The First Place Is Always Special

When my family first landed in these United States over 27 years ago, we lived in this seedy hotel on South Beach for a couple of months until we could find a more permanent place to live. The San Juan hotel is located on 17th street and Collins Avenue on Miami Beach. We got there right around the same time as the Mariel Boatlift (you remember the movie Scarface with Al Pacino? Well, that's what it was like around the hotel back in the day). After a couple of months in this place, my dad has found steady work and saved up enough money to move us into a small apartment a couple of miles away, in the Latin Ghetto. Life in those days was hard, so for posterity, I had to go back and take a picture of the first place that I lived in when I came to the United States.

Photo Credit: Drago