While world leaders including President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin shared colorful collective of condolences following Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s death, many Cuban-Americans (mainly in Miami) took a different approach.
During the early hours on Friday, Nov. 26, the streets of Miami — Little Havana, Haileah and Kendall to be specific, were lit — with those from the Cuban community, banging pans and setting off fireworks in celebration of the 90-year-old’s death, the Miami Herald reported. “This is Miami’s Berlin Wall-moment,” Enrique Pollack told the paper. “This is the end of a dictatorship of a murderer who has killed so many people. The Cuban Stalin is dead. And we’re going to shut down this city. Miami is going to be celebrating like the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Meanwhile, Twitter reports stated that police later intervened to calm the crowd. “Police have shut down the block in front of @VersaillesMiami as Little Havana celebrates #FidelCastro’s death,” wrote one Twitter user. “#Versailles is not closing tonight!! #GoodBye ??#VivaCubaLibre #Miami,” tweeted another user.
The celebration in Miami after the death of Fidel Castro. @USATODAY pic.twitter.com/xWl1lbwfsC
— Alan Gomez (@alangomez) November 26, 2016
“We’re all celebrating, this is like a carnival,” Cuban-American Jay Fernandez, 72, told the Associated Press. “Satan, Fidel is now yours. Give him what he deserves. Don’t let him rest in peace.”
The crowd also broke out in song, while waving Cuban flags and denouncing Castro and his brother and current Cuban President Raúl Castro in cheer and song. “Fidel, tirano, llévate a tu hermano” and “Raúl, tirano, vete con tu hermano” they chanted outside Versailles — translating to “Fidel, tyrant, take your brother” and “Raúl, tyrant, go with your brother,” respectively.
#Versailles is not closing tonight!! #GoodBye ??#VivaCubaLibre #Miami pic.twitter.com/HoxG5myCob
— Natalie Milian (@nataliemilian) November 26, 2016
Others sang the lyrics to Willy Chirino’s exile anthem, “Nuestro día ya viene llegando” — or “Our day is coming” — and the popular football chant “Olé,Olé, Olé.” Steam’s “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” could also be heard being sung in videos.
Meanwhile, Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan released a statement of relief via her social media writing, “Although the death of a human being is rarely cause for celebration, it is the symbolic death of the destructive ideologies that he espoused that, I believe, is filling the Cuban exile community with renewed hope and a relief that has been long in coming.”
“And although the grip of Castro’s regime will not loosen overnight, the demise of a leader that oversaw the annihilation of those with an opposing view, the indiscriminate jailing of innocents, the separation of families,” her statement continued, “the censure of his people’s freedom to speak, state-sanctioned terrorism and the economic destruction of a once thriving and successful country, can only lead to positive change for the Cuban people and our world. May freedom continue to ring in the United States, my beautiful adopted country and may the hope for freedom be inspired and renewed in the heart of every Cuban in my homeland and throughout the world.”
