Urban Shrines: Religious Offerings in Miami’s Metropolitan Landscape (2015-2020)

In the summer of 1978 a short article appeared in the pages of The Miami Herald with the title “Neighbors irate over family’s shrine”. The story referred to a group of residents of the South Miami neighborhood, which at the time was mostly not populated by Latinos, who expressed their fear that the altar built in their garden by a family of Cubans would devalue the properties of the area. This incident brought to the news the sociocultural changes that were happening in the urban landscape of the Miami area due to immigration, mostly from Cubans. These transformations, which were initially seen in mostly Latin neighborhoods such as Little Havana and Hialeah, have gradually expanded throughout Miami-Dade County, including the City of Coral Gables. Especially notable is the cult to Santa Barbara and San Lázaro, two Catholic saints who in the Yoruba religion, popularly known as Santería, are syncretized with the cults of Changó and Babalú Ayé. This photographic series has been produced since 2015 to 2020. Through it, I want to document how migration had deeply influenced the transformation of the urban landscape of Miami-Dade County.