Summary

Part 1 of Miami is limited to just one chapter, Chapter 1. Joan Didion describes the often last-minute immigration by Cuban elites to the city of Miami, Florida, where they brought with them their pride and some finery, only to find that Miami would destroy those vanities. The highly political city full of Cuban émigrés saw Cubans put plans of action into place despite being absent or in exile. Didion dwells on the exile they endure, finding that it causes old resentments to burn just as brightly as they did in the homeland. She describes attending an event held on the anniversary of the 1985 Bay of Pigs invasion, noting the police presence, the pride of the Cubans who stood there, and the shared understanding of ‘patria,’ or homeland, that she sensed at the event. The Bay of Pigs invasion, she says, offered Cubans in...