Take this image into your head. There are bananas being brought in from Honduras, along with other various tropical fruits. You can find people who are coming from places like Cuba, Honduras, and Haiti. French Creole and Spanish are languages that can be heard. The climate is quite warm and humid, much of the time with ample rainfall. Well, given this vivid description, you could say this is Miami, Florida, USA. And you would be right in saying this. This is indeed Miami, today. It is important to consider that this is not the city of subject. The city being spoken of is really New Orleans from years past.
Miami is the current gateway to Latin America today. However, New Orleans is the original gateway to Latin America. In fact, even before Miami was even thought of, New Orleans was a major point of transit to and from Latin America.
Geographically, this actually made perfect sense. New Orleans was founded at the southern end of the Mississippi river, just as the Mississippi river is beginning to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. While New Orleans is not technically on the Gulf of Mexico, its relative proximity to the Gulf of Mexico has provided an important role. New Orleans was founded by the French, but it was also ruled by the Spanish. This is a lesson in historical geography. New Orleans under Spanish rule began to prosper. It was a major seat of power for the Spanish in North America, as was the city of Havana, in Cuba. Spanish galleons coming from Cuba would often go to New Orleans, bringing in people, and commerce.
One influence of the Spanish is that Louisiana would be the first place in the modern-day USA to have Asian settlements. The Philippines used to be a colony of Spain. While under Spanish rule, galleons would come from The Philippines, bringing with them Filipino servants. Sometimes they would jump overboard and settle in the swamps of what is now Plaquemines Parish. Because of this, the village of St. Malo was founded by Filipinos.
Even after Spanish rule ended, New Orleans would continue to have influences from the Caribbean and Latin America. After the Haitian Revolution, Napoleon gave up his colonial hold on North America, selling French-held lands to the USA in what is known as the Louisiana Purchase. New Orleans was now under American control. At the same time, people from Haiti went to New Orleans, the nearest major port to Haiti. At the time, Miami didn’t even exist, so New Orleans was a major point of entry for many immigrants. New Orleans would also be the first major city to have a sizeable Honduran population. The American Fruit Company had land holdings in Honduras, mainly banana plantations. Honduran immigrants were brought to New Orleans by the American Fruit Company during the early 20th century. To this day, the Greater New Orleans area has one of the largest Honduran communities in the USA. During Castro’s revolution in Cuba, many Cubans went to Miami. However, a sizeable number of Cubans went to New Orleans.
From the outside, New Orleans doesn’t seem like it would have ever been a gateway to Latin America. It doesn’t have the aesthetics that Miami has. No Art Deco buildings, mostly English being spoken in the streets, you hear jazz music and dirty South hip-hop, most of the buildings look like they date from the 18th and 19th century. However, if you scratch the surface, and look at New Orleans from the perspective of historical, cultural, and physical geography, you will find that New Orleans was the original gateway to and from Latin America.
http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/Hondurans1.html
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04152004-123822/unrestricted/Euraque_thesis.pdf
http://www.nola.com/175years/index.ssf/2012/01/ties_with_cuba_the_times-picay.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-01-28-Haiti-New-Orleans-connection_N.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/new-orleans-haiti_b_1841502.html
http://blog.prcno.org/2010/01/13/haitian-roots-in-new-orleans/
http://www.filamako.com/2010/04/saint-malo-oldest-filipino-settlement-in-usa/
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