A tenth-grader at G. Holmes Braddock High School has been keeping a secret from her fellow students: She is HIV-positive. It is her private burden, one she has been shouldering since she was a little girl. But Brandy (not her real name) had a moment of panic a couple of…
So we got Rudy Crew. The new superintendent of the Miami-Dade school system is a savvy man. Masterfully coquettish in handling many suitors from different cities vying for his acceptance, he had us chasing and panting right up until the last second. We won his hand, and Crew gained not…
A drama unspools every day in Carol de Lynch’s back yard. This time a black rooster stalks a tiny kitten, recently kidnapped from the Little River streets by the pack of feline ruffians who rule the terrain. A rabble of onlookers — the cats, a hen, and a dog of…
A giddy chaos swirls through downtown Tallahassee as the legislative session approaches its midpoint, April Fool’s Day. Gusts of energy and appetite move people through the cool marble rotunda of the old capitol. At lunchtime in the plaza outside, a stiff breeze blows tiny bits of leaves into a giant…
If you don’t live in a West Miami-Dade community like Miami Lakes, Hialeah, or Doral, and if you don’t stalk the political hunting grounds of Tallahassee or the Miami school board, you’ve probably never heard of Ralph Arza — unless maybe you were a fan of Miami High School football…
Dr. Luisa Utset-Ward is used to making people scream. As a dentist who specializes in serving children on Medicaid, she regularly pulls rotten teeth out of scared little mouths. But Utset-Ward, 42, wouldn’t trade her job for anything because she believes early intervention in the mouths of babes sets them…
Going out on South Beach can be intimidating for the average citizen whose wealth, beauty, or hipness quotients aren’t quite stratosphere-scraping. Most of Greater Miami, in fact, generally avoids the place, except when carting around visitors from out of town, impressing business contacts, or trying to seduce nubile young somethings-or-other…
Several attorneys working for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office have filed formal complaints alleging their supervisors pressured them to support the candidacy of long-time incumbent Bennett Brummer over that of a young challenger who until recently worked in the defender’s office. One of the attorneys who lodged a complaint believes…
She doesn’t look like a Spanish knight beset by noble delusions, yet ever since Rosa Kasse decided to go jousting with political giants, even her friends have warned her to watch out for windmills. But Kasse, a 56-year-old Democrat originally from the Dominican Republic, believes she has a shot at…
For several months last year Reynaldo Rapalo was a faceless immigrant with a Central American accent who allegedly stalked and raped women, terrorizing Miami’s Shenandoah and Little Havana neighborhoods. Overlooked time and again by everyone, the Honduran suspect remained anonymous as police frustration mounted and criticism of their investigation increased…
Mornings at B & B’s Laundromat in Overtown are dominated by the old women, afternoons by younger women, children, and the occasional stray male. But early Sundays belong to the men. “They call it Men’s Morning,” laughs Lee Bethune, his South Carolina accent still strong after 46 years living in…
Growing up in Hialeah, Adriana Narvaez was surrounded by the political myths of the self-contained town and the curiously unassailable powers of its charismatic mayor, Raul Martinez. At age 29 Narvaez and two other young novices were persuaded by a handful of disgruntled businessmen to run for a city council…
“Why aren’t you here already?” Francesca whines into a cell phone as she stands in the makeshift staging area behind the bandshell on the Lincoln Road Mall. She pauses to listen. “Why the fuck did you take that way?” She rolls her eyes at Jeri, a six-foot-tall (in stilettos) black…
South Beach AIDS Project executive director Kevin Garrity is typical of his generation of gay men in that, at age 43, he’s lost dozens of friends to AIDS. He figures it’s easily a hundred people in the last twenty years. Those losses have made the California transplant a very careful…
There are two things to keep in mind about this “free” trade debate, at least in Miami. On one hand, the trade agreement (if it is approved) will have far-reaching yet only vaguely understood effects on economic, political, and social sectors in every part of the Western Hemisphere — including…
Miami is known for its combustible mix of people from all points on the sociopolitical spectrum. At Home Depot the wealthy former somocista bumps into the Sandinista commander who appropriated his Managua mansion. The retired Medellín cocaine kingpin lives in the same Key Biscayne condo as the attorney general who…
“You take checks?” Loraine Hibbert asks Kenny the Juice Man. “Honey, we take everything,” Kenny Aube, self-described juice hustler, assures the owner of Shrimp, Wings & Things. Aube recently wandered into Hibbert’s tiny Model City restaurant on a mission to sell her some juice. His pitch is simple — he’ll…
One year ago New Times spilled a great deal of ink chronicling Miami’s long, slow decline into poverty, the grim result of a combination of overwhelming immigration, middle-class flight, an overtaxed and unequal education system, massive job losses, and deteriorating housing. Since then city officials have taken small but encouraging…
“What makes people so entrepreneurial in Miami is they have no other options,” says Luz Gomez, program director of ACCIN USA’s local office. ACCIóN, the largest business microlender in the nation, opened a branch in East Little Havana this past April (with a second outpost in Little Haiti) after conducting…
“Miami is not poor in a static way,” observes Daniella Levine, one of the founders of the aspiring and grandly titled Greater Miami Prosperity Campaign. “It’s poor in a progressive way, meaning we will continue to have more and more poor immigrants and low-wage workers.” According to Levine, executive director…
If the City of Miami were a recovering alcoholic instead of a midsize metropolis just emerging from decades of hard partying on the public dole, 2002 would mark the end of the first stage of the slow crawl toward sobriety — denial. For the first time in memory, city officials,…
It ain’t easy being Steph. And it sure ain’t easy being on the other end of the line when seventeen-year-old Stephanie Fleitas has something to sell you. “Don’t tell me you don’t have the budget,” she warns a hapless ad director at a local company. “I don’t want to hear…
