Life in Little Havana still centers on Castro

"Every single minute of every single day you can walk anywhere in Miami and hear talk about what is going to happen when Castro dies," says tour guide Charles J. Kropke.

This nonstop chatter about Fidel Castro's regime fills coffee shops, radio waves and meetings in the Cuban business district. Wherever Cuban expats meet, talk of politics and their homeland dominates conversations.

Kropke, an owner of Dragonfly Expeditions, conducts Cuban heritage tours through Little Havana and connecting neighborhoods. He traces developments of the Cuban migration to Miami beginning with the ouster of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. "It began one of the largest migrations in American history. Miami has more than 1 million Cuban Americans now and is the only major American city where over 50 percent of the people are foreign born."

Our morning of visiting historical sites begins with the Freedom Tower, formerly known as the offices of the Miami News. The yellow-brick building became a processing center for Cuban immigrants. Later it also held medical clinics and classrooms for English lessons. "It's our Statue of Liberty, our Ellis Island," he says.

The first wave of Cuban exiles settled in a low-rent district. "They gravitated to little Arts-and-Craft-style bungalows in one of Miami's first suburbs, Riverside. The area today is called Little Havana. Cuba's elite came in the first wave. They were the movers and shakers of Cuban society. They thought of themselves as exiles. Their exile has lasted 48 years."

Subsequent waves of immigrants, including the Freedom Flights from 1965 to 1973, brought people from all tiers of the population. In the 1990s, immigrants known as Marielitos flooded Miami. They arrived via the massive refugee boatlift from Cuba's Mariel Harbor.

Our understanding of the Cuban American experience takes a new turn as we pull into Palacio de Los Jugos, or Palace of the Juices, at the corner of Flagler and Red Road. "It's a true local place," says Kropke as we walk past outdoor displays of tropical fruit and flowers before entering an indoor snack bar. Convivial conversations circulate between shopkeepers and patrons as we move between the grocery shelves and produce bins. Other patrons are selecting entrees from a buffet of fragrant Cuban specialties. A menu board illustrates a dozen different juice drinks and we try to place an order in Spanish.