Miami in the 1990s: “City of the future” or “City on the edge”?

No city in the United States, and few in the world, have been as profoundly affected by immigration in as short a period of time as Miami, Florida. The result is a complex pattern of ethnoracial politics among the city’s Hispanics, Blacks and Anglos–a pattern that defies conventional models of ethnic relations and immigrant adaptation. This article focuses on the latinization of Miami and the implications for ethnoracial relations of an immigrant group that achieves rapid economic and political ascendancy while challenging conventional assumptions about ethnic assimilation. The article also examines the role of local government structures in both shapping or responding to the dynamics of ethnoracial politics.