew up playing the bass. I played drums all throughout high school. I was the percussion section leader in Miami Killian High School.

Glenn and I were both in Killian marching band. He played the saxophone.

There, we met a lot of people outside of what was considered a traditional gospel music scene. Some of their music influenced our music, especially a lot of the Spanish influence. Growing up, we had a lot of Cuban friends. There were also a lot of Jewish people. They were all our closest friends. A lot of the elements of the music we use today are intertwined with theirs. The mix of people really helped shape the influence of what we did. It all came from the Miami population.

From this church in Perrine, we were able to shed light on this style of music that’s always been a part of Miami. We grew up here, went to school here. It’s just that now the tradition of what we did is coming out. We’ve helped shape a big scene now.

We’ve all spread out a little now, but we still keep our Miami roots. A lot of us play around here at different churches and concerts. That’s how The Lee Boys give back to Miami after getting so much from the city. It’s a lot of different worlds within one small city.

In February of 2000 my father passed, then we lost Glenn in October of 2000.

Our church audience is one of the hardest audiences to play for. A lot of them look at this music as a tradition. But when we took our music out of the church, a lot of people seemed like they appreciated it more. This one guy came up to us after a gig at a bar and said, “Man, you don’t know what you are doing for my soul. When I heard that music, I felt like turning my whole life over.”

And that’s what I want. I think we can reach so many more people by not trying to throw up a particular situation at them and just letting them enjoy music, which is all the healing you need.

In all honesty, I do what I do to help fill a void of my brother and father. Music was such a big part of our lives. A lot of your biggest influences come at the tender age, like between 8 and 18. We got that at an early age. A lot of kids were playing outside, but we were in the room practicing, studying tapes and building our own creativity.

We have to move on with life, but I was fortunate enough to be able to keep a little part of work that connects me to my family and my city.

My name is Rocky Jim Jr. and I was born in Miami on July 23, 1971. I grew up on the Miccosukee reservation in Miami for about 95 percent of my life.

Around five years ago, I left because I needed a little change. Up until then, I was an alligator wrestler at the reservation.

The first time I worked with an alligator I was about 13. I was fishing with my late dad and I saw him moving gators around with his bare hands. I was kind of surprised when he asked me whether I wanted to do it. I hesitated and said no. But the next time he did it I just told myself “OK, I’m gonna do it.”

So I jumped in the canal and moved that gator. I just pushed him away and jumped out of the water real quick.

At first it was not something I was ready for, but [my dad] calmed me down by telling me that they wouldn’t do anything to me.

So I just kept doing it with smaller ones until I got used to it. My dad’s advice was simply “Don’t get bit.”

He taught me a few other things, like how to stay away from the alligator’s head.

He told me to just go under the water, look at the gator and grab it from the tail softly and slowly. Then, just pull it and go under its neck, hold it and push it away. That’s it.

The reason my dad told me to go underwater was to look at the way the gator’s positioned. Part of what I do is looking at its body language.

I never really asked how my dad learned how to do this. I’m assuming he learned from his dad.

I know my dad did it for a long time, and he did it mostly when he was fishing.

I looked up to other wrestlers like my late grandpa and my uncles. My grandpa’s name was Bobby Tiger. He worked at the reservation for a long while. Every time I got a chance, I’d go over there and see the way he wrestled alligators.

There were alligator wrestlers on both sides of my family.

Before I got into it myself, I played other sports, like basketball, football and baseball.

One of the most challenging things about wrestling is that you’ve got to have a lot of patience with the gators. They’ve got a mind of their own and pretty smart brains. So they’re stubborn.

We also have to try to work with them instead of hurting them. It’s called “wrestling” but we try not to be aggressive with them. It’s more like a conversation than a fight.

You’ve got to position yourself in a good angle with enough separation, or they’ll hiss and try to bite you. The reason I retired from wrestling was because I was bit one too many times.

They can’t see in front of them or behind them. But when I first approach one from the front and try to go to the back, the gator would be able to see me and follow me around. So I had to learn to move slowly. If I moved real quick, they’d react real quick. I used to move around slowly so don’t they wouldn’t be threatened by my movements.

I grabbed gators from the front, usually under their jaw so I can lift their head up. When their head’s up, they’re kind of almost paralyzed.

Most gators, if I grabbed them by the under the jaw, they’d shake around and let loose. But that’s where the patience comes in. So if it didn’t shake, I’d move them up and close their eyes. When I close their eyes, it kind of relaxes them. And when they can’t see me, they aren’t gonna move. Then I closed my legs around their back so they wouldn’t try to move.

Obviously the mouth is the most dangerous part, but their tails are strong too. It’s kind of like a muscle.

If it hit me real good on the leg, it could break my leg or shatter my bones.

Plus, the tip of the tail is like getting slapped with a leather belt. Their scales can also leave a mark on my sides. They’re kind of sharp, but some of them are kind of rounded.

Common injuries are hits from the tail, bites and fingers getting jammed on the gator’s head. There’s also their claws, which they normally use for digging. Those can hurt, as well.

I started doing shows at the reservation because we were short of workers. A friend of mine was doing it but he had to leave. So he asked me if I wanted to do it and I said nope. I was working in maintenance at the time. Nobody knew I could even alligator wrestle.

But he said, “Come on, help us out!”

I did it. Everyone was kind of surprised that I could do it, and it kinda stuck with me ever since.

Most of the shows go the same. I’ve gotten used to how to do it, especially working with the same gators. We tried different things with different gators, but that’s about as different as we got.

We did travel with the gators. We got to do shows at different parks like the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead and in schools around the city.

It’s one of the ways I would see the city when I was on the reservation. I also liked seeing the people who live in the city and would come and see us.

I don’t really feel like the reservation is separate from the city of Miami. Since we’re on Tamiami Trail, I think a lot of people have access to us and come and visit. But I see why they would feel like tourists when they go to the reservation. I also sometimes feel like a tourist going into a McDonald’s or Burger King. Especially when I’m in the Miami traffic trying to get there.