The Cuba Shadow: Behind the Scenes of Tom Wolfe: Blood Lines

The Miami Herald hired me back in September of 2001, two weeks before the September 11 attacks.

Although I was officially brought in to be the paper’s Miami’s City Hall reporter, the terrorist attacks rearranged the newspaper’s mission for a few months, and I got pulled in to that story. Most of the 9/11 terrorists lived in Florida before the attack, and there were many leads to follow.

Eventually, things went back to normal and reporters returned to their regular beats. At the time, a reelection campaign in Miami pitted incumbent Mayor Joe Carollo against upstart candidate Manny Diaz, a political novice who had been a lawyer representing Elian Gonzalez’s family and had gotten some air time in the media. Diaz won.

Cuba’s shadow over Miami politics is real and long. It may seem absurd to outsiders looking in to Miami from afar, but it is a fact of life. Even today, local and state politicians Hispander to Cubans by talking tough about Fidel Castro, earning votes on an issue that has little to do with their elected duties.

Great journalists like Pulitzer Prize winner Manny Garcia and the now-Washington Post’s Anne Bartlett helped guide me through the beat, which I started covering when I was 28. Some of the people I met during that time would eventually end up being interviewed by me for the documentary. I promise this is all relevant to the Tom Wolfe story…

- Oscar Corral, Director and Producer

See photos below:

Miami City Hall