January 31, 2025 (a day late)

Finite Disappointment: La Migra

By Tuesday, People Over Papers, a website that tracks potential anti-immigration activity, listed several worry spots in South Florida alone. Several people were rounded up this week alone in the Miami Area. "[O]ne man told CBS News Miami that ICE "snatched" his wife during a raid in the Brownsville neighborhood in Miami. He said his wife, who is Venezuelan, was in the process of getting her citizenship and had a court date set up when ICE arrested her," according to The Miami New Times. One alert pinged walking distance from my house, nestled in a neighborhood nicknamed "Little Cuba."
There was activity reported near our house. We didn't see anything but it is a daunting time with kids staying home from school to avoid getting picked up and the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, right here in Doral (yes, the same Doral with the well-known golf course/residence) panicked and outraged.
When I was in grad school, I had a friend who was 16 when she fled Venezuela with her mother. She told me that when she first arrived, her neighbors told her the Democrats were socialists and communists, like Hugo Chavez, the dictator they fled. As Maduro took power the talk about Democrats being just like Chavez and Maduro increased but so did my friend's English. She began to listen to Trump for herself and realized that the only politician in America that sounded like Chavez and Maduro was Trump. While the only state where Latinos voted for Trump is Florida, it is unclear if Venezuelans voted for him or not. What is clear, they are terrified and angry now.
Likewise, this week, a Haitian American who works for the consulate here told me about how the churches where Haitian Americans attended made clear that only Trump was going to make sure "a man is a man and a woman is a woman," causing many Haitian Americans to vote for Trump and Vance, who accused Haitian immigrants of eating household pets. The link here is to a stupid and funny video, so if you need a reminder of the real story, Wikipedia has a reasonable breakdown with no paywall.
There are large Haitian and Venezuelan communities here and I'm afraid for them. These communities include people I consider part of my community and my friends. I am disappointed and saddened that they are going through this.
Infinite Hope: Festivals that Celebrate Our Differences and our Similarities

Image on the left (or top) is from the 2025 Woop Woop Australia Day Festival in Coral Gables. Photo Credit Philip Cardella Copyright 2025. Image on the right (or bottom) is from the 2024 Lebanese Festival from the Our Lady of Lebanon festival website https://www.ololmiami.org/festival
What is South Florida known for, if not parties? This is the hope section so rampant corruption, unchecked international money laundering, unaffordable housing, Cocaine Cowboys, and bad traffic aren't welcome answers to this question. This past weekend I attended two different celebrations of culture from two different parts of the world. The countries represented, Australia and Lebanon, are thousands of miles apart, but their festivals were on the same day and separated by just a few miles.
Both featured adult beverages and live performances. The Lebanese festival featured a variety of foods from Lebanon, including fantastic hummus. In the Australia Day Festival, called Woop Woop Fest, featured beers from area microbrews and unlimited samples hosted by Bay 13 Brewery and Kitchen, with live music provided by the School of Rock in Palmetto Bay. The 46th Miami Lebanese Festival was at Our Lady of Lebanon Miami church and took up a city block! Performers from all over South Florida were featured. In both cases, people from all walks of life and backgrounds celebrated together.
It gives me hope.
Infinite Hope: The National Parks in South Florida

This newsletter is coming out on Sunday instead of Friday because I spent much of the week in Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park. The two parks have visitor centers about 35 minutes apart, each about 45 minutes from my front door. While the survival of these parks is hardly guaranteed, my infinite hope is that they last for as long as people are around.
The story of how freelance writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas helped save the Everglades is fairly well known. If you're unfamiliar with it, I recommend you read her book, The Everglades: River of Grass. In my experience, the story of Biscayne National Park is less known and is worth retelling. It even involves Sir Lancelot!
In 1897, a Black man from the deep South named Israel Jones used the Homestead Act to purchase Porgy Key for $300. The National Park Service has the whole story, and you should absolutely check it out, but the long story short is this:
Developers started in the 1960s wanting to build roads connecting Florida's 40 or so keys, which are islands built entirely on a former coral reef. The developers envisioned malls and highrises on the keys. The issue was, by then, the Jonses owned many of them. Some offers topped 7 million dollars for the islands, a royal ransom at the time. However, Israel's only remaining heir, Lancelot Jones, refused to sell and started talking to the National Park Service about turning the keys into a National Park. He eventually sold to the Park Service for less than $2 million and the understanding that he could live out his days on Porgy Key.

And live he did! Dying at the ripe old age of 99, Sir Lancelot Jones spent his life championing the keys, educating children, and just being all-around awesome. Unfortunately, Hurricane Andrew wiped out his home, and he passed away in Miami five years later, having lived a long and fulfilling life. The NPS cherishes his legacy and you can learn all about him on the Heritage of Biscayne Cruise in the park. The 3.5-hour tour stops at Boca Chita Key for an hour that you'll love.

My oldest kid and I spent the day in the South Florida National Parks. We finished in Biscayne National Park, but we started by visiting Everglades National Park and met some awesome new friends like the wood stork pictured below. Imagine you're minding your own business, and there's a knock at the door, and this freaking dinosaur drops a baby off and flies away. You're not asking questions about where this thing stole the baby from. You're just happy he didn't steal you.

Then there's Daphne and her boyfriend Freddy. Daphne is a 7-foot-long American Crocodile, possibly born just outside of Biscayne National Park,* now a fixture in the Flamingo Visitor Center Area in Everglades National Park. Daphne's beau is a fierce defender of her virtue and likes to carry around the murdered corpses of crocodiles fool enough to try to lure her away from his 14 feet of armor and teeth. But don't worry, the lady with the small dog we met said she just hoped to see Freddy Kruger--his full name is Freddy Kruger--move. Why she thought bringing gator and croc bait to the Everglades is beyond me--after all, crocodiles can run up to 15 miles per hour. Nevertheless, while we saw Freddy adjust his position, Daphne didn't move an inch, which is typical. Despite their ferocious looks and ability to destroy turtles, they aren't often a threat to humans. Both of the links in this paragraph confirm this.

Of course, the link about how fast they run also says they can get to about 13 feet and Freddy Krueger is 14 feet and...not the biggest crocodile in Everglades National Park. That would be Croczilla. My kid and I did meet Croczilla. Despite Croczilla being fully wild and totally free, he didn't move an inch. He was also about 100 feet away from an American Alligator--the Everglades is the only place on Earth crocodiles and alligators coexist!

Of course, we did see a ferocious predator at work. Right as I was telling my kid about how I saw this osprey (either the top one or the one on the left, depending on if you're viewing this on a phone or computer) eating a fish on "that" tree, an osprey flew over our car, I could see it through the sunroof, clutching a fish it proceeded to eat.
I post a lot of pictures of the National Parks here because they fill me with peace and hope. I'm hoping they find you as well as you can be.


Osprey eating a fish in a dead tree taken December 2024. Osprey eating a fish in a tree taken in January 2025. Photo credit Philip Cardella Copyright 2024, 2025
*The link is to a story about American Crocodiles and how they move around urban areas of South Florida. It does not mention that the largest breeding and nesting ground for the American Crocodile is just behind Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station on the edge of Biscayne National Park.
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