Site Supervisor Whitney Henry-Lester, Facilitator Virginia Lora, and Miami-Dade Community College students

While in Miami, MobileBooth East is partnering with WDNA public radio to record the stories of Latino and Hispanic communities as part of StoryCorps Historias. And we were thrilled to welcome new Mobile Facilitator—and Miami local—Virginia Lora to the road.

Manuel and Mercedes Quiroga

For the first conversation of the day, Mercy and Manny Quiroga talked about family. Manny began the conversation by sharing memories of his father, Manuel Quiroga, who Manny remembers as a strong, determined man, “with great hands.” Manny particularly remembers the time that his father sawed through a ficus tree in their backyard in Havana, Cuba. Fifteen feet in diameter, the tree was so large that its roots were interfering with the house’s plumbing. Manny’s father only had access to a tiny pruning saw, so he spent every Saturday and Sunday for two years sawing, stroke by stroke, through the ficus’s huge trunk.

A few years ago, Manny decided to commission artists Haydée and Sahara Scull to create a portrait of his father in his typical plaid shorts, t-shirt, black socks, and loafers. After some thought, however, Manny realized that the portrait would really be incomplete without his mother. Yet he could hardly include his mother while omitting the rest of the family. Plans for the portrait eventually grew to include Manny’s entire family, their business, their car, and the street on which they lived in Havana. At this point, Manny’s wife Mercy pointed out that her family also lived on that block. Their mothers, after all, were old friends: the ones who introduced them.

Its evolution complete, the painting now hangs in the Quiroga home: an enormous, three-dimensional street scene of both families on their block in La Habana Vieja.

Quiroga Hermanos, Calle Muralla 458, through the artistry of the Scull sisters.

Keith DiMartino drives them and the StoryCorps Airstream trailer out of Miami…

…towards Atlanta where the StoryCorps booth reopens March 2nd.

Mostly there are boat-tailed grackles, a species where the males are black and the females are brown. There are also European Starlings, a smaller black bird that has white speckled plumage at some times of the year. -Miami’s flora and fauna are apparently as cosmopolitan as its inhabitants! In her email Marsha wrote: “These birds may have been gathering to sing at the end of the day before going to roost for the night. Possibly they were flocking or gathering together in the open, such as on power lines, and then going to sleep in the canopy of nearby trees.”

Below, a favorite picture taken at sunset near Miami, in the Everglades national park.

Reverand Petunia Chung-Segre wanted her daughter Marie to know how much she meant to her and StoryCorps seemed like the right place to make such a declaration. Petunia has been suffering from depression for over a decade but Marie is the reason she does not give up during the most difficult periods. Petunia is also thankful that Marie “has the guts” to talk to her and confront her about her depression. For example, on being pushed to attend a depression workshop, Petunia says: “You were very cruel, I hated you for doing that to me, but I thank you [...] I want you to know that and I want the world to know that.”

The picture above was taken right after their 40 minute StoryCorps interview. It will be archived in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, alongside the conversation they recorded.

During their daily commute to the StoryBooth, facilitators Jonah Engle and Nadja Middleton often pass by this public art work in Miami’s Design District. According to its designers, Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt, “The Living Room” is meant to be a criticism of the lack of public space and “provide opportunities for human interaction and alternative states of mind”. It appears that for Jonah and Nadja, at least the latter goal was achieved!