The sale of Radio Mambí marks a pivotal point in the history of Cuban radio in Miami

Earlier than the highly effective voice of Armando Pérez Roura popularized the greeting “Aquí, Radio Mambí, la grande” (Right here is Radio Mambí, the nice one) and dominated the radio scene for Cubans in Miami, the exile group spent many years in search of prominence on air of their adopted metropolis.

With out capital funds, however with expertise from working in entrance of and behind the microphone and cameras within the nation that was a pioneer of radio and tv in Latin America, the exiles’ first transfer was to purchase house on the English-language stations in Miami within the Nineteen Sixties. Then got here businessman Herb Levin, who determined to launch a station solely in Spanish, WQBA, La Cubanísima.

The on-air voices from these early days included Norman Díaz, a political commentator who at all times had Cuba on his lips; Juan Amador Rodríguez, who gained followers from his program in Cuba, “El Periódico del Aire”; and different standard personalities corresponding to actor Otto Sirgo.

“I used to be fascinated by the radio that the Cubans made. It was a Cuban radio, not a Hispanic one, and the principle subject was the dictatorship in Cuba,” recollects journalist and radio host Ricardo Brown, who was 10 years previous when he arrived from Cuba.

Considerations just lately emerged about the way forward for Cuban radio and that two conservative Miami stations, Radio Mambí and WQBA, could also be silenced once they go from TelevisaUnivisión to Latino Media Community, which is led and financed by liberal-leaning businesspeople.

A radio that grew to become the voice of Miami

Brown remembers announcers and journalists corresponding to Agustín Tamargo, Pérez Roura, Jaime de Aldeaseca, Manolo Penabás and lawyer Luis Fernández Caubí, who may touch upon the political occasions of the second whereas addressing problems with historical past and tradition in depth.

“That they had a clean discuss, they usually have been very likable. On the radio they often sounded a bit offended, however once you met them in individual, they have been very good,” says Brown.

“Miami radio is a sequel to the place all these folks got here from, from Cuba earlier than 1959,” says actor and broadcaster Omar Moynelo, noting they introduced expertise from Cuba and reinvented themselves in Miami.

They talked in regards to the Machadato, the regime of Gerardo Machado in Cuba, the identical manner they informed anecdotes about politicians and leaders of the revolution, whom they’d typically met in individual, says Moynelo, who hosts “Late, Late Night time de Mambí,” a comedy present from 6 p.m. to eight p.m.

For the movie critic Alejandro Ríos, “the duo” of the late hosts Pérez Roura and Tamargo on Radio Mambí, whose hallmark was the phrase “Cuba first, Cuba afterwards and Cuba at all times,” was very attention-grabbing.

“Tamargo had an unlimited tradition, he was a humanist, and Pérez Roura had a political, pragmatic and group tradition,” Ríos stated.

Pérez Roura was loyal to his crew on the station, one other media veteran, Roberto Rodríguez Tejera, recalled on his Actualidad Radio 1040 AM program, which he hosts with Brown within the mornings.

“Pérez Roura saved García Sifredo on the air till the tip, after he had a stroke and you might hardly perceive what he was saying,” Tejera stated on his present, referring to journalist Armando García Sifredo, who earlier than his work as a number at Mambí, based the Patria newspaper and was one of many creators of the Nationwide School of Journalists of the Republic of Cuba in Exile.

Politics on Radio Mambí

José Luis García Pérez Antúnez, who was imprisoned in Cuba for 17 years for collaborating in a protest, factors out that the advantage of Radio Mambí and different Cuban stations is that they’ll “inform issues like they’re,” corresponding to check with the Cuban authorities as a “dictatorship.”

“We can’t try this elsewhere. These stations are the voice of the political prisoners, of the kinfolk of the political prisoners, areas that cowl the actions of the opposition, marches, rallies, actions like these, and above all, stations the place we will name Fidel, Raúl, Ortega and Maduro ‘dictators,’ ” Antúnez stated at a press convention for the Meeting of the Cuban Resistance, a coalition of organizations that on June 8 expressed concern that the change in possession may end in censorship of anti-communist views.

Political points, more often than not vehemently expressed by program hosts and the general public, have been a mainstay of those stations, which have audiences that embody victims of totalitarian regimes, in keeping with exile leaders and politicians on the press convention Wednesday on the 2506 Brigade Museum.

“One of many explanation why we returned to Cuba was to combat for freedom of expression, and for us it is extremely necessary that on this nice nation respect for freedom that has price a lot effort is maintained,” stated Humberto Díaz Argüelles, who, as a younger man, landed in Cuba as a part of Brigade 2506.

Alejandro Ríos factors out that the Miami stations, particularly Radio Mambí, which will be heard in Cuba, allowed Cubans on the island to seek out out what was occurring outdoors the nation, in occasions when social networks didn’t exist. With these stations, and particularly after the Mariel exodus, “the wall of water” that prevented contact between the exiles and the island step by step broke down.

With open microphone applications, which permit the general public to provide their opinion, the listeners of those stations may speak about what upset them in regards to the scenario in Cuba.

Moynelo, who hosted the humorous program “La Timba de la Mañana” on Clásica 92, owned by SBS, says that listeners typically insulted “Fidel,” who was one of many characters whose voice was imitated by the late comic Eddy Calderón, his companion on this system.

Neighborhood service on Miami radio

Though Spanish-language radio in Miami is rather more than Radio Mambí, its listeners fear that it’s going to disappear and recalled the group service it supplied.

Martha Flores and Marta Casañas, radio hosts who at the moment are deceased, are amongst these most remembered by the artists and promoters of tradition and artwork within the metropolis to whom they supplied time on their applications.

“Mambí and its journalists at all times appeared very constant to me,” says Ríos. “In group phrases it’s admirable. Martha Flores tried to unravel many issues.”

“The Queen of the Night time,” as Flores was referred to as, would additionally mobilize her listeners to assist discover a misplaced canine and inform older adults the place to gather their pension.

“Radio Mambí is the home of artists. After we knocked on the doorways they opened them broad for us, with out query,” acknowledges artist Tania Martí, director of the nonprofit cultural group Martí Productions.

Martí stated the station’s cultural and musical applications contributed to her training since she left Cuba for Spain at a really younger age. The applications helped her get to know composers corresponding to René Touzet, Juan Bruno Tarraza and Mario Fernández Porta.

Will Cuban radio come to an finish?

Though there’s uncertainty among the many public and the hosts of those stations in regards to the future, Moynelo factors out that it is a metropolis very appropriate for the radio, as a result of it is determined by the automotive, the place listeners tune in to be entertained and knowledgeable on the street.

Cuban radio faces a giant problem. A lot of its unique listeners are disappearing, and typically the youthful generations search info and leisure elsewhere.

Ríos factors out that radio is a Twentieth-century medium that’s struggling to outlive, however at the least in Miami, with the fixed arrival of Cuban immigrants — U.S. officers anticipate 150,000 Cubans to reach this 12 months, The New York Instances reported — the stations are more likely to nonetheless have an viewers though it has decreased.

As René Anselmo, one of many founders of Univision, informed Ricardo Brown when the community was starting, there are lots of issues that Hispanic immigrants share and many who separate them.

“But when there’s something that unites them, in addition to language, it’s the need to achieve this nation,” says Brown.

The media that perceive this motivation could have a transparent path on this “audiovisual Babylon,” as Moynelo calls the land of many accents that’s Miami.